krebscycle

Social media is full of ugly attacks on Democrats presented as “advice” to improve “messaging” or for Democrats to take a more aggressive posture against Republicans ( “do something”). The attacks are so abusive and demeaning that they give any clear eyed observer a sense that the point is not the advice but the damage to Democrats reputation. If you wanted to persuade, you wouldn’t express your advice in insults – particularly demeaning insults that reinforce Republican branding. The nature of this advice can be seen in its glorification of Mitch McConnell the Republican Senate leader over much of the last 2 decades. According to these advisors, McConnell was tough, strong and decisive, unlike the Democrats who they falsely claim are weak and “out of touch” or “cowardly”. In reality, when the Senate Republicans were a minority (as Democrats are now), McConnell didn’t stop Democrats priorities and even in majority (with an actually cowardly caucus, too frightened to ever dissent) he had a hard time advancing Republican legislation.

• The timing of the attacks is suspicious – waves of attacks supposedly intended to help Democrats that peak after any Democratic success or Republican failure to take the focus off the Republicans problems. After House Democrats unanimously rejected and almost defeated the Republican medicare destroying budget, social media was filled with supposed progressives/liberals/leftists who were totally uninterested in the horrors of the very unpopular medicare cuts or the weakness of the Republican grip on the House or the craven behavior of Republicans who voted for a bill doing things they claimed to detest (like enormously increasing the debt) or the heroics of Democrats, one of whom came in from the hospital to defend medicaid, one who flew from Colorado with her 1 month old baby to vote. And after Trumps embarrassing fiasco in his meeting with Zelensky where he openly embraced his status as a Russian asset social media was flooded with angry people claiming to be Democrats or Leftists, screaming about how Democrats were not “fighting” and drawing attention away from Trump’s bumbling Russian asset performance.
• The attacks often feature misinformation – for example as Democratic House Leader Jeffries released a stinging rebuke of Trump’s pathetic effort to blackmail Zelensky, social media was flooded with with angry denunciations of Democrats for only talking about egg prices.
• The advice is often ludicrously bad or maybe even deliberate attempts to make Democrats look bad. The demands that Democrats stop talking about the price of eggs, a topic that encapsulates both the dishonesty of the Trump regime and its incompetence, are characteristic. Or consider that Democrats are planning to attend Trump’s upcoming March 4 speech to Congress and to bring with them illegally fired government workers who did essential work for the American people and were targeted by Elon Musk’s weirdo geeks. This horrifies the free advice brigade which is insisting that the plan is yet more evidence that Democratic leadership is out of touch and that instead they should stay outside the Capitol and let Republicans have the national attention for an hour, uninterrupted.

See also Criticism from the Left.