Make Them Toxic

 Once again, I have to tip my hat to Josh Marshall for distilling the central truth of this political era into a viable strategy for winning elections over the next 4-8 years.

Most Americans do not support and in fact actively deplore the January 6th insurrectionists. It was a day of deep emotional resonance and outrage that is largely baked into people's minds. That's the central insight that Marshall gets that savvy pundits and strategists seem to miss. 

You're not going to win an election as a Democrats running ads against a Republican accusing him of being unfriendly to businesses that promote clean energy, because the "unfriendly to businesses" violates people's baseline understanding of the two political parties. That's why embracing bad messaging like Defund the Police - even at the margins - is bad; it creates a narrative, true or false, that can become embedded in people's minds. Democrats are more likely to be critical of cops - which is fine and good - but that opens the door to losing Hispanic voters whose uncle is a cop.

Right now, the overwhelming message from Democrats (not Biden but rank and file Dems) is that the GOP has become a party of authoritarian nutjobs. They support election denying and insurrectionists. They shit on the Constitution. They admire Putin's strong man tactics. 

Tucker Carlson - the ostensible subject of Marshall's post - is an odious, cynical cretin. He doesn't believe the shit he's saying - we know that from the documents discovered in the Dominion lawsuit - but he accurately understands that his hardcore viewers believe it. He doesn't care about "truth"; he cares about his rating share.

The problem with the Republican party is Republican voters. Not all of them, but the true base of the party is a christofacist movement intent on dragging America to a very dark place. This applies to DeSantis as well as Trump.

I was half listening to my wife's podcast with Ezra Klein and Trans rights. It reminded me of the quote from Francis Wilhoit: 

    Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law            protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

The idea that the GOP wants an America that exists only for certain people - and that group can change at any minute - and you are not party of that group of Real American Traitors...that's how you make the GOP toxic.