the public already thinks republicans are doing a horrible job on medicaid. should democrats try to stage some townhalls where they can get people screaming about it? sure! but tanking trump's numbers on immigration isn't mutually exclusive of this
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I get pretty tired of people saying @democrats.org should do this instead of that. Do this AND that. Seriously.
jun 20, 2025, 7:54 pm • 44 0 • view
People do the same thing with the administration. "[A] is a distraction from [B]!" No. The administration is more than one asshole with more than one priority. Some are focused on A and others on B, C, or D. Similarly there are thousands of elected Dems and staffers who can do more than one thing.
jun 20, 2025, 10:17 pm • 13 1 • view
Exactly. This administration is a forest fire. Yes, Tree A and Tree B and Tree C are on fire. If Tree D starts on fire, noticing and responding to it isn't being "distracted," it's a new part of the original problem. And nothing gets better until you take the matches away from the orange arsonist.
jun 20, 2025, 11:10 pm • 10 0 • view
Are Dems trying the "Attack their strength" strategy? Maybe. But, as you say, there's enough room in the news cycle to kick them in the proverbial sensitive areas at the same time.
jun 20, 2025, 3:05 pm • 0 0 • view
In other words, there is the smallest upside in staging confrontations on Dems' best issues. It's the least valuable type of confrontation. The most upside is on immigration, which is why these ICE confrontations are a good idea!
jun 20, 2025, 3:53 pm • 0 0 • view
I expect the point of the ICE scrutiny isn’t to win over racists and xenophobes - it’s about constitutional rights, rule of law, and checking state violence and cruelty. I guess the question is, can Dems win national elections without winning over the racists and xenophobes? And then, at what cost?
jun 20, 2025, 2:21 pm • 6 0 • view
i like how Matt is certain the bill is massively unpopular and also certain D's had nothing to do with messaging the things that make it unpopular
jun 20, 2025, 2:15 pm • 8 0 • view
It doesn’t need to be either or. It can be yes to both and what else?
jun 20, 2025, 2:20 pm • 3 0 • view
It’s bc they really don’t disagree with what Trumps doing re immigration. It’s not strategy, it’s support.
jun 20, 2025, 2:14 pm • 0 0 • view
It's so weird how people don't think people can do two things at one time. "Dems should focus on immigration!" "Dems should focus on medicaid!"
jun 20, 2025, 2:21 pm • 6 0 • view
At this point It's virtually like MattY is being paid to be a Fifth Columnist the way he is always trying to get Democrats to shoot themselves in the foot with his contrary "wisdom."
jun 20, 2025, 3:09 pm • 0 0 • view
I will never understand the endless “helpful” advice that Dems should focus on a different issue/message than the one that’s currently working (especially when flooding the zone and hammering MAGA on everything is always an option!)
jun 20, 2025, 5:03 pm • 0 0 • view
More, isn’t it smart to knock down the pillars that keep up the illusion of Trump’s competence? Make him a loser on foreign affairs, immigration and the economy and what is there left for independents and soft right leaning centrists to hold onto? It all serves the same purposes.
jun 20, 2025, 9:46 pm • 0 0 • view
popularism can never fail, it can only be failed
jun 20, 2025, 5:00 pm • 0 0 • view
the thing that always gets me about this is that it's not like you can bottom out an issue or something. It's not like it's possible to make Trump's Medicaid numbers go down so far that he just gives up or something.
jun 20, 2025, 8:37 pm • 3 0 • view
Interrupting ICE and gumming up their works is its own reward. And it can actually save people targeted for deportation RIGHT NOW.
jun 20, 2025, 3:38 pm • 2 0 • view
Yeah it’s just wild that “telling people what they already think about a popular issue” is what you think will break through the news cycle rather than “challenging the administration on their strongest issue that they always place front and center and taking it away from them”.
jun 20, 2025, 5:11 pm • 0 0 • view
Send the border-squishy House Dems in ruralish districts (Golden, Cuellar, Gluesenkamp Perez) to hold Protect Our Hospitals rallies while the NY/NJ/CA/IL Dems confront ICE. Will the former group garner national media attention? Probably not, but it won't hurt their reelection efforts.
jun 20, 2025, 2:29 pm • 5 1 • view
Trump's deportation numbers are already in the tank, partly because he wildly over promised what he could deliver. That's why ICE is picking up random people who are harmless. There aren't nearly as many criminal immigrants as Trump claimed because he was lying about it.
jun 20, 2025, 4:08 pm • 1 0 • view
Why do Democratic "allies" view immigration as a zero-sum game?
jun 20, 2025, 2:19 pm • 5 0 • view
Imagine thinking Matt ever made an interesting point
jun 20, 2025, 3:53 pm • 0 0 • view
I don't know, my D party does not seem to do very well with multi-tasking. Hell, half the time, they don't even do very well with single-tasking.
jun 20, 2025, 3:28 pm • 0 0 • view
It's also a lot easier to sell stunts where damage is already happening and is clearly visible as opposed to damage coming in the future and more indirect
jun 20, 2025, 2:16 pm • 1 0 • view
This was a core Lee Atwater principle - go after your opponents' strengths, not weakness.
jun 20, 2025, 2:11 pm • 14 1 • view
It’s the classic message of plane with red dots
jun 20, 2025, 2:12 pm • 10 0 • view
Different people care about different things so why not have our best messengers on various issues continue to loudly beat their respective drums? There are enough democrats available to cover multiple bases ffs
jun 20, 2025, 2:16 pm • 2 0 • view
And apparently border crossings are up
jun 20, 2025, 2:16 pm • 0 0 • view
Rather than passively chasing current public opinion on issues, it is possible to attempt to change it through “stunts” like these.
jun 20, 2025, 2:30 pm • 0 0 • view
Bits of flying garbage seem discrete but all from same source: Trump can't care. Not doesn't. Can't. Mental aberration prevents. Show how inability seen in medical care, lawful working immigrants, tariff effects, classified info, etc. It's all of a piece. And GOP parrot and ape him. Show that
jun 21, 2025, 2:17 am • 0 0 • view
There's like 250 D Reps and Senators? So if like 50 of em who represent districts/states with large immigrant communities want to focus on this while another 50 where hospitals are being shut can focus on Medicaid cuts and then another 50 can go after the trade war fiasco, etc. Hit em on all fronts.
jun 20, 2025, 2:21 pm • 3 0 • view
I think Karl Rove was probably right about this: attack your opponent’s strength, not just their weaknesses. People didn’t vote for Trump b/c of his stance on Medicare. They voted on the economy and immigration. & the economy is going to start sucking very soon for most people all by itself.
jun 20, 2025, 8:30 pm • 2 0 • view
I know it’s easily to be cynical about his takes, but in this case I don’t think he’s arguing that they are mutually exclusive. I see him arguing that Dems should take what’s worked in terms of garnering and spotlighting attention on immigration, and apply it to other domains as well.
jun 20, 2025, 2:35 pm • 3 0 • view
He literally spent the last 3 weeks attacking Democrats for going after Trump on Immigration. He now says,sure it worked, but what about... he's full of it. And I was a big Yglesias fan prior to 2021. I bought his 1 billion Americans book.
jun 21, 2025, 1:04 am • 1 0 • view
why did Republicans make such a big deal about the Afghanistan withdrawal when they knew Biden polled well on foreign policy?
jun 20, 2025, 2:22 pm • 1 0 • view
we're not making closing arguments in an election year, you can talk about multiple bad things simultaneously
jun 20, 2025, 2:24 pm • 0 0 • view
Refreshing that Iglesias doesn't want to be a scold (untrue), but the distinction he's failing to make is that masked, warrantless abduction & disappearance is happening now with devastating effects while medical care denial is conducted by faceless back-room bureaucrats who aren't breaking the law.
jun 20, 2025, 5:48 pm • 1 0 • view
Rove thought it was important to go after an opponent's strengths. Seemed to work in 2004
jun 20, 2025, 2:11 pm • 8 0 • view
Kerry's strength was his service in Vietnam. (Remember "reporting for duty" at the convention?) And Rove totally eviscerated that strength with the Swift Boat Veterans ads.
jun 20, 2025, 4:05 pm • 5 0 • view
Seems like there are enough Democrat politicians to go after both immigration and Medicaid
jun 20, 2025, 2:14 pm • 0 0 • view
Well said!
jun 20, 2025, 2:12 pm • 0 0 • view
The bummer is that the side who most benefits from being educated by the media only dabbles in free news. With most editorial board approved content going through a paywall, the common person in America might as well get there news from RT.
jun 20, 2025, 2:26 pm • 1 0 • view
ETTD. We need to emphasize and detail the E. (ETTD=Everything Trump Touches Dies)
jun 20, 2025, 2:41 pm • 0 0 • view
This assumes that the publics mind can be changed! As everybody knows this is impossible. If it were possible, "theater" would have made it out of the ancient world, rather than strangled in the crib
jun 20, 2025, 2:18 pm • 1 0 • view
Ok, but we're all going to die.
jun 20, 2025, 3:48 pm • 0 0 • view
Where did this all pervasive idea of not being able to walk and chew gum start? Can we punch the originators of it in the neck?
jun 20, 2025, 5:15 pm • 4 0 • view
Someone will be along shortly to inform you that walking and chewing gum is a DISTRACTION. They probably won't tell you what it's supposed to distract you from, but they're very confident that no one could walk and chew gum AND address meaningful issues (usually economic, I guess) at the same time.
jun 20, 2025, 6:05 pm • 3 0 • view
I was working the polls yesterday and one of my fellow workers, a black Republican Marine, told me how he and his neighbors got in ICE agents faces to save their neighbors, who he described as hard working and responsible. Hated the fact that they were targeting US citizens.
jun 20, 2025, 2:34 pm • 4 0 • view
Where I do think there's an opportunity is to do more messaging that these aren't disparate issues, they're all wrapped up in one big issue: the entrenchment of money and power for in the hands of a few and the use of a combination of state violence and neglect to enforce it.
jun 20, 2025, 2:13 pm • 8 0 • view
It is because there are crowding-out effects. I don’t understand why this is so hard to acknowledge.
jun 20, 2025, 2:18 pm • 0 0 • view
There are no distractions, only fronts in an information war, and if you're not fighting you're retreating
jun 20, 2025, 10:03 pm • 2 1 • view