Snowflakes. Groomers. Cucks.
For years the MAGA movement has approached politics the way a bully would approach a schoolyard, sparring with labels so nasty, they seemed expressly chosen to appeal to the kind of people who stuffed nerds in lockers in sixth grade. And for years Democrats, abiding by the mantra to go high, not low, have responded by trying to be the adults in the room: defending themselves with facts, with context, with earnest explanations that nobody remembers (if they defend themselves at all).
The problem is that taking the high road only works if politics is a sport played mainly by people who act like grown-ups, which it is not. And also: Facts and context don’t make for particularly sticky messaging.
Enter: Weird.
Over the past two weeks, as “Brat” and coconut memes have taken over the internet and Kamala Harris inches closer to Donald Trump in the polls, the Democrats have finally gone low, deploying a bit of verbal jujitsu so delightfully petty it might just work.
It’s further back than that. Newt Gingrich in the 90s proved that the “fuck you, I’m gonna break your shit” republican strategy was surprisingly (politically) effective in the context of winning American elections and curbing the (publicly apparent) effectiveness of the Democratic Party. The DNC just took over 30 fucking years to fully understand that, and in the interim, the American public has paid the price.
I considered pushing back even into the late 70s. I think though, the shift to the modern mental breakdown really began happening after Sept. 11th. With 2002 really kicking off the U.S. involvement in the middle east as a response to the incident. As we know now pointing the guns at the more convenient (for us) targets. I’m no historian though.