Pressure Trump to pardon the CEO assassin.
Start the campaign now.
Pressure Trump to pardon the CEO assassin.
Start the campaign now.
Find the fracture points in the coalition and drive a stick of dynamite into each one of them.
The right-wingers have been doing this to the US left — “left” as in “everything left of fascist” — for a decade now, with •wild• success. Anything that divides the coalition, they inflame it, make it a crisis, force people to take sides.
Russia and Musk going straight for the political jugular on Gaza is a prime example, but hardly a unique one.
(If you’re not sure what I’m talking about: Musk’s machine ran deceptive online ads that appeared to be from the Harris campaign expressing over-the-top support for Palestinians geotargeted to Jewish-leaning districts, and over-the-top support for Israel in Muslim-leaning districts.)
FInd the fracture point. Dynamite in the crevice. Boom. That’s the strategy.
3/
Back in July, @pluralistic wrote a much-overlooked piece on this topic:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/14/fracture-lines/
❝It's a huge mistake to think of the right as a stable, unified force, marching to victory after inevitable victory. The American right is a brittle coalition led by a handful of plutocrats who have convinced a large number of turkeys to vote for Christmas.❞
4/
He wrote that Project 2025, an internally contradictory mess, is ❝a blinking “LOOK AT ME” sign telling us where the right is ready to split apart.❞
One of those places? Look at Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh’s audience turning on them for condemning CEO assassin: https://www.newsweek.com/unitedhealthcare-ceo-shooting-ben-shapiro-matt-walsh-backlash-1997728
#uspol 5/
Trump ran and won on the backing of (1) people who hate health insurance executes and (2) billionaires. And we’ve been handed a mapping for turning them against each other.
So:
Let’s talk about how Trump is going to pardon the UnitedHealthcare CEO assassin, and let’s not shut up about it.
#uspol /end
@mcnado
I mean, yes, but if you’re applying any kind of actual legal logic to this, you are missing the assignment. You think his supporters know? Or care?
Demand that he do it anyway. Mock him and boo him if he says he can’t.
@inthehands can’t. State charge.
It’s hard, I know, but ground rules for this game involve letting go of all fact-based logic. Yes, it’s a state charge, therefore a president can’t pardon it. That does not matter •at all•. Demand the pardon anyway. Make Trump look like he’s trying weasel out if he says he can’t. Make him yell at staff and reporters about how he can’t. Make him try anyway.
@thecorodon
Exactly! So ask him again, and again, and again. Don’t shut up about it so he can’t shut up about it.
@inthehands
If someone asks him, what are the odds he'd say he's looking into it? Close to 100%, no?
@StephanieMoore
Yup. Stop trying to win arguments; start making fashy heads hurt with the cognitive dissonance, and stuff right-wing politicians into impossible corners.
@inthehands I think this is a good example of how we need to shift from reliance solely on legal / logic arguments and engage in more narrative warfare and fight for the Overton window.
@ShadSterling @mcnado
(1) This can’t magically hand him power he doesn’t have. Only a weak, corrupt, and broken political system can do that — and that we already have.
(2) If he does somehow manage to do it, or even if he •talks• about it, do you honestly thing that the CEO set who’ve been freaking out about the assassination would take that sitting down? The point is there is no winning position here for him. Even doing the impossible is a self-own.
@inthehands @mcnado my only concern with this approach is that if he does issue a pardon and the CEO assassin is released then we’ve expanded his authoritarian powers
@inthehands tbh my only problem here would be having to join truth social
@dekk
I'm not willing to go •that• conspiracy theory yet.
@inthehands
The Democratic party exists to govern within a logical institutional framework. The right has spent almost 40 years working to undermine that structure, and is positioned to directly and immediately benefit from it. You think that the democrats going all in on post-truth discourse is going to help? There's no need to also defect from reality — you're not going to win any ground, but you will find there's more to lose. All the democrats need to do is decide they care more about people than money and actually fight.
They won't, of course. Nor will they yield the ground to folks not bought by oligarchs.
@inthehands Your reasoning here supports my contention that Democrats should publicly support a progressive wealth tax. Ideally, one that is punitive at the high end. We should forefront the culture war fight they're trying to distract us from.
@oldprof
I’m with you. I’ve been saying for decades that the marginal tax rate should asymptotically approach 100%. I am a voice in the wind.
Per discussion in the replies, this isn’t just for Democrats. Political parties are •lagging• indicators of social change. Do what the right did to the Republicans starting in 2010: make noise from the bottom. Simultaneously punch, co-opt, and reinforce the party in a changed image.
IOW, bang that drum now, make the politicians follow!
@dymaxion
I think you’re crossing the streams a bit here. What you wrote here is •super• important and well said:
“The Democratic party exists to govern within a logical institutional framework. The right has spent almost 40 years working to undermine that structure.”
That explains so much of what the party can and cannot accomplish right now, what we should and should not reasonably expect of it. I don’t think “caring about people” changes that equation. But separately…
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