Greg Sargent says we need to do a better job of demonizing Republicans:
With President Biden’s approval rating tanking, we’re getting constant reports about the handwringing internal debate among Democrats over how to turn things around for the midterms. Yet something is largely missing from this discussion: a serious effort to ask whether Democrats might go much further than they currently are in prosecuting an effective public case against ongoing GOP radicalization.
In one sense, Greg is missing something here: Democrats already have a long history of demonizing Republicans, just not in quite the way he's imagining. Just ask any Republican who's been the target of ads about cuts to Medicare:
That one is famous for going a wee bit too far, but it's generally the case that Democrats demonize Republicans for supporting cuts to social welfare programs. And it works: the public is pretty much convinced that Republicans hate poor people.
Now, in this case Greg is thinking about things like mask hysteria and CRT nonsense. But the question is whether topics like this are salient to the voters who matter: those who are likely to change their minds. They certainly aren't salient to either Republicans or Democrats, who already have strong opinions about these things. But there's some good news! Independents support mask mandates and are therefore potential targets of Democratic efforts to demonize Republicans for putting us all at risk. The problem is that I suspect this is a very low-salience topic. Very few Independents are going to base their vote on opposition to mask mandates no matter how hard Democrats try.
And the news on CRT is even worse. Nobody may know what CRT really is, but Indies oppose teaching it. You can't successfully demonize Republicans for this if most people are on their side in the first place. In swing districts, even plenty of Democrats oppose teaching CRT in public schools.
For reasons that we could discuss at length, it's really hard to demonize Republicans. For years they've represented wildly irresponsible views, the worst of which at the moment is the conviction that Democrats stole the 2020 election and that justifies passing new laws that give Republicans more power to count votes. That's about as bad as it gets, and even so most non-Democrats don't consider it a big deal.
So the right question to ask is: If even something this alarming produces little more than a yawn outside the ranks of Democrats, what the hell would it take to make people genuinely afraid of Republicans?
This is a question I've been pondering for years and I still come up blank. The simplest answer, I think, is that Republicans are generally conservative in the literal sense: they want things to stay the same, and extremism in the defense of doing nothing just doesn't bother most people. Conversely, it's easy to demonize Democrats: liberals want to change things, and extreme changes are scary as hell. So liberals are working under a handicap from the start.
As you can see, Democrats have been successful at making liberalism more popular over the years, but they've been distinctly unsuccessful at making people hate conservatism: self-IDed conservatives amounted to 36% of the population in 1992 and amount to . . . 36% of the population today.
I'm completely in agreement with Greg that we should try to make more people fear Republicans. I'm just not sure how.
Totally the wrong take. As said above, Policy is not the answer. The Republican message machine uses distinctly Orwellian propaganda techniques to make its listeners and others "hate" the opposition. It is the repetitive petty jibes that sink in. Just this week it was the Pelosi buys FL mansion. At other times its the Obama coffee salute, its the Michelle Obama telling kids to eat their vegetables; and particularly it was the constant drumbeat of Clinton corruption despite it being false. Again it is the constant drumbeat of petty reinforcing false or disingenuous attacks that create the dislike that causes, especially in the casual voter, people to vote against Democrats.
Democrats have a wealth of corruption and lying by Republicans to draw on that needs to start with my opponent is a liar, is a cheater, is evil, and every tiny thing needs to be put in that frame to reinforce those themes.
I'm surprised that no one has linked to this commercial yet.
D'oh! Must have messed up the link. Anyway, this commercial yet. I firmly believe this a time -- perhaps the time to break the glass.
Agree with Bob! And add to the steady drip of chatter designed to disgust, an insinuation of horrible actions being done secretly now (deep state, adrenochrome harvesting) or in the future (death panels, fema camps)
To Kevins question, what issues to hammer on?
Id suggest racism. And misogyny.
Republicans will surely send dhs goons to attack the urban brown, embolden vigilantes to police womens sex lifes and kill black people.
They will pardon murderers that kill or rioters if they are from their own tribe
They will tax the cities and give it away to the rural racists, as if they are plantations.
All scary af and have been demonstrably applied already, so unlike the gop we wouldnt need to lie.
The gop has amplified racism & misogyny to increase vote share, its both their strength and weakness.
Remember, the big thing is most people don't believe republicans will actually do what they say because IT IS CRAZY TOWN. That's why they are comfortable voting. They don't think they would ever actually kill democracy because that idea is objectively crazy and they don't pay close attention.
"This is a question I've been pondering for years and I still come up blank. The simplest answer, I think, is that Republicans are generally conservative in the literal sense: they want things to stay the same, and extremism in the defense of doing nothing just doesn't bother most people. Conversely, it's easy to demonize Democrats: liberals want to change things, and extreme changes are scary as hell. So liberals are working under a handicap from the start."
This is a good point and perhaps the only reason Biden won in 2020 was that Trump sold himself as pretty scary. The GOP learned its lesson and ran less-than-scary nominees for governor in Virginia and New Jersey.
Having said this though, it won't take long for the GOP to start doing scary things because party members are already starting to do so on the state and local level. It's only a matter of time before a school teacher in Tennessee is thrown in jail for teaching about Martin Luther King Jr. or a school board in rural Virginia burns books. That's scary, don't you think? And when it comes to abortion, don't think for a minute that the anti-abortion side will be satisfied (although some will be) by overturning Roe vs. Wade. They want to get the Supreme Court to ban abortion itself as a violation of the 14th Amendment. And if that happens, then the overreach will be complete and then you'll really see what backlash is.
What have people have to understand is what people consider "conservative" i.e. stand pat is changing and not even really conservative in the dictionary sense. The reactionary radicals want to do things, want the power of the state to do things and if such things take place and interfere with people's lives as you say, then I said, there will be a backlash, it will come from against the Right just as Roe caused a backlash against the Left.
It's easy for those "liberal contrarians" not to take the radical Right seriously because they don't live in the places where they predominate or have law-making power. They aren't planning on living there. They probably know few people who live in such places. So it's no skin off their nose if a state like Louisiana or Alabama bans history books from mentioning people like Hank Aaron or Jackie Robinson because they're more worried about activists inside or outside a school or corporation "cancelling" themfor things they say and write because that's the mellieau they live and work in. Not, Muskogee, Oklahoma. Well, the time that such things are not going to stay in those areas and become nationwide is running out. "Local control" as something the Right aspires for is passe now. They want total power and that includes New York City too. Pretty soon the Conor Friesdorfs, Bill Maher's and Damon Linkers won't have places to hide in unless it's Paris.