Great interview w Jeff; I thought his assessment of the problem now being 'bottom up' rings particularly true (e.g. the anecdotes about local sheriffs seeing themselves as somehow outside of federal law; or the more radical views found on local school boards)
One thought occurred about better communicating the danger Trump poses, in parti…
Great interview w Jeff; I thought his assessment of the problem now being 'bottom up' rings particularly true (e.g. the anecdotes about local sheriffs seeing themselves as somehow outside of federal law; or the more radical views found on local school boards)
One thought occurred about better communicating the danger Trump poses, in particular to the independent/undecided voter -- and this is around how we describe Trump.
I think everyone recognizes calling him a Hitler equivalent is counterproductive (we lose credibility with moderate voter with an extreme comparison like this).
But I think there is the same counterproductive effect when we call him a fascist (or a 'soft fascist' as Tim was saying); not because it's not true, but because I think the average person who is not particularly educated doesn't understand how fascism is defined; if anything, for some (most?) there is probably an equivalence in their head between fascism = Nazism, and again you run into this loss of credibility/eye rolling from the people you are trying to persuade.
Even "authoritarian" is a bit of a tough sell to the average 'low information' voter (although it is better imo).
I don't think there is an easy answer here, but we need a shorthand way of describing the danger Trump poses, which balances risk of *appearing* to exaggerate (via associations voters have with certain words/phrases), vs the serious danger Trump poses, not just narrowly to the democratic process, but to the broader system of 3 independent branches of government.
Great interview w Jeff; I thought his assessment of the problem now being 'bottom up' rings particularly true (e.g. the anecdotes about local sheriffs seeing themselves as somehow outside of federal law; or the more radical views found on local school boards)
One thought occurred about better communicating the danger Trump poses, in particular to the independent/undecided voter -- and this is around how we describe Trump.
I think everyone recognizes calling him a Hitler equivalent is counterproductive (we lose credibility with moderate voter with an extreme comparison like this).
But I think there is the same counterproductive effect when we call him a fascist (or a 'soft fascist' as Tim was saying); not because it's not true, but because I think the average person who is not particularly educated doesn't understand how fascism is defined; if anything, for some (most?) there is probably an equivalence in their head between fascism = Nazism, and again you run into this loss of credibility/eye rolling from the people you are trying to persuade.
Even "authoritarian" is a bit of a tough sell to the average 'low information' voter (although it is better imo).
I don't think there is an easy answer here, but we need a shorthand way of describing the danger Trump poses, which balances risk of *appearing* to exaggerate (via associations voters have with certain words/phrases), vs the serious danger Trump poses, not just narrowly to the democratic process, but to the broader system of 3 independent branches of government.