Loud And Proud -- Tom Sullivan

[erronis]

https://digbysblog.net/2026/05/21/loud-and-proud/

Timidity does not sell

Monty Python - Marriage Guidance Counsellor https://youtu . be/6l0jFjDsCjk

There is no limit to what Republicans may do to hold onto power this year. Donald Trump's $1.776 slush fund is evidence for that. He means to fund a MAGA brown-shirt militia he can dispatch on his signal (with thin plausible deniability) to disrupt the fall elections and transfer of power, let's be clear. What else Republicans have in the works takes a criminal mind to anticipate. There is so much Trump and Trumpism in the news that it tends to crowd out most everything else, including how the left might claw back attention.

Dan Pfeiffer expects that with a spluttering economy, rising costs, the Iran war, and bipartisan outrage over Trump's slush fund and ballroom, Republicans' only campaign play is "to nuke the Democratic brand." They will replay 2024 and paint Democrats as weak and extreme.

So what might Democrats do to counterpunch? (emphasis mine):

But there's an interesting wrinkle in some recent polling worth flagging. A February analysis by Strength In Numbers found that voter perceptions of Democratic strength were a stronger predictor of vote choice than perceptions of Democratic extremism.

I'd be careful about leaning too hard on a single data point. I don't think this lets Democrats off the hook on the substantive policy questions about where the party should be positioned. But it does suggest something I've been arguing for years: how you fight matters as much as what you fight for. Voters reward candidates who project strength, fight for their constituents, and refuse to be pushed around -- regardless of where they sit on the ideological spectrum.

For a downballot candidate facing the "woke, weak, and way too liberal" assault, the takeaway isn't necessarily to soften your positions. It's to project strength about whatever your positions actually are. The voters who will decide your race want to know you'll fight for them.

Run your campaigns. Don't swerve out of your lane, but look for opportunities to blunt the attack to come.

Respond to attacks with a loud-and-proud, "Hell, yes!"

. . .