Hit 'em Where It Hurts: Rachel Bitecofer on How to Stop Trump, MAGA -- and Save Democracy [View all]

[Celerity]

https://washingtonspectator.org/rachel-bitecofer-on-how-to-stop-trump-maga-save-democracy/



Despite a surprisingly good showing by many Democrats in 2022 and recent special elections — due in part to the backlash against the Supreme Court’s 2022 abortion ruling and extremist GOP candidates — there are good reasons to fear the very real possibility of a Trump victory in November. Just look at Trump’s lead in polling in seven swing states as just one sign of the trouble the incumbent President is facing – and the wishful thinking of some pundits like Ezra Klein and nearly half the electorate that Biden should leave the race. That sentiment, at least for now, has lost some of its momentum after last week’s robust State of the Union speech. Even so, Democrats are still struggling to respond to negative views of Joe Biden’s memory and age. This was heightened by the gratuitous smears about the President’s memory in the investigation filed by special counsel Robert Hur into Hunter Biden’s business activities, which recommended that no charges be brought against either father or son. These findings were notable in part because Hur had been nominated in 2017 by then president Trump to serve as US Attorney for the District of Maryland.

Underlying all this political skirmishing are decades of generally feckless, wonky Democratic responses to effective, emotional Republican messaging which has persistently branded Democrats as dangerous, big-spending, soft-on-crime socialists. More recently, as the prescient political scientist and strategist Rachel Bitecofer has observed, GOP labeling has been updated to include a new emphasis: “Democrats are pedophiles and are going to turn your male children into girls.” In her important new book, Hit ‘Em Where it Hurts: How to Save Democracy By Beating Republicans At Their Own Game, Bitecofer argues for a no-holds-barred counter-offensive in election races at all levels, painting in stark terms the Democrats as the party of freedom and the Republicans as the party of, yes, fascism. “If everybody is pounding the theme of waking America up to the threat that is the modern Republican party, then Democrats should be able to survive. And if we survive, that means democracy can survive,” she told The Washington Spectator in a recent interview. (You can hear an audio of our conversation here.)

Her model for much of this strategy? The Republican Party itself, minus the brazen lies and nutty conspiracy theories. For example, she recommends that the Biden-Harris campaign get out of its weak defensive crouch over age-related issues. Instead, she says, go after Trump and undermine the negative portrayals with ad buys, more close-up news appearances and targeted counter-attacks. “Rather than defending Biden’s age, other than the jokes he makes about it, what they should be doing is spending money making sure America sees how deranged Donald Trump is,” she argues. Here’s the tactic that should be deployed: “You have to pivot and attack and make them regret bringing up mental fitness every time they mention it because then they get barraged with Trump’s rantings.” (A step in that direction was taken last week when the Biden campaign’s X account posted video snippets of Trump’s chaotic verbal stumbles. And Biden in his State of the Union remarks was credited with repeated attacks on his “predecessor” that painted Trump and the GOP as threats to democracy and freedom, while undermining their arguments that he was too impaired to serve as president.)

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Bitecofer is not just another progressive pundit wringing her hands and hoping that the Democrats get tougher. She has earned her reputation as “The Election Whisperer,” in large part because of her eerily accurate prediction of the Blue Wave in the 2018 mid-terms after Trump’s first years in office. She forecast a 42-seat gain, very close to the final Democratic pick-up of 40 seats. She beat virtually all conventional pollsters with a prediction made four months before that November’s election. Bitecofer’s forecasts and prescriptions are shaped by a deep study of actual voting behavior. For example, she punctures the myth that large swaths of the public are truly independent, follow politics and are open to persuasion across party lines. “What dictates voter choice is partisanship,” she notes. “All I need to know: Are you a Democrat or do you lean to the Democratic party or are you a Republican or do you lean to the Republican party? You take away those people who nine out of 10 times are going to vote for the party that they lean towards or are in — and once you take them out of the pool, you’re talking about 15% of the electorate that is kind of really persuadable.” “Based on your views of the two parties, she says, “I will be able to predict your vote choice a year away from the next election.”

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