Another Jigger Of Rye

“Ratfucking” was the word used by Donald Segretti and a number of other officials in the Nixon White House for the dirty tricks they ran in student elections when they all were at the University of Southern California. Segretti — as well as his pal, Dwight Chapin — simply transferred these techniques to our national elections. There are two basic philosophical foundation stones to ratfucking. The first is that political sabotage for its own sake is a worthy enough goal. There doesn’t necessarily have to be an obvious purpose or obvious logic behind it. Everything is simply tactics. Those tactics either work or they don’t. To believe this, of course, one must first believe that all politics is essentially a zero-sum game of power; you win and the other guy loses. One cannot for a moment contemplate the notion that politics, and therefore, government, has anything to do with the public good. The second basic philosophical tenet of ratfucking is that it is essentially bullying. It is about ridicule and deceit as ends in themselves. Segretti’s activities were meant to bring embarrassment and public scorn upon his targets. They were not aimed at proving to voters that the opposition was wrong. They were aimed at making it look ridiculous. — Charles P. Pierce, Esquire, 2013