Two (well, technically three) CNN Stories That Together Highlight How Lost The Democrats Are.
So here's this first story about how the Democrats are going all-in with a familiar line of attack against the Republican Party:
Seized by genuine panic about the prospect of Republicans winning control of Congress and governors’ mansions across the country, multiple Democratic leaders and candidates in some of the tightest races are calling on party leaders – including President Joe Biden – to focus on calling out Republicans as “extremists.”
They don’t think Biden’s poll numbers are going to go up much or inflation is going to go down much. But in the continuing wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and with hundreds of election deniers on the ballot across the country, many Democratic leaders are looking to reframe the stakes of the midterms around a GOP they say has become a threat to America – arguing that Republican control in states and in Congress would lead to a federal abortion ban, major rights restrictions, and attacks on democracy which could endanger the 2024 presidential election.
“Democrats would be irresponsible, both morally and politically, if we just went with the same poll-tested stuff about delivering infrastructure,” said Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz, who is helping craft some of the strategy in the Senate to press Republicans. “There’s a place for all of that, but these people are out of their minds and are really acting with impunity, and we need to say so.”
[SNIP]
As one top Democratic strategist working on House races summed up the argument after reviewing internal focus group data which shows a stronger and more lasting than expected resonance to recent Republican moves, particularly around abortion policy: “I understand that you’re frustrated, everything sucks – but that person thinks that you can’t get pregnant from rape, that person believes in QAnon. … I know you don’t like Democrats – but do you actually want to vote for that person?”
[SNIP]
The Democratic National Committee is coordinating with state parties on ads and local press tours built around words like “dangerous” and “threatening,” and highlighting what they call “MAGA Hot Mic” moments around Republican officials making hardline comments about abortion, democracy and guns. Democratic groups have also primed a barrage of opposition research to release on GOP candidates on everything from once-obscure bills introduced in state legislatures to long-ago Facebook comments, while allied groups highlight features like a Center for American Progress study that found “at least 104 MAGA Republicans have used guns and other deadly weapons in campaign ads.”
On Wednesday, House Democrats will roll out a series of recommended talking points to members that include focusing on a message that “extreme MAGA Republicans care about only one thing: their own power,” according to a presentation viewed by CNN. Republicans, the presentation argues, will criminalize abortion and roll back marriage rights, end Social Security and Medicare, and “continue to attack our democracy, undermine free elections and make it harder for Americans to vote.”
Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene explicitly labeled herself a Christian nationalist on Saturday. This shocking statement by a sitting member of Congress should serve as a wake-up call to everyone, and particularly, I believe, to Christians.
“We need to be the party of nationalism and I’m a Christian, and I say it proudly, we should be Christian nationalists,” Greene said in an interview while attending the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit in Florida on Saturday. Her self-avowal of Christian nationalism follows her claim last month that Christian nationalism is “nothing to be afraid of,” and that the “movement” will solve school shootings and “sexual immorality” in America.
For years, I have been closely tracking Christian nationalism and sounding the alarm about it. Greene’s recent comments mark an alarming shift in the public conversation about Christian nationalism.
Until recently, the public figures who most embrace Christian nationalism in their rhetoric and policies have either denied its existence or claimed that those of us who are calling it out are engaging in name-calling. But Greene is evidently reading from a different script now – explicitly embracing the identity as her own and urging others to join her.
She is not alone in doing so. Greene’s embrace of Christian nationalism follows closely after troubling remarks from Colorado Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert: “The church is supposed to direct the government, the government is not supposed to direct the church,” she said at a church two days before her primary election (and victory) in late June. “I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk.” And as CNN has reported, public opinion polling shows that support for Christian nationalism is growing among Christians.
The lesson is: supporting either party is a waste of time. Neither have the interests of the poor and working class in mind. They prefer to wage a war of words with each other and real war (via sanctions and economics and actual weapons) abroad. One is blatant about it's mission statement and the other is essentially an enabler.
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