Rove the Invader...

Can we finally at long last put to rest the noxious notion that Karl Rove is a genius?  If he's so smart, how come he's in so much trouble?

Karl Rove's political success is more akin to the unchecked proliferation of an invading species.  In any ecosystem the native species have co-evolved.  While it would be incorrect to say that they cooperate, they have nonetheless reached an evolutionary equilibrium in which they all act as checks on each other.  All the different flora and fauna have adapted to the strategies of their peers so that none of them manage to dominate at the expense of the others.  Since evolution is slow, it's difficult for a native species to arise that can readily exploit an open ecological niche since it will be countered by competitive species, in evolutionary time.  (In the long view, of course, evolution is brutal and vicious, and day to day it's red in tooth and claw, but we can entertain the Romantic fantasy as long as we use an intermediate temporal window.)

But an invader is different.  It can arrive overnight, fully-formed and ready to thrive in ways that the native species have never had to deal with.  Introduce rabbits or snakes to a remote island habitat and in a few decades native species which have been stable for millennia are threatened or endangered.  Birds that evolved to forage on the ground because there were no significant predators suddenly find themselves snake chow.  Herbivores that managed to eek out a living on the slow-growing native plants find themselves simply out-eaten by the ravenous rabbits.  Even if they can find food, they are devoured by the native predators whose populations have now blossomed by gorging on rabbit fecundity.

Rove exploits a niche just like any other invading species.  The various political animals, as they co-evolved before Rove, generally agreed upon Easily Verifiable Truths.  Facts formed the background against which arguments were framed, but no one would seriously challenge an Easily Verifiable Truth since their opponents would have no difficulty refuting their claim.  But the rise of a conservative intellectual infrastructure, coupled with the politicization of scientific issues like evolution or global warming, provided an opening for the right kind of remorseless opportunist.

Rove doesn't just disagree with Easily Verifiable Truths, he turns his campaigns on a complete inversion of the truth.  Where other conservatives are content simply to argue that the Easily Verifiable Truth is not so easy to verify and perhaps we should consider alternatives, Rove not only says it's false but that the truth is actually the exact opposite.  Kerry a decorated war hero?  No, a traitor who lied to get his honors.  McCain a canny and upright public servant?  No, an insane vet with a black baby.  Mark Kennedy a friend of families and a champion of child welfare?  No, a pedophile.  Anne Richards a competent and inclusive governor?  No, a willing tool of the gay agenda.

The techniques that Rove uses to advance his anti-Truth in the public mind largely hinge on the fact that voters rarely verify truths for themselves but rely instead on the testimony of others.  The professional pundit class and the easily manipulated mass media, together with the wide reach of the direct mail and electronic "whisper campaigns" provide the vectors for this disinformation, allowing Rove and his clients to stand aloof and remain untarnished.  The lies they originate are always chosen to be the type that tend to spread fastest, relying on word of mouth to get them halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on it's trousers.  (Although I suspect this is less a matter of craft than of chance.  If you watch them facing a novel situation they just pump out dozens of smears and see what people like to gossip about.  Those then feed back and get reinforced.)

The key to Rove's life as a political weed is weak defenses in the rest of the ecosystem.  His attacks are so outrageous that the victims mostly react with disbelief, stunned into a slack-jawed silence.  Once they realize that the attacks are hurting them they find out that publicly defending themselves hurts them more since it validates what would be a nasty rumor so it can graduate to a reasonable criticism.  "If it's not true," the largely non-thinking public thinks, "why would he have to deny it?"  But the main issue is the perversion of journalism.  It used to be that newspapers made their money by pointing out where politicians were wrong, but now they make their money by assuring the public that the Republicans are right.  With the major news companies in this country unwilling to point out the Easily Verifiable Truth for fear of having their access cut off, Rove (and if he goes, the next guy like him) will be able to use his not-at-all-ingenious Johnny-one-note strategy to score success after success.

Fortunately there are signs that the progressives are evolving in response, however slowly.  The growth of the Reality-Based blogging community took very little time, the rise of left-wing radio talkers somewhat longer.  But TV continues to slide to the right, especially with the recent erosion of PBS, and major newspapers and magazines are hopeless cases because of their declining economic fortunes.  However, there is one entity that has not succumbed to the need for access or the great god of money, and that is the justice system.  It still accepts the Easily Verifiable Truth as true, and for anything harder to verify it has hard and rigorous rules for evidence, advocacy and peer review.  Here's hoping Rove finds those citizens a little harder to spin.

- jack*

Update: The inestimable Paul Krugman weighs in on the Rove ecology.

Comments

[Dr. C.]

The metaphor is well taken. Actually, it is interesting to see what metaphors people and/or organizations choose. I'm always reminded of Richard Nixon and the "War on Cancer." Cancer as an enemy is a powerful meme. It convinces people that they have to "fight" it at all costs. Of course it is "evil." Please don't mind that we haven't won many battles in the War. But it is important because it permeates the entire social polity with the idea of battle and war. War on Poverty, War on this and War on that. How easy to morph to War on Terrorism. Anyway, I meander. The point is, I guess, that no matter how much we anthropomorphize evolution as a personal thing, it really isn't. Unless you want to assign blame to DNA kinetics and thermodynamics.

[Witch]

You liken Rove's political success to that of a "weed".

Yes, a weed in a field of dandelions.

[Dr. C.]

I just realized that my comment could be taken perjoratively. Exactly the opposite. I appreciate your posts.