Yeah, the people who’ve been watching FNC and its TV and radio siblings for a long time and subjecting themselves to brain melt were never gettable. But the young and racial minority voters who swung right had opted into Rogan et al. because those voices attacked progressive culture.
By 2023-2024 most of this stuff had washed out amidst the cultural backlash, but anyone who pretends this stuff wasn’t pervasive not just in niche media and academia but also politics at all levels of government (largely thanks to advanced degree’d staff) is just delusional. Tom has plenty to cite!
2017-2022 were particularly bad. The 2020 primary campaign did immeasurable damage to Harris in 2024, and it didn’t help that the first couple years of the Biden term were focused on performative policy delivery for all the progressive coalition factions that expected a dividend from the win.
The reason this stuff fundamentally matters when there’s an obvious greater threat is the extent to which popular legitimacy still matters. It doesn’t take a social scientist to explain why people will let the bad people with guns do bad things when their alternative is culturally anathema.
So yeah, hugging the flag (+ Cheney) wasn’t enough to turn things around in ‘24 because the decisive cohort had already locked into RW media ecosystem. But irrespective of policy (which matters), it’s closer to the messaging that siphons support from Rs. The other stuff induces relapse.
And to be clear - the solution for pols and orgs isn’t a rampage of punching left. Take a few tactical jabs, concede “yeah a lot of that stuff was silly” while turning the argument around to deeply unpopular current policy, and otherwise just use more universalist language.