Tuesday, July 30, 2024

REPUBLICAN WEIRDNESS IS MORE THAN COUCH DEEP

I have a habit -- here and in real life -- of expressing concerns at times when other people think everything's going fine. The result is that I come off as someone who always thinks things are going badly. Often, all I'm trying to say is that things could go wrong, or that one aspect of something that's otherwise positive could be improved. But I don't communicate well enough to make what I'm thinking clear -- and I come off as a bummer when everyone else is happy.

I did this yesterday when I expressed some concerns about the Kamala Harris campaign strategy of calling Republicans "weird," and as a result I conveyed the impression that I don't think Democrats should ever fight (even though I said they should) and I don't think Democrats should ever point out how peculiar Republicans and their ideas are.

I focused quite a bit on the fake J.D. Vance couch story because it seemed like the launchpad for the entire "weird" campaign. (I was told in the comments yesterday that the couch moment has passed, but Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker reportedly made three couch jokes on the White Dudes for Harris Zoom call last night, so it's going strong.) I still wish Democrats had limited themselves to real Republican weirdness. Actual Republican policies are weird:

Wanting to ban polio vaccines: fucking weird!!!

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— Talia Lavin (@swordsjew.bsky.social) Jul 29, 2024 at 10:51 PM

Republicans don't actually seem to want to ban polio vaccines, but shrinking numbers of them support vaccination, as Radley Balko notes:
In April the New Hampshire legislature passed a bill removing the requirement for a polio and measles vaccine to attend public schools. Republicans in Wisconsin, Georgia, Montana, and Iowa have tried to restrict or remove vaccine requirements for public facing government jobs, which may include public schools. Other Republican legislatures have passed or introduced bills that erode support for vaccines in other ways, such as barring state governments from advocating them. The Republican party in Lee County, Florida, wants to ban the COVID vaccine for everyone, and Montana Republicans have tried to ban people who have received the COVID vaccine from donating blood.
That's weird.

I like the way AOC and Josh Shapiro link weirdness to policy:


And I think it's great to nail Republicans on style if the attack is based on real things they do, especially when they're proud of what they're doing. The montage below is very good -- and I especially like it because it's not limited to Trump and MAGA (I hope the idea that the GOP is a fine collection of individuals who'll revert to decency once Trump passes from the scene died when Joe Biden withdrew from the race):


Techdirt's Mike Masnick thinks it might be pointless even to try to pivot to substance -- as he sees it, Trumpers never do, so attacking them by changing the vibe is the only way to go:
In the last week, there’s been a notable difference in the way the Democrats have campaigned against the Trumpist GOP, since Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 Presidential election. The Democrats have not focused that much on debunking any of the many, many (many) falsehoods the Trump/Vance campaign spews. They haven’t even focused as heavily on the extreme policies the campaign is pushing (though, that’s a part of it).

Instead, they’ve leaned in deeply on just how fucking weird Trump and Vance and their core beliefs are. And, in many ways, this seems to be generating excitement, at least online, from Democrats who were kinda blah about Biden and his chances.

Of course, this kind of campaign-by-meme and focusing on mockery over policy was embraced by Donald Trump going back nearly a decade. It took forever for the Democrats to figure out a way to counter it. Trump’s entire argument against Democrats has been to constantly mock them and never engage seriously on policy. And it’s worked....

Who knows if it will be effective in the long run. I have no sense about the political viability of it all. But at a first pass, it seems like it’s done an impressive job in reframing the debate away from this idea that Trumpworld are plotting to destroy everything (which feels unbelievable) to just: get a fucking load of what these dumbasses believe, and how incredibly dorky they are.
Is it true that Trumpers "never engage seriously on policy"? They seem pretty damn serious about policy when they're warning that Democratic rule means a pedophile drag queen in every library and a murder-minded undocumented immigrant under every bed (and in every voting booth). Rolling back LGBTQ rights and conducting a mass deportation of immigrants seem like real policy goals.

And I don't know why the idea that "Trumpworld are plotting to destroy everything ... feels unbelievable." Masnick seems to be saying that MAGA is one big exercise in mockery, jokes, and humiliation of liberals with no actual political content, but MAGA has plenty of political content. There are 900 pages of political content in Project 2025.

But, yes, the Trumpers combine this with the three-ring Trump circus, the rallies and boat parades and massive trucks covered with anti-liberal bumper stickers.

That's the right combination for Democrats, too -- jokes plus substance. We ought to be able to do real substance, because Republicans really are trying to destroy everything. Changing the vibe is good, but if Trump (and Fox and the rest of the GOP noise machine) can talk about issues and scare the rabble without spoiling the party, we should be able to do that too. And it looks as if many Democrats understand that.
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