Inspired by this post and the fact that I'm seeing a lot of regular libs start to coverage on "these guys are weird little freaks" as a messaging policy, which really seems to be bringing out the wojak-nooo in the far right. It's working much better for them than all of Biden's attempts to portray Trump as some kind of existential threat to amerikkka.

This is interesting, and only surprising in the sense that it is surprising to see the Democrats do something kind of effective for once. Fascists thrive on being seen as cool, powerful, and dangerous; those aesthetics are central to the brand. Every time Biden gave a big speech about how the future of democracy was on the line in the election, it played into that aesthetic. Every time CNN calls January 6 a "coup attempt," it plays into that aesthetic.

Calling these people weird little freaks with weird dumb ideas and weird creepy fixations does not play into that aesthetic. It breaks the illusion that all the freaks at the RNC wearing bandages on their ears are actually normal and represent normal people. They aren't, and they don't. This is yet another thing that the left has known for some time now, but that libs seem to maybe be catching on to: taking these idiots seriously empowers them. Actually realizing that and using it is one of the smarter things that the Dems have done in a while.

  • LocalOaf [they/them, ze/hir]
    ·
    5 months ago

    Nightmare scenario is that they pull a Hillary '16 and start funding the extra weird ones behind the scenes

    They did this in the '22 midterm and from what I remember, it actually worked. The Q lady in Arizona and the dude in Pennsylvania that were running for governor for the Republicans got boosted by the Dems and the more people saw and heard how deranged they were, the worse they did. It can work, but if anyone could fuck it up spectacularly, it'd be the Democrats. Hell, Jamie Harrison is DNC chair now and the only thing he's done is burn a pile of money losing to Lindsay fucking Graham.