At a time when the average person is struggling to make ends meet, healthcare costs are higher than ever, Trump’s foot soldiers continue to disapper innocent people from U.S. streets, and pundits from both parties seem content with sabotaging their candidates’ campaigns, we should address one crucial and simple truth: MAGA is never going to vote for someone with a “D” by their name, just like any staunch Democrat is unlikely to vote for someone with an “R” by it.
Republicans don’t bother trying to win Democratic voters because they focus on maintaining their base and targeting conservative Independents. Democrats seem to think they can win over disgruntled MAGA voters. They can’t, and they won’t. While we may see some Trumpers upset with President Donald Trump’s policies, don’t think for a second you’re going to win them away from the Republican Party. They will always rationalize their fear of voting for something that may benefit them simply because of party affiliation. Because of “tradition,” or whatever.
Currently, online discourse is a full-on knife fight. While conservative pundits target each other, centrist liberals are targeting progressives. The fracturing continues to grow, and the billionaire-backed consultant/pundit class seems content to continue fomenting and creating wedge issues via culture wars. In 2024, Democrats buying into Republican culture wars to appease MAGA and make up for their alienating progressives and independents, instead of listening to them, is largely why they lost. Yes, Israel’s genocide also played a role, and it’s playing one today.
However, like in 2024, there are many issues at play. Considering that both candidates in the last presidential election were intent on letting Israel commit genocide, leaving voters with little choice on the issue, roughly 150 million voters were forced to differentiate the candidates based on domestic issues. Today, it’s much the same, except this time, centrist Democrats are driving the culture wars through cynical claims of racism, sexism, and antisemitism while expressing their own racist and Islamophobic tropes. While much of this is happening online, it matters.
Many will say that social media isn’t the real world, but because it influences so many people in myriad ways, it’s absolutely a part of it. No rational person cares to see Laura Loomer and Marjorie Taylor Greene fight it out online, just like no rational person cares that Loomer helped get disgraced far-right influencer Milo Yiannopoulos deported. But when Loomer targets a Black Senate candidate in Florida with racist slander, everyone should care. None of her racist attacks are ambiguous. They weaponize historically racist language. There is no doubt here.
For example, Loomer referred to Nixon, along with Reps. Ilhan Omar (MN-5) and Ayanna Pressley (MA-7), former Rep. Cori Bush, and Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson as “all ghetto, entitled, race-obsessed, destructive black BITCHES who are completely unfit for the power they hold.” Her comments sparked immediate backlash online and through various independent media outlets.
Yet, days after the racist attacks, condemnations of Loomer’s behavior from prominent Democrats had been nonexistent, even as the aggression against Nixon escalated. This matters because for months, there have been obviously coordinated attacks of racism and antisemitism against “white leftists,” progressives, and others not toeing the centrist party line. The similarities in rhetoric from both sides of the political aisle are obvious. For Republicans, it begins with the Red Scare fear of “communism,” while for Democrats, it’s the same Red Scare fear, but of “democratic socialism.” Both parties are working outward from there.
The foundation of the non-partisan faux panic seems based on the philosophy that things are good enough and voters shouldn’t demand more from lawmakers. That we shouldn’t push back on the surveillance state, data centers, war, and social justice and instead work with what we’re stuck with, as if people aren’t suffering, poverty isn’t increasing, and voters are losing their rights at seemingly every turn. Instead, the focus has been on continuing to alienate progressives while attempting to court MAGA. Essentially, a new Republican Party. A losing strategy.
In a recent press conference, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries seemed to dash all hopes of the popular policies progressives are winning on, highlighting how party leadership still isn’t listening. His plan for Democrats taking power in the House is simply to take us back to where we were before the current Trump administration, which wasn’t working. The policies he mentioned are undoubtedly needed to mitigate harm, but voters are seeking something better than the status quo. They are looking to improve the lives of everyone, particularly those in need.
Meanwhile, the most critical issues facing voters are similarly being ignored by the punditry, as they create a culture war while spreading misinformation and outright lies to silence a private citizen who has no power and is not running for office. Cynical claims of antisemitism that are rooted in Islamophobia have been prevalent alongside many other cynical claims. It should be noted that many of the voices making these false claims are from the same camp as those who suggested to Texans that they needed a white man to win an election and often claim that Jewish people and Zionists are the same (an antisemitic trope).
When Rep. Angie Nixon beat Alexander Vindman in the Senate primary in Florida, at least one Democratic strategist reportedly said that since Vindman lost, they no longer have to spend money on the Florida Senate race, suggesting it’s already lost. Again, expressing their outright racism by only being willing to help if it were a white man. Since Loomer’s racist attack against Nixon, at least one centrist, Shannon Watts, has come out in support of her campaign, saying, “Winning is the best antidote to hatred,” in a social media post.
But I have to wonder. Are the days of polite racism leaving the Democratic Party? Having a pundit like Neera Tanden previously retweeting a racist like Loomer as she targeted progressives and not denouncing Loomer’s racist attacks against Nixon speaks volumes. The days of silence for Democratic leadership are even louder, especially considering that Marjorie Taylor Greene spoke out before they did. Uncanny, I know.
For context, Tanden is the former Director of the Domestic Policy Council of the United States under former President Joe Biden; she allegedly helped draft the Affordable Care Act under former President Barack Obama; and is currently president and CEO of the Center for American Progress, all of which speak to how much political power she wields as a consultant for Democrats. Tanden carries this around as her social proof while vilifying anyone on social media who thinks differently from billionaire-driven centrist policies. Many will often dismiss Tanden as irrelevant, but she is not, as long as Democrats listen to her.
Tanden is not alone; others, such as Shannon Watts, Fred Guttenberg, and the Editor-in-Chief at CBS, Bari Weiss, have led a full-blown campaign to associate every progressive idea with a single person (Hasan Piker) or movement (the Democratic Socialists of America), even weaponizing blatant Islamophobia. By doing so, they are leading a campaign to dismiss any popular progressive ideas. The billionaire class behind both parties doing all of this also controls the news media and funds the consultant class, which funnels money to people who’ll take attention away from the cancerous infusion of money into politics.
For the loudest pundits on both sides of the political aisle, their core issues align with pushing back against voters who are grossly disgruntled with Israel. But like stopping data centers and the surveillance state, ending support for Israel with U.S. tax dollars is a largely nonpartisan issue. Entire careers are hanging on the defense of the indefensible: genocide. Glossing over war crimes and the murder of children while also supporting the U.S.’s unjust war in Iran and its outright attempt to take over Latin America are starting to look more like career-ending moves.
Even so, if their careers ended tomorrow, it wouldn’t faze them one bit. What are they actually risking by being this inhumane and dishonest? Nothing of theirs and everything of yours. They are financially set for life. What has become clear is that the people with billionaire backers who get trotted out on TV are attempting to drive policy by drowning out rational people. It behooves voters in the United States to ignore the punditry and billionaire-funded sensationalized news and make decisions based on policy, not childish hyperbole.
For Democrat candidates, it is incumbent upon them to consider dumping these “consultants” like an abusive partner. Plenty of people could do what they do for a fraction of the cost, and any one of them is unlikely to be as wrong about everything all the time. But people are getting rich off of dividing the country and steering candidates in the wrong direction. Isn’t every single voter in the United States sick of this nonsense by now? I sure as hell am.
In 1952, Harry Truman said, “Given the choice between a Republican and someone who acts like a Republican, people will vote for the real Republican all the time.” There’s a 74-year-old message there for Democrats, but they might just be in too deep with billionaire-first consultants to see the error of their ways. It makes change incumbent on voters, and there are plenty of candidates out there not taking corporate money. Angie Nixon in Florida and Gina Hinojosa in Texas are just two great examples of that.
No, it doesn’t have to be a white man to win an election. Voters do that. All they require are popular ideas and policies. Seems simple enough, doesn’t it?
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