gulliver
gulliver's JournalVoting against a Trump Republican owns Putin
I'm not seeing this message out there much. Just looking for something powerful and true to drown out the Republican Hunter/CRT lie thrumming.
If you're voting against a Trump Republican, you're owning Putin. Every vote for a Trump Republican makes Putin happy. Louder and louder. Repeat and repeat.
It's wrong to look down on dumb
Notice I didn't say, "It's dumb to look down on dumb." That's like the Cretans paradox. A lot of our problems on both sides are caused by failing to break out of the spiral of that paradox, IMO. Tolerance, counting to ten, etc., can break the cycle.
They can't bully if they lose, but they can if they win.
I essentially agree with every point you make. And I do agree that "now we have this fight going." My point is that we should win the fight.
Labeling, judging, and name calling can be very effective. Don't get me wrong. It definitely (perhaps unfortunately) has a place, but we definitely don't do it well. The Republicans in this case have created a framing where our name calling with names like "bully" or "bigot" is to our disadvantage. That's what "witch hunt" politics are all about, creating an indisputable enemy in people's imaginations. Our best bet is to demolish that framing, not break our swords ("bully" and "bigot" labeling) on a rock.
Still use those words. By all means. Just don't forget to be against "the witch," while calling out that it's a scare tactic used by cynical, Putin dupe, spit-on-the-flag Republican career politicians to draw suckers who should know better.
And, of course, I'm fully behind all the legal battling being done by our team. I'd just like to see us win all the battles.
Taking the bait and failing to counter-punch on the Texas transgender kid wedge issue
The Republican "witch hunt" for what must be a miniscule number of botched gender-affirming health care cases is, of course, a disgusting, dirty political strategy. It's a standard wedge issue for them, just like "bathroom choice" or "partial birth abortion" or "Terri Schiavo." A tiny handful of extreme cases are weaponized for political war against Dems.
How many times are we going to take that bait?
I don't think the best response is to accuse Republicans of "bullying" transgender kids, their parents, and their health care providers. That's punching them in the fist with our faces. It's what they want us to do. It's arguably immoral for us to do that, really, because it weakens us in our pursuit of other Dem and progressive priorities. Moreover, it encourages the Republicans to bully even more people. We need a better answer.
Doctors are not gods, nor are they even pure-hearted, altruistic, ultimate authorities. They're people who need to make a living, just like the rest of us hacks. It's easy for me to imagine a few hack doctors mongering grotesquely incompetent and damaging "gender-affirming health care services." I don't think Dem politics should rely on that type of doctor not existing in nature.
So, a suggestion is that we Dems affirm the rights of parents and children to health care treatment by trained experts for gender-related problems. Then we, perhaps, champion regulations on the health care industry to help ensure the safety and wellbeing of children in those and other cases. We attack the Republicans for being against our regulations.
You'd think Republicans would want to steer clear of the word "weakness."
What was it Republicans in both houses of Congress showed when they let Trump off the hook in two impeachments? Weakness. They knew he did something wrong, but they looked the other way to save their own skins. Now we need to ask, "Would Putin have invaded Ukraine if those Republican cowards had shown courage?"
People really need to call Republicans on their use of the word "weakness." Too often, some hear a Trump-shy, cowardly Republican say Biden somehow showed weakness and, in the spirit of debate, the unfortunate hearer might reflexively wonder to themselves, "Hmm. Did Biden show weakness?" It's nuts how that works. It's sleight of hand. The mind focuses on the word "weakness" and not on the coward who is using the word.
I, for one, don't do that. I hear a cowardly Republican say weakness and I think, "You mean what you showed, and Biden hasn't?"
Dems own all the issues
Democrats are better than Republicans on liberal and progressive issues, obviously. But we're better than Republicans on essentially all issues. We shouldn't cede them an inch of ground on patriotism, family values, religious observance, honest work, honesty, social responsibility, law and order, capitalism, liberty...anything. Our attitude should be that our party is a far better party than theirs in every way.
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