best bit is here, look at the gloss chait gives to meatball ron's conspicuous cruelty:
But do these maneuvers actually resonate with the party’s rank and file? Many of his moves seem consumed with grievances that are only intelligible to those steeped in state-of-the-art right-wing social analysis.
vacuous culture war would be a sure winner, if only the rubes were smart enough to get it, lmao.
It has nothing to do with "being stupid enough" and everything to do with this culture war shit being almost entirely online and having no connection to everyday life. My parents are blue state Republicans who voted for Trump both times and go to Catholic mass every weekend. Both of them think all these trans bills and book ban stuff is crazy and want the GOP to focus on "kitchen table" issues.
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Yeah I saw the anti-trans sports bill that got passed in Utah, and the article mentioned that there was exactly one trans girl involved in girls' sports in the whole state. Numbers like that should deeply put this into perspective for nearly anyone. A state had to write a bill to focus on exactly one person? And a child at that? That's just bullying and traumatic.
This is almost word-for-word what my mother, the more conservative of my two parents, said. I almost put it in my comment. My father said something along the lines of "How could this be a big deal when I'm pretty sure I have never even met a trans person?"
I've got a cousin-by-marriage who is trans. My god(now)mother who is also trans. Personally knowing them has a huge impact on how I've perceived the importance of trans-rights.
I think the "They're just 1% why do they matter?" attitude is good for defusing the hysteria. But its a nasty place when anti-trans laws are going into effect and the public response becomes "Throwing trans-people under the bus is an acceptable sacrifice for political expediency". Having skin in the game gives people someone to fight for.
totally. im just getting a kick out of the fact that chait seems to think that the strategy of culture war isn't hitting because the right isn't made up of enough gramsci scholars, and not the fact that the knuckle dragging freaks that feed on such resentment are already disposed to be trump loyalists.
also telling is the pudding cup advert. assuming it is successful in and of itself, or because it tracks onto the contours of why desantis is sinking to trump, notice that they tie the silly pudding shit to desantis's austerity policies. the little old ladies who are deathly afraid of ms-13 and men becoming women are also worried about (and more so) their entitlements being taken away; if desantis is too smart/the base is too dumb, it's because desantis is a believer in fusionist/neoliberal conservative economic policy, lodestars for the national review, "smart" conservatives like chait, who are somehow to stupid to see what is right in front of their faces.
Or in some cases, actively harming everyday life. I'm sure his fight with Disney is going over well with his reactionary base, but how do you think voters would react to losing an estimated 500 thousand jobs and $5.8 billion in state revenue?
They've blamed libs for every other attack in the class war, why would they stop now?
Build The Wall
More Cops! More Cops! More Cops!
Dismantle the Deep State
You know, kitchen table issues.
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Kitchen table is my phrasing, based on pretty established definitions. They want the GOP focus on inflation, the economy, etc.