How to Lose the Midterms and Re-elect Trump
'Dear Robert De Niro, Samantha Bee and other Trump haters:
I get that youre angry. Im angry, too. But anger isnt a strategy. Sometimes its a trap. When you find yourself spewing four-letter words, youve fallen into it. Youve chosen cheap theatrics over the long game, catharsis over cunning. You think youre raising your fist when youre really raising a white flag.
Youre right that Donald Trump is a dangerous and deeply offensive man, and that restraining and containing him are urgent business. Youre wrong about how to go about doing that, or at least youre letting your emotions get the better of you.
When you answer name-calling with name-calling and tantrums with tantrums, youre not resisting him. Youre mirroring him. Youre not diminishing him. Youre demeaning yourselves. Many voters dont hear your arguments or the facts, which are on your side. They just wince at the din.
You permit them to see you as you see Trump: deranged. Why would they choose a different path if it goes to another ugly destination?
Of course this is broader than De Niro, bigger than Bee and about more than profanity. Its about maturity, pragmatism and plain old smarts and the necessity of all three when the stakes are this high.
Many Democrats get that. Maybe even most do. In the primaries last week and on Tuesday, Democratic voters by and large chose House candidates whose appeals were tempered and whose profiles make them formidable general-election contenders. Theyre the best bets for wooing less fiercely partisan voters and snatching seats currently in Republican hands.
The results in Virginias 10th Congressional District on Tuesday were a perfect example. State Senator Jennifer Wexton, a former federal prosecutor, won, and will take on the Republican incumbent, Barbara Comstock. That was precisely what Republican strategists didnt want, and at the beginning of the year, they chattered hopefully about Wextons being thwarted by more strident Democratic rivals to her left. But she beat the second-place finisher by almost 20 points.
Im buoyed by that and by what Ive witnessed when Ive met with Democratic candidates in potentially red-to-blue House districts. Theyre not getting bogged down in impeachment talk, which can sound to many voters like a promise of ceaseless partisan rancor and never-ending Washington paralysis. Theyre not frothing at the mouth about Trump.
They understand that theres no need for that. Hes the most exhaustively chronicled and psychologically transparent president in the lifetimes of most American voters, who already know how they feel about him. What theyre less certain about are their alternatives. If you want to make sure that at least one chamber of Congress is a check on Trump, talk to them about that.
And do so in a vocabulary thats measured, not hysterical. Enough with idiot and moron (unless youre directly quoting an administration official). Theyre schoolyard and splenetic.'>>>
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/13/opinion/trump-midterms-robert-de-niro-samantha-bee.html?
BigmanPigman
(51,623 posts)official word for word...Rex Tillerson said it. I believe Corker called him a fucking idiot but he isn't in the actual admin.
I am torn about this whole issue. We take the high road and look like a bunch of 'snowflakes' without a backbone for the GOP to walk all over. Is the point about "going high' or about using profanity? Can we kick them where it counts and not look like we have no spine without using 4 letter words? Sure we can, but we aren't even doing that!
unblock
(52,286 posts)we're going to need to use splenetic words to win.
sorry, but we really need to rile up our base and gotv.
we can't act like this is a normal election cycle.
we have to sound the alarm.
KPN
(15,647 posts)CaliforniaPeggy
(149,678 posts)*There's no need for impeachment talk.
elleng
(131,053 posts)using this for some other friends, who tend to think it's hopeless.
dalton99a
(81,565 posts)Butterflylady
(3,546 posts)Sorry, can't take a knife to a gun fight. This is a whole new animal. You don't have to get down in the mud, just need to fight smarter.
One thing he did do that most politicians do is they talk down to people where they need to learn to talk on their level.
KPN
(15,647 posts)Do we have that capability? Better yet, who do we have with that capability?
stuffmatters
(2,574 posts)And please don't waste the MSM podium or megaphone when we do get it for a minute .DeNiro could have far more effectively used his broadcast time to decry & detail the savage immigration policies of Trump/GOP. for example.
elleng
(131,053 posts)KPN
(15,647 posts)DeNiro has a lot of cred. His words have impact just because they come from him.
SCantiGOP
(13,871 posts)But it is, in my opinion, absolutely correct. This is not about appealing to independents or moderates; it is about not turning off a lot of potential voters who we can win over in the mid-terms and in 2020.
Thanks for the post, elleng.
elleng
(131,053 posts)and recognizing the value of this opinion piece.
'This is not about appealing to independents or moderates; it is about not turning off a lot of potential voters who we can win over.'
Uncle Joe
(58,389 posts)Thanks for the thread elleng.
Well stated and wise advice. Give people a positive motivation to GOTV.
malthaussen
(17,215 posts)I tend to keep out of this dance. On the one hand, you have frustrated, angry people who cannot endure the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune without opposing them with their own slings and arrows. And they will scream until their faces are blue that since more civilized tactics "don't work," it is necessary to oppose barbarism by being more barbaric. Which is kind of like saying it's okay to torture terrorists because they don't play by the rules, but I digress.
On the other hand, you have those who want to raise the level of discourse (in contrast to, say, the Rude Pundit, who is proud to lower it). Or at least, keep it from sliding fully into the muck and mire. Funny, the former group is as likely to turn on the latter with invective and disdain as they are on their Republican opponents, which must give those opponents a hearty laugh. It appears that unless one agrees that the only way to win a name-calling war is to call nastier names, they are as much the Enemy as the Enemy. It's interesting, too, that the "hard line" crowd appear to think and react to the more "polite" crowd in ways that distinctly resemble the GOPpers who complain about "elites." But then, that's the point, yes?
Me, my attitude has always been that I don't let other people control how I act. Well, I may be a bit "splenetic" with friends, but in normal discourse I use people with pretty much the same courtesy regardless of how they use me. We're not talking about a clear and present physical danger here -- however much some like to draw analogies from lethal combat. We're talking about the use and manipulation of words, and how to use them effectively, and most importantly, dispassionately. Ye gods, people, when has anyone ever "won" a playground screaming match? All it leaves you is a sore throat and a feeling of vast dissatisfaction.
-- Mal
Uncle Joe
(58,389 posts)elleng
(131,053 posts)Many here refusing to recognize this; there's another thread, but I won't broadcast it.