These Trump world idiots just handed us a huge gift
On Thursday a very prominent right wing political pundit took the stage at the CPAC conference and declared that he and his pals are getting rid of democracy. Just in case that wasn’t direct enough, he then went on to say that they intended to finish the work that began on January 6th. Then another speaker took the stage and promised that if Trump retakes office he’ll get rid of marriage equality.
Those of us who closely follow politics already know that these are the kinds of deranged things that these unhinged right wing loons want to do. And we already know that if Trump were to get back into office, he would indeed empower these extremists to do these kind of deranged things.
But a key component in pulling off this kind of thing is that you’re not supposed to say it in exact words. These Trump surrogates are not going to fool the people like you and me, who already know what they’re all about. But if they use the right kind of coded language, it allows them to convey their true intention to their own base, without the rest of us being able to use it against them while making our case to the masses.
These Trump surrogates are making a huge messaging mistake by stating things in these terms. They know that the vast majority of Americans want to keep democracy around, and that the vast majority of Americans support gay marriage. These are losing issues for the Republicans. If you take the unpopular side of an issue in exact words, you’re creating a messaging nightmare for your own side.
It’s not surprising to see these nitwit right wing pundits blowing it so badly on the messaging front. No one has ever accused these types of understanding how to win over a majority. But the real story here is that they’re acting this stupidly on stage because there’s no one to rein them in.
Donald Trump is the “leader” of this movement, so where is he? Why isn’t he doing any leading? Because he can’t. He’s too busy losing legal battles while giving senile speeches about how he can’t take a shower and babbling incoherently about states that don’t exist.
Not that Trump was ever any good at messaging, even before he went senile. But his extremist messaging used to have just a tinge of deniability, which would make it tricky for us to convince people in the middle that he really was looking to burn it all down. Now that Trump has become an absentee landlord for his own movement, offering no real input for what the messaging should even be, it’s not surprising to see his surrogates go completely – and stupidly – off the rails.
I understand the temptation to sit back and fret or panic or lament any time one of these prominent right wing pundits begins talking openly about getting rid of democracy and such. But it’s important to understand what a gift this kind of talk is to us. Now we don’t have to go out and convince potential voters toward the middle that this is the kind of thing Trump and his people want to do. All we have to do is use Trump world’s exact words against them – and we will.
