Guardian: It's time for Democrats to go low

[GreatGazoo]

71. Anger is not a strategy

Next week is going to be rough but after that the midterms loom and then 2028.

Rothpletz is Don Lemon's senior writer. Lemon gets 68,000 views per video on YouTube now -- not exactly successful. Would it not be better in the long run to think about what works outside the angry, naming-calling echo chambers?

Political strategy is very simple:

1. Define your opponent in a negative way before they have a chance to define themselves. That translates to a focus on JD Vance. Finding his most actionable negatives and then defining him by those negatives.

"Phony" is the default in politics. You define your opponent as faking it and then call out every time they seem to change positions on issues. Every time they tailor their speech to a niche audience you make clips of that and get it in front of the people who are NOT in that niche. The effect is to show that your opponent is different people for different audiences, insincere and standing for nothing. A used car sales man.

2. Separate your opponent from their natural base. This was done to Obama and HRC. Obama's natural base, part of it, was POC so the attack was both "Obama is not really black / not black enough" / "has not lived the African American experience" AND "Obama is too black" and "does not have appeal outside of" such demographics. The attack on HRC tried to separate female voters from her by claiming she was a "long suffering wife" in a one-sided open marriage and many other things which need not be repeated.

For Vance, his natural base is white voters in PA, OH, MI and other swing states. The attack would take the form of surrogates constantly reminding that base that Vance is a slick Yale lawyer who sold them out and never looked back. A crypto pirate who has plans for eliminating social security, job training, tuition help, etc. A guy who sold his soul to climb the ladder and then pulled that ladder up so others could not follow.

More broadly, a rule of marketing is "Sell the difference". Trying to out-name call, etc. Trump gives up difference and lets him pick the field of battle. If Democrats imitate Trump then there is no winning.