JOSHUA ADKINS
Special to The Leader
Hearing the words “campaign,” “planning,” “deception,” “strategies” and “tactics” — the military is usually the first thing that comes to mind. Not this time.
This time it is about politics.
A “campaign” is a military term describing a series of operations calculated and designed to bring about victory. Usually the mainstream media narrates the socio-political world fairly well, maximizing profits. But what we are witnessing today is proof of the marriage between media and politics: a true Fourth Branch of government.
Honestly, we are seeing establishment politics’ abandonment of the people. But you know what? That is O.K., because honestly, we have known that all along. I mean, after all, you were always told not believe what you see on television. Plus, by now it’s common sense to not believe anything a politician tells you.
We as the people need to see what is taking place here. We need to understand this process — that every word and public-media appearance is planned and thought out well ahead of time, on all sides, and is meant to produce targeted results that are strategically calculated. That is politics.
According to Robert E. Denton Jr. and Jim A. Kuypers, authors of a 2008 book titled, “Politics and Communication,” politics, like warfare, involves the hearts and minds of the people. In the Army there is a name for this: Psychological Warfare (PSYOP). Media and mass communication is a political weapon.
Bluntly stated by former Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich, “War is politics with blood; politics is war without blood.”
There are key elements of political campaigns that are similar to that of war: You have the strategic environment, the need for organization, maneuvering, financing, the need for public support and deception. Beyond these key elements lie specific tactics and strategies deployed by some of the best political artists of our day.
Ron Faucheux harshly lays out rhetorical tactics compared to such military and historical events such as Pearl Harbor — a strategy based on surprise — and the “machine-gun attack,” which is meant to push your opponent up against a corner, in his 1997 essay, “Strategies that Win,” showing explicitly the similarities between politics and war.
The parallels between politics and warfare are uncanny. As a veteran and activist, the similarities I see in the strategies and tactics deployed on both battlefields are prevalent at every stage in the political process — especially campaign season. It seems Gingrich was right: The biggest difference between the two is blood.