the day dem messaging died

bye, bye unamerican lie

a few quick thoughts on the weekend:

i think people really underestimate the disarray into which this assassination attempt on trump just threw the democratic party.

their messaging and activity has been relentlessly anti-donald on a personal level calling him a fascist, a dictator, and the "end of america."

it’s their only real unifier at this point. absent “orange man bad” just what is the glue for this fractious and internally clamorous bunch? not much. their party is on the brink of internal civil war over joe’s brainpan whimsicality as it is.

so they have been all in on “trumpian terror tales” as core message.

they did everyhting but overtly declare him a “clear and present danger.”

"Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our country."

that’s a helluva soundbite from a sitting president.

it’s been unlike anything i have ever seen in america in terms of both stridence and consistency. they have thrown everything including the kitchen sink, silverware, and plumbing pipes at this guy and have whipped up their base into a level of jingoistic hate that seems to defy and deny all logic.

and it has not slowed down.

it was always a much worse look that team donkey realized to go this negative and aggressive. they were already losing the center over it.

the spectacle of the guy who is refusing to step down despite clear mental issues and being mired in an entire family of bribe takers and influence sellers who have been running show trials of political opponents accusing the other of acting the dictator is pretty well and truly over the line.

and this newfound trope of “he’ll take out his opponents” well, i mean, this one aged like a sardine i once lost down behind the backseat of a chevy.

pretty rancid for just 10 days old.

it’s all “gone pete tong” for the dem message machine.

trump's conviction backfired bigly on them and seems to have solidified support by helping more people see just how outlandish and rigged the system is as biden gets a pass on his classified docs issues because apparently he’s “too senile to know better” but somehow fine to run the country while trump faced prison for the presidential equivalent of a jaywalking ticket.

it all got a bit much to swallow and the ongoing rancor was already digging the dems a hole.

but this is a whole new day.

it all stops now.

it has to.

after this attack and his iconic and defiant response, they just cannot come at him like they have been. even the deep dems are realizing that this game is up. the internet has exploded with opprobrium and the folks saying “damn, how could they have missed” are getting dragged savagely.

you simply cannot do that.

you really cannot do any of this and never should have been able to and all the folks who have been so unbelievably far offside from civil discourse and basic decency have now been wrongfooted into eternal silence.

you simply cannot put this image

(stay classy kathy g)

next to this image:

which, frankly, could not have been shot better on a hollywood soundstage. saying “make america aim better” (and some literally did) is just a terrible and irrefutable set of self-indictment.

the echo chambers where this was OK all just shattered.

the folks who stripped the secret service and made it a DEI domain are all on the run.

there’s another core donkey braying point down for the count. this was a massive miss by the team to have a shooter on the obvious roof vantage 125m from the speaker and miss him. the cops seemingly saw him but retreated. it was stunning incompetence. maybe a bit more focus on effectiveness as opposed to “intersectional inclusivity” might be warranted.

rumors are swirling about this being deliberate and sanctioned from the top, but i think we want to be very careful with that one without some sort of serious proof. stupid things happen all the time, especially with collaborations and coms issue with locals and feds and it’s not like you can just shoot any fool you see on a roof. imagine the press of “SS shoots boy with telescope.”

but the folks who were recently advocating for rule changes that could strip donnie of SS protection altogether “because he’s a felon,” well, that’s not a bill i’d want my name on just now. nor would i want to be one of the ones who kept saying no to trump’s apparently repeated requests for more protective staff (his detail was small and badly overworked).

so what have the donkeys got left?

attacking trump as a monster just became political suicide.

DEI is crumbling.

immigration is a massive loser for them.

so is the economy.

so what’s the pitch?

and who can carry water for you?

the media exploded into all kinds of hilarious self-own trying to downplay what happened.

hell, they tried to make it look like a fall to make him seem as frail as joe. this does not play well with the bloody face fist pose of a guy who just got shot and is having none of it.

the media must be in apoplexy. their partisan mode has become a self-immolating pratfall and the harder they try, the worse it gets for them.

it was meme entrapment. they got utterly destroyed and lost yet another substantial piece of what little credibility remains to them after the senility cover up spin sessions. they actually thought they were being slick and effective to “help the team.”

but you cannot fight this. memelords for the win. (again)

there seems to be a strong new sense that the politics of vilification have gone too far. this is just not the sort of thing america tolerates and those cheering for it (there were folks who did this for reagan’s would be assassin too) are going to be rapidly ejected from the debate.

is “the election over”? no. but its character just changed and i’m not sure the dems have much in the way of ability to pivot.

i suspect any would be contenders potentially willing to step in and take over for joe just took a BIG step back and said “not into that maelstrom.”

congress will go into self-preservation mode and try to fight downticket races away from the presidential contest.

the presidency is no longer coat tails, it’s anchor chains.

hell, maybe this actually gets us some more relevant and civil races. stranger things have happened.

“rally round the flag” has its own sets of serious dangers (think back to iraq and afghanistan and the patriot act) but it’s where we are right now and if we’re going to extract some good from it, perhaps the good is this:

if we’re going to have american politics, let’s at least make them about principles and differing visions for the future as opposed to hate filled attacks and ad hominem. this is how you get divided societies that cannot be pulled back together. you cannot run on “my opponent is the devil” and then seek to “unify and heal wounds” if you win. trump too would do well to remember this.

as you all know, i’m no great fan of either candidate or of the increasingly imperial nature of the US presidency, but at least we can aim for being civilized. perhaps this is a watershed moment where we can all just take the heat down a little. there is a country attached to this partisan fracas and we all need to live in it.