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Joe Mama's avatar

Re: the effectiveness of the "democracy is on the ballot" message - not only is it not, but it's also a great example of an argument Democrats should probably abandon if they are serious about cooling down the temperature of our political rhetoric, as both parties (at least temporarily) agree we need to do.

It's of course way too early to establish a motive for the attempted assassination of Trump the other day. But as a hypothetical, it's absolutely conceivable that saving American democracy could be a plausible rationale why someone might do such a thing.

Furthermore, we have been saying democracy is in existential danger for how long exactly? I remember similar arguments directed against the Bush administration in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, for instance when Ari Fleischer admonished critics of the president to "watch what they say". Yet here we are nearly a quarter-century later preparing to undertake a free and fair election in which the incumbent is a Democrat. It's surprising that only recently have we begun hearing Democrats called out for crying wolf on this issue.

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Brandy's avatar

Vance is brilliant, graduated from one of the "elite" schools, served in the Marines, wrote a book that was made into a movie that liberals fawned over until he outed as conservative, the book being about the people who have been left behind. He's very young, so he will have fresh ideas that will appeal to the younger men the Dems have basically thrown out. He's happily married. And, I'd pay money to watch a debate between Kamala and him.

As far as the "threat to democracy" messaging, it's literally bouncing right off people. It's been done to death. Someone should bury the poor thing. No one is buying this hysteria messaging anymore. The thing is this: it's easy to win elections if you are doing your job and making American lives better. Your ideas and your record could sell itself. If you need to go too much beyond that in trying to scare people, your choices and policies are bad. Yet, I haven't seen any walk backs on the hard left turn from the Biden administration. The hard left turn is what has him in this position.

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