The Real Kool-Aid Drinkers of Trumptown

Created
Mon, 19/02/2024 - 01:00
Updated
Mon, 19/02/2024 - 01:00
Rough clay or day clay? Trump could shoot them in the middle of Fifth Avenue and they’d vote for him with their dying breaths. “My kids need you! You’re a Christian! You’re honest! Look at his family! All good kids!” David Neiwert nails it: Susie too: Okay, neither of these eligible voters are salvageable. They’re too far gone. But there are others “on the fence” surely embarrassed by these displays of lunacy. Paul Rosenberg interviewed Rachel Bitecofer about her new book, “Hit ‘Em Where It Hurts: How to Save Democracy by Beating Republicans at Their Own Game.” Bitecofer seems to be covering ground seeded in the past by George Lakoff, Drew Westen, and Anat Shenker-Osorio about appealing more to emotion than intellect. Republicans now campaign on negative partisanship, she says, while many Democrats cannot let go of their “old strategy” of campaigning on policy: “find things people like, tell them you’re going to give them that — and then appeal on your character, your biography, your qualifications for office.” Republicans dumped that approach long ago. Democrats, she says: … have been unable or unwilling “to accept that the American voter is, at best, rough clay,” and to work with it accordingly.  Or as Shenker-Osorio put it, “Democrats rely on polling to take the temperature; Republicans use polling to change it.” Republicans work at moving the needle while Democrats chase it. Bitecofer: I don’t have to know a damn thing about a voter — I don’t know if it’s a man, it’s…