ARE DEMOCRATS LEARNING HOW TO NATIONALIZE ELECTIONS?

I regularly lament the Democratic Party's failure to demonize the GOP the way the GOP demonizes Democrats. A key element of Republican demonization is the use of specific villains -- Nancy Pelosi, Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. If you're a Republican, no matter where you live or what office you're running for, you're likely to put at least one of these women in your campaign ads. It's Saul Alinsky's final Rule for Radicals: "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it."

Can Democrats do the same with Marjorie Taylor Greene? I don't know how much Democrats are responsible, but she's becoming famous almost as fast as AOC did.

Marjorie Taylor Greene Is on Her Way to Becoming a Household Name https://t.co/I1KZvmK91t via @eyokley pic.twitter.com/sFQN1rFudF

— Morning Consult (@MorningConsult) February 3, 2021

And even though it's not campaign season, Democrats are doing what Republicans would do if the parties were reversed -- they're running ads against vulnerable Republicans out of season:

Making an unusually early move to protect their narrow majority, House Democrats' campaign arm on Tuesday launched its first TV ad campaign, spotlighting supporters of [QAnon] — including those who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. It is the first step in a larger plan, orchestrated by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's new chair, Sean Patrick Maloney of New York, to exploit the growing friction between Trump hard-liners and establishment Republicans in the GOP base, which Maloney sees as a major weak point for the party....

The DCCC's $500,000 TV and digital ad campaign will run in the districts of seven vulnerable Republicans: Reps. Mike Garcia, Young Kim and Michelle Steel of California; Maria Elvira Salazar of Florida; Don Bacon of Nebraska; Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania; and Beth Van Duyne of Texas. The spots use footage of rioters storming the Capitol and accuses Republican members of standing "with Q not you."

That's a good ad.

If Republicans retake either house of Congress in the next few years, I guarantee that there'll be frequent calls to strip certain Democrats of committee assignments -- and if leadership doesn't want to do it, then extremist back-benchers will at least make the demand. Because right-wingers like to play "I'm rubber, you're glue" whenever they're attacked, a few Republican extremists are going after Ilhan Omar right now, as Ben Shapiro's Daily Wire reports:

Several House Republicans are moving to remove far-left Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) from her committee assignments this week after Democrats announced recently that they are pushing to remove Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), a conspiracy theorist, from her committee assignments....

Fox News reporter Chad Pergram said that those sponsoring the legislation included Reps. Brian Babin (R-TX), Jeff Duncan (R-SC), Jody Hice (R-GA), Andy Biggs (R-AZ) and Ronny Jackson (R-TX).

Yes, that last co-sponsor is Ronny Jackson -- the former White House physician who portrayed then-president Trump as an extraordinary physical specimen after a 2018 phyysical.

“It is called genetics ... ” Jackson said. “Some people have just great genes. I told the president that if he had a healthier diet over the last 20 years, he might live to be 200 years old.”

I keep forgetting that he's in Congress now. Interesting to see that he's affiliating with the loonies.