Dan Pfeiffer makes an important point in his newsletter this morning. The GOP’s ridiculous obsession with “cancel culture” seems absurd. But there is a strategy involved and Pfeiffer makes it clear that Democrats should take it seriously:
The Cancel Culture crusade is not just the province of the blowhards on Fox News. The Republican Party leadership is making it a central part of their strategy. Representative Jim Banks, the chair of the Republican Study Committee, recently wrote a memo where he argues that the GOP should make “anti-wokeness” a pillar of the platform:
Wokeness was cooked up by college professors, then boosted by corporations, which is why it’s now an official part of the Democrat Party platform. Nothing better encapsulates Democrats’ elitism and classism than their turn towards “wokeness.” Wokeness and identity politics aren’t pro-Hispanic, pro-African American or pro-LQBTQ; they’re anti-American, anti-women, and most of all, anti-working class.
Yes, it’s stupid. But don’t think it’s meaningless:
By traditional definitions of politics, this should be a rout for the Democrats. Every Republican recently voted against a bill with 70 percent support. They ignore the pandemic and pretend something called “cancel culture” is an existential threat to the republic.
The collective Republican brain has been so pickled by Fox News’s stupidity that they often stumble into self-defeating buffoonery.
This is not one of those times.
Many Democrats — myself included — have mocked Republicans for focusing on trivialities during such a serious time. But there is a strategic logic to shifting the political battlefield from the economy to a cultural clash, as well as polling evidence that this shift packs more political power than many assume.
Heading into 2022, I would rather be the party passing the broadly popular agenda than the one trying to distract from that popular agenda. But the (cancel) culture wars aren’t going anywhere. Democrats must understand what the Republicans are doing and develop a plan to fight back.
He explains:
The term has been a primary Republican talking point for years now. It is a regular feature of Trump’s tweets and speeches, but “cancel culture” hasn’t taken hold with the American public. A January Huffington Post/YouGov poll found that only 52 percent of Americans have heard the term “cancel culture.”
“Cancel culture” is a clumsy and overly malleable term. Still, it is designed to embody the core idea of conservatism since the onset of the Civil Rights Era: America is changing in ways that are bad for the political and cultural power that white Christians believe is their birthright. “Make America Great Again” is a particularly unsubtle call to return to a bygone era where threats to the power of white people, and white men, in particular, were nonexistent.
The central strategic imperative of Republicans is scaring the living shit out of white people. America is always changing. Politics has always been a battle of framing that change. Elections hinge on whether the fear of an unknown future eclipses dissatisfaction with a known present. Because of the omnipresent dominance of social media, the pace of that change has seemed faster —and scarier — in the last decade or so. Republicans have weaponized this fear with relentless precision.
Mr./Mrs. Potato Head and Dr. Seuss B-side books have power when viewed through this context. They are totems of childhood in a different era. If Mr. Potato Head and Dr. Seuss can be canceled, so can you.
He points out that there are examples of Big Tech censoring voices and some excesses on the left. But let’s face facts. If you want examples of “cancel culture” just look at Trump trying to “cancel” the results of the 2020 election …
Anyway:
There is no doubt that a lot of what drives the Right-Wing’s focus on “cancel culture” is a sincere annoyance at the consequences of being a racist asshole in public. But there is a political logic underlying all of the carping, complaining, and crocodile tears.
First, as I have written about before, social issues unite Republicans, while economic issues divide them. This is particularly true right now. Half of Trump voters support Biden’s American Rescue Plan. More than 40 percent support a $15 minimum wage. There is an inherent and potentially irreconcilable tension for a Republican Party with a populist, working-class base and a pro-corporation and Wall Street agenda. A recent Pew poll demonstrates this Republican challenge: 63 percent of lower-income Republicans support the American Rescue Plan, and one-in-four lower-income Republicans believe the package’s spending is too little. Given this information, the decision by Fox News and other conservative media to focus on cultural controversies makes a lot of sense. […]
The focus on Dr. Seuss worked. A Morning Consult poll shows just how much the Seuss story resonated with Republican voters. The Right was able to distract their voters from the American Rescue Plan and focus their attention on a less internally divisive “issue.”
There is a sense among many Democrats that these cultural issues are just red meat to jack up Republican turnout. “Cancel culture” BS serves that purpose, but the political impact is much broader. CNN polling guru, Harry Enten, has a fascinating analysis that shows that the power of the “cancel culture” issue is broader than the Republican base. Harry cites evidence from the American National Elections Studies‘ pre-election survey, which includes a question about political correctness.
Respondents were asked whether they thought people needed to change the way they talked to fit with the times or whether this movement had gone too far, and people were too easily offended. People being too easily offended won by a 53% to 46% margin over people needing to change the way they spoke.
Keep in mind, the voters in this sample claimed they had either voted or would vote for Biden over Donald Trump by a 53% to 42% margin. This poll gives you an idea of how much more popular the opposition of “cancel culture” and political correctness is than the baseline Republican presidential performance.
The Republicans are not yet maximizing the opportunity before them. Their tone is hysterical. Their choice of topics is nonsensical. Their chief messengers have the charisma of algae. However, their best chance of success in 2022 and beyond is to use their substantial media advantage to shift the focus from a likely booming, post-pandemic economy to racially divisive battles of political correctness.
Their need to be snotty little bitches is working against them. If they took a more serious tone, they could be more successful. Pfeiffer thinks they may figure this out. He points out that Joe Biden, being an older, white, male has the luxury of ignoring the silliness in ways that Obama and Hillary Clinton (or Kamala Harris) cannot. He can talk about his economic program and its accomplishment and he should. But others can’t:
The candidates up for election in 2022 do not have the luxury of simply turning the other cheek. Armchair political strategists will take to Twitter to counsel candidates on ignoring the cultural wedge issues and focusing on kitchen-table issues. Others will push for Democrats to have a “Sister Souljah moment” with “cancel culture.” This advice is absurd and evidence of why these strategists are sitting in armchairs in the first place.
This is not advice that works in the real world. When a reporter, voter, or debate moderator asks about something like the Dr. Seuss controversy, a candidate cannot pretend the question wasn’t asked or default into rote talking points that make them sound as robotically dense as Marco Rubio. Anyone running in 2022 will need to find a way to navigate the cultural attacks that will dominate Fox News, Facebook, and Republican ads.
The cultural wedge issues that dominate cable and social media present a “pick your poison” situation for candidates. Address them and get sucked down into a rabbit hole of stupidity. Ignore them and allow the Republicans to define the political playing field. However, there is another way. Barack Obama used to always tell us that in situations like these, “you don’t play the game, you call out the game.” In other words, tell the voters exactly what the Republicans are trying to do, who benefits (their corporate and special interest donors), and who suffers (the voter).
Here’s one version of a sample message that calls out the game:
Republicans are spending all of their time talking Dr. Seuss and Potato Head toys, because they want to divide and distract from their unpopular, special interest message. While Democrats have been putting money in people’s pockets and shots in their arms, Republicans have been fighting to prevent Americans from getting a pay raise and pushing to cut taxes for multi-millionaires.
The key is to take the issue the Republicans want to raise and pivot back to the core economic issues. Republicans are raising these cultural topics to unite their party and divide ours. Therefore, we must aggressively move the conversation back to the economic issues that unite our party and divide theirs.
They gave the Democrats a great gift by obsessing over this silly bullshit in order to to own the libs and act like middle school idiots. No matter what they come up with to “illustrate” political correctness/cancel culture, Democrats should bring up Dr Suess and Mr Potatohead. It reduces their concerns to silly, childishness, which it is, with the names alone. They did it to themselves and Democrats shouldn’t let them forget it.