“How anti-American are they?” could be a setup for a “Tonight Show” joke. In light of current events, one wonders if Democrats will bare their claws and go for the Republicans’ jugular in the 2022 campaign. The conservative party that once campaigned on being more patriotic than those lefty, socialist pinkos has shown itself to be as much a fraud as its titular head.
Besides cheering on white nationalism and the Russian dictator, Republicans have systematically shown themselves to oppose popular sovereignty and to favor minority rule. As President-elect, George W. Bush quipped that running the U.S. as a dictatorship “would be a heck of a lot easier… as long as I’m the dictator. Hehehe.” It was revealing. In a country that once prided itself on being the world’s longest-lived democracy, conservative pedants who profess American exceptionalism as an article of faith still insist we are not a democracy, but a republic. Like North Korea, or China, or Hungary, or Iran. That too is revealing.
The party of the elephant is today the elephant in the room. Do Democrats have the guts to point it out? Democrats tend to assume they don’t need to tell voters what they assume voters already know. That is a chronic mistake. Voters need to hear Democrats reflect back their views if voters are to identify and vote with them. Voters claim to like politicians who “tell it like it is”? Here’s Democrats’ chance. Like that stalled Russian convoy, Republicans have made themselves sitting ducks.
The Washington Post has it:
One of the most prominent Democratic groups released two new online ads Friday that try to portray former president Donald Trump and his followers in the Republican Party as aligned with Russian President Vladimir Putin amid Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine.
These ads, put out by Priorities USA, are one of the first concrete indicators of the Democratic Party seeking to politicize the invasion ahead of the November midterm elections. It remains to be seen how much money the pro-Biden organization will invest to promote the ads and target voters.
The videos include clips of Trump calling Putin “smart” for recognizing the independence of two breakaway regions in Ukraine. They also feature remarks from Nick Fuentes, a far-right political operative labeled a “white supremacist” by the Justice Department, asking the audience at the America First Political Action Conference last month to cheer for Putin. The event was attended by Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Paul A. Gosar of Arizona.
“It is shameful that Republicans are so blinded by their fealty to Donald Trump that they have chosen to support a brutal despot rather than support Joe Biden’s efforts to bring the global community together to protect freedom and democracy,” Priorities USA chairman Guy Cecil said in a statement exclusively provided to The Washington Post.
The GOP will not hesitate to invert Republicans’ record of kowtowing to Donald Trump as he 1) fawned over Putin and a string of brutal autocrats, 2) stoked a violent, anti-democratic insurrection, and 3) inspired Republican legislation in state after state to reduce the United States to “competitive authoritarianism.” Republicans will turn on a dime and accuse President Biden and Democrats of being softer than they are. Democrats had best get ahead of it.
The problem with the Priorities USA ad is it is so obviously a political attack of the sort Americans have come to loathe. And to ignore. Political shops from the campaign industrial complex crank these out like colored extrusions from a Play-Doh maker, and it shows. Outside-the-box thinking is not welcome in campaign culture. Limp results speak for themselves.
There are writers and production people in Hollywood — professional storytellers — who’ve complained for years that they stand ready to help Democrats sell themselves. They go ignored while Democrats repeatedly employ creatively deficient, former Hill colleagues who fancy themselves political communication specialists. With so much on the line, Democrats will be more likely than ever to campaign with caution rather than with reckless abandon. It is a mistake the world cannot afford them to make.
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