[watwut]

Meh, it is clear where they care coming from and they talk quite clearly. What we need to do is to stop like naïve Pollyanna's, stop relying on fact checks, stop pretending "both sides are equal" and engage with dirty fight they do.

[Tainnor]

What "dirty fight" are you envisioning? Prosecuting Trump in court doesn't appear to work and is disparaged as "lawfare". Biden calling Trump voters trash apparently backfires, but nothing Trump or his campaign says ever backfires.

[watwut]

Prosecuting Trump in court is not dirty fight. It is something that should have happen, because being politician should not mean being lawless.

I envision actual politicians and journalists calling trump what he is more rather then less.

[rob74]

> politician should not mean being lawless

Well, the US Supreme Court decided more or less exactly that presidents can break the law and get away with it: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czrrv8yg3nvo

And "calling him what he is" has so far failed to sway his supporters, I don't see how it will do it now. OTOH, he (probably?) won't stand for election again, so the point is probably moot...

[fsckboy]

>the US Supreme Court decided more or less exactly that presidents can break the law and get away with it

no, they did not. The court pointed out that the remedy (specified in the Constitution) for a president who breaks the law is impeachment and conviction by the house and senate. After which, that former president could be subject to prosecution.

[watwut]

Democratic party goes out of its way to look center, be accommodating and non confrontial. It just does not work.

I stand by "politician should not mean being lawless". US Supreme Court being pro lawless when it comes to GOP is just politics of US Supreme Court. It does not mean law should not matter or that trying to apply law is fighting dirty.

[rightbyte]

"Lock her up!" Wasn't that the chant from some of his supporters?

It is funny how these things turn out and who actually does what in the end and how differently it is treated.

[Tainnor]

> Prosecuting Trump in court is not dirty fight. It is something that should have happen

I agree, but I call it "dirty fight" because that's what it's perceived as by the Trump supporters.

[watwut]

Trump and his supporters will say anything and accepting their framing again and again should be already seen as proven failure strategy. It just does not work.

It is not dirty fight, full stop. Dirty fight would be to act like Trump and his supporters do or approaching it.

[Tainnor]

Again, what specifically are you suggesting? To me, it looks as if neither the high nor the low road is working.

[watwut]

I suggest we stop with the "we need to engage with these folks and stop disparaging them" nonsense designed to create unequal situation where GOP and Trump can be arbitrary dirty, but everyone else needs to treat them with kids gloves and use euphemisms.

I suggest Democratic party to become more aggressive rather then forever trying to paint themselves as "the adult ones" and forever put themselves into center. It just does not work and serves only to allow overtone window to move toward radical conservativism.

I suggest we stop demanding that "both sides" are described in the same terms. I suggest we stop following nonsense:

> We need to talk to them, we need to understand where they're coming from, we need to help clear the air between "us and them" so that there won't be an "us and them" and so we can _together_ avoid people that tell us what we want to hear.

For example, conservative Christians are coming from the point of view of someone who thinks women should be submissive to men, should have less legal rights, abortion and contraception are wrong because they allow for safer sex.

For example, quite a lot of people in GOP are coming to it with idea that being gay is disgrace, being trans deserve severe punishment and that being criminal is cool as long as you are rich white guy.

Actually engage with these rather then euphemism them away.

[o11c]

I for one think the an anti-Trump campaign that just spammed his "grab them by the pussy, you can do anything" comment would've cut his support among religious voters significantly. It was mentioned in D-leaning spaces but never a campaign focus (at least, not in any of the attack ads I have seen - they were all about issues only D's care about, rallying the base rather than actually trying to care what non-base voters think).

The economy might be what swung this vote, but long-term it's hard to understate how much ground the D's have lost among religious voters for "embracing sexual immorality". Believe it or not, bringing up hypocrisy does work on many of them (at least it might make them stay home) and mere apologies won't erase it. Latinos are where this jumps out in statistics, but it's far from limited to them.

Possibly the reason D's didn't do that (much) was because it would have little down-ballot effect, and no effect on future candidates?

(on another angle, we could've seen "we have reined in Trump's inflation so at least it won't get worse", "Trump gave unconditional handouts without the Democrat-recommended constraints", etc.)