"... I do think this idea—'it will be obvious who to blame'—still predominates Democratic Party thinking."
Joe Random, 2027: "All I know is that I had my Red State Health plan until the Democrats took control of Congress and took it away, those bastards." That is the way the bill is designed.
Nothing is obvious unless you keep making it obvious.
Every day in every way keep accusing the Republicans of lying about what this new law does. Cite every Republican that lied about it. Cite every time Fox, etc. lied about it. Actually call them liars and back it up with verifiable citations of all the lies told by each one of them.
When the actual outcomes prove that that they all did lie, keep reminding everyone they lied by citing the lies, again and again.
This cannot be simply a "we told you so" after the fact posture. It has to be a continuous indictment of a fundamentally dishonest party. If Dems take control of Congress, hold hearings proving all the lies and get widely publicized how the Republicans arranged for shifting the blame. Use the time until them to prepare the public to not fall for this "obvious" trick.
I've believed for some time that the real reason ICE-themed personnel can't reveal their identities is that they are 'fresh' hires from the militias and private merc cos. The bill had to pass at the blow-out funding level increases for DHS/ICE in order to pay for the already-over-budget payouts for the last few months.
I'm in a swing district. My rep, Juan Ciscomani, said he wouldn't vote for a bill that cut Medicaid. Then he voted for a bill that cut Medicaid. Twice.
The majority of people in the district live in Tucson, but Ciscomani has never held a town hall here. He spends most of his time in the rural areas, where the border was a big issue. The border is no longer an issue. No one's crossing. But 158,000 in his district are on Medicaid. Another 32,000 use subsidies to purchase health insurance through the ACA.
There are protests every week in front of Ciscomani's office. Bernie and AOC came and held a rally in his district. Twelve thousand people showed up.
A few weeks back Ben Rhodes was on Tim Miller’s pod. One thing he said that stuck with me was what he learned from dealing with Russian disinformation - first movers win the information war.
Keeping our Republic (getting it back?) is a battle for the information space. I hope someone on the Dem’s side gets this.
I am really not buying into the idea that GOP propaganda matters all that much. Yes it certainly matters on the margin like tilting a +1 D environment without propaganda into a +1 R environment with propaganda. But the swing away from Biden-Harris that we saw in 2024 cannot be explained by any GOP propaganda effort. It was massive, organic and occurred in blue areas where people were reacting to facts on the ground, not propaganda.
Similarly, if the GOP bill is as bad as it is claimed to be, and facts on the ground support a base case swing of something like -10 R then no amount of GOP propaganda will matter. If this bill turns out to be less worse than feared and facts on the ground amount to only a -2R swing then yes GOP propaganda will keep Dems at bay.
But ultimately there is no way for Dems to not be susceptible to GOP propaganda unless they completely open up the big tent on social issues.
Furious right now and probably not thinking straight but it kind of looks like the structural and communication disadvantages Democrats have are insurmountable in the near term even if they were great at this, which the party who wants things to work never is. Maybe we need to live through 5-10 years of near fascism and oligarchy and then see what’s left.
"... I do think this idea—'it will be obvious who to blame'—still predominates Democratic Party thinking."
Joe Random, 2027: "All I know is that I had my Red State Health plan until the Democrats took control of Congress and took it away, those bastards." That is the way the bill is designed.
Nothing is obvious unless you keep making it obvious.
Every day in every way keep accusing the Republicans of lying about what this new law does. Cite every Republican that lied about it. Cite every time Fox, etc. lied about it. Actually call them liars and back it up with verifiable citations of all the lies told by each one of them.
When the actual outcomes prove that that they all did lie, keep reminding everyone they lied by citing the lies, again and again.
This cannot be simply a "we told you so" after the fact posture. It has to be a continuous indictment of a fundamentally dishonest party. If Dems take control of Congress, hold hearings proving all the lies and get widely publicized how the Republicans arranged for shifting the blame. Use the time until them to prepare the public to not fall for this "obvious" trick.
Thank you Brian. I am speachless. So disgusted. Glad to be circulating here to read your thoughts.
I've believed for some time that the real reason ICE-themed personnel can't reveal their identities is that they are 'fresh' hires from the militias and private merc cos. The bill had to pass at the blow-out funding level increases for DHS/ICE in order to pay for the already-over-budget payouts for the last few months.
I'm in a swing district. My rep, Juan Ciscomani, said he wouldn't vote for a bill that cut Medicaid. Then he voted for a bill that cut Medicaid. Twice.
The majority of people in the district live in Tucson, but Ciscomani has never held a town hall here. He spends most of his time in the rural areas, where the border was a big issue. The border is no longer an issue. No one's crossing. But 158,000 in his district are on Medicaid. Another 32,000 use subsidies to purchase health insurance through the ACA.
There are protests every week in front of Ciscomani's office. Bernie and AOC came and held a rally in his district. Twelve thousand people showed up.
We know who to blame.
A few weeks back Ben Rhodes was on Tim Miller’s pod. One thing he said that stuck with me was what he learned from dealing with Russian disinformation - first movers win the information war.
Keeping our Republic (getting it back?) is a battle for the information space. I hope someone on the Dem’s side gets this.
If there is one thought to pound into your elected representative’s consciousness it is this (from bullet 13)
“This bill won’t be self-discrediting”
I am really not buying into the idea that GOP propaganda matters all that much. Yes it certainly matters on the margin like tilting a +1 D environment without propaganda into a +1 R environment with propaganda. But the swing away from Biden-Harris that we saw in 2024 cannot be explained by any GOP propaganda effort. It was massive, organic and occurred in blue areas where people were reacting to facts on the ground, not propaganda.
Similarly, if the GOP bill is as bad as it is claimed to be, and facts on the ground support a base case swing of something like -10 R then no amount of GOP propaganda will matter. If this bill turns out to be less worse than feared and facts on the ground amount to only a -2R swing then yes GOP propaganda will keep Dems at bay.
But ultimately there is no way for Dems to not be susceptible to GOP propaganda unless they completely open up the big tent on social issues.
Furious right now and probably not thinking straight but it kind of looks like the structural and communication disadvantages Democrats have are insurmountable in the near term even if they were great at this, which the party who wants things to work never is. Maybe we need to live through 5-10 years of near fascism and oligarchy and then see what’s left.
I think this often. I'm in my late 40s and am prepared to not see Dems have real power again until I'm elderly.
On the ICE piece, this bill is not an appropriation, right? So there’s still potentially another fight over funding the Gestapo/gulag. .
Seems that’s exactly the plan.