Democrats embrace Trump tactics: As campaign heats up online, party leans into rumours and use of jabs
By: Donald Trump Jr. (The Globe and Mail)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
For months, crowds of Democratic Party supporters have been chanting "Lock him up!"
Then the party faithful began calling Donald Trump and his acolytes "weird."
Then, this week, Tim Walz, in his first speech as the newly installedDemocratic vice-presidential candidate, made a jab at his Republican opponent, J.D. Vance.
"I've got to tell you, I can't wait to debate the guy. That is, if he's willing to get off the couch and show up," Mr. Walz said. To anyone paying attention to the digital conversation around the election, it was an obvious reference to a fictitious anecdote that had circulated about Mr. Vance, a sofa and an odd sexual proclivity. The story has, for weeks, been thoroughly debunked.
Yet Mr. Walz was eager to turn that fiction into a punchline. "You see what I did there?" he said, as the crowd cheered and laughed.
For much of the past decade, fact-checkers and political opponents have criticized Mr. Trump for his use of inflammatory speech and his deliberate propagation of mistruths.
Now, Democrats, under their new presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, are employing some of the same tactics, a sign of the sweeping change to the conduct of U.S. politics wrought by Mr. Trump's success.
"The Harris and Walz party is just kind of taking a page out of the Trump playbook - trying to do some wild and crazy social-media stuff," said Fred Davis, a celebrated Republican advertising specialist.
Democrats have argued that facts are on their side. Mr. Trump, meanwhile, has spent years calling opponents names, belittling them, making thinly veiled appeals to violence against those who stand in his way and falsely accusing them of advocating for horrific policies.
But in decades of political work, "I haven't seen anything even close to this before," said Mr. Davis, who was a media strategist for the presidential campaigns of both George W. Bush and John McCain. He recalled Mr. McCain prohibiting the use of certain words that could be seen as racially charged in political advertising against his opponent, Barack Obama.
For Mr. McCain, winning came second to being honourable, Mr. Davis recalled.
Such rhetorical restraint has become a relic of a bygone era.
This year has brought a U.S. election like no other. The surprise withdrawal of Joe Biden from the campaign means three of the four main contestants only became candidates for president and vice-president in the past few weeks. Both sides have raced to define their opponents before they have a chance to do so themselves.
Democrats say their party has little choice.
"It's great to go high. But you can't go high consistently if someone" - Mr. Trump - "is going to just go low and lie and make things up and appeal to the poorest instincts of people," said Ed Rendell, a former chair of the Democratic National Committee and former governor of Pennsylvania.
He defended the Democratic attacks as being different in tone and in truth from those of Republicans. The chants of "lock her up" at Trump rallies in 2016, for example, were directed toward a candidate, Hillary Clinton, who had not been found guilty of any crimes, as Mr. Trump has.
And, Mr. Rendell said, "a lot of what we do is based on humour. It's not biting and vicious."
The couch story began circulating when a social-media user falsely claimed the anecdote had appeared in Mr. Vance's memoir, Hillbilly Elegy. The online ridicule continued even after it became widely known that there was no such passage in the book.
"They found a first printing which had that story in it," Mr. Rendell said, referencing a subsequent rumour about the supposed story - this one, too, baseless.
Republicans, meanwhile, were quick to respond in kind, promoting another narrative that is both bogus and salacious. After a fake news article circulated that claimed Mr. Walz had been hospitalized from "reportedly overingesting horse semen," the narrative was propagated on social media by right-wing broadcaster Jack Posobiec and Tyler Bowyer, a senior executive at the influential pro-Trump political advocacy organization Turning Point Action, and even by Donald Trump Jr., the son of the former president.
The horse story is thoroughly false - dismissed as "a joke" even by InfoWars, the far-right conspiracy site.
But it has circulated as Republicans probe for vulnerabilities in their new Democratic opponents. Mr. Trump has questioned Ms. Harris's identity as a Black person (her parents were Black and South Asian), and others have criticized her laugh and her liberal policy record. Republicans, meanwhile, have accused Mr. Walz of inflating his military credentials.
"It's the right wing trying to throw everything at this team to see what will stick," said Chuck Rocha, a Democratic political strategist. A U.S. presidential contest, he said, tends to be less about policies than personality. "It's about trust. And who you like. Literally, it's a popularity contest."
The Harris campaign has made its own thrusts at Mr. Trump, using social media to describe his "agitating, grating voice," mock the size of his rally crowds and call him "low energy."
Mr. Davis is bracing for worse to come in the hard-fought weeks that will follow the Democratic National Convention later this month.
"It's just going to be stark-raving mad," he said.
U.S. voters are preparing to elect a president who will be arguably the most powerful person on Earth. "And they're treating it kind of like a small-town mayor's race or something," Mr. Davis said.
He sees little prospect of a return to more dignified discourse.
"The genie has been let out of the bottle."
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I think he is right. If you go consistently high against Trump he will make you look "weak" to more voters than you can afford to lose. That is the world we have with social media and a news media that lets Trump do what he wants without any pushback.
Lol. Now they are admitting they are no better than Trump and want to be praised for it. Of course, Trump has been their go to ethical standard for years, so the only thing new is them admitting it.
No wonder they nominated a serial liar and resume inflater like Walz to spread lies about Vance to the large part of their base whose brains are so addled they can only cosume news in meme form.
You have jumped the shark, getting near the point it is a waste of time.
In 2016 Michelle Obama famously said "when they go low , we go high". That didnt work in 2016, did it? When Trump entered politics officially , in the 2015-16 Republican debates he immediately insulted everyone in sight, all of his opponents and even the debate moderators. Normally , prior to that, it is safe to say that would have ended someones political career. But he wasnt appealing to just anybody, he was appealing to people with a long list of 'grievances.' Over the years Trump and his followers have developed a strong sense of entitlement , believing they can say whatever they want about whoever they want and that is ok, and fun, but when it gets thrown back at them they say "look how rude and crude you Democrats are".
You know what? Fuck that.
You have to go either go after Trump as the lunatic imbecile he is, or risk getting stampeded.
Hillary Clinton's campaign planted a made up story with the media about Russian collusion (and avoided jail despite commiting the same "crime" Trump did) that dominated the country for years to distract from her own russian issues and you call that "going high?" Lol.
Fck that if they go low we go high strategy, as it does not bode well with todays voters. The Republican decimation of morals and ethics form,erly observed have left US with Trump the sexual assaulting perv who has erased the party of Religion and Family Values to Bangin pornstars while wifey home with the kids while he's out looking for playmates and taking bids, all while lying and cheating the whole way, cause Trump is a crime wave all by himself and by cheating and screwing over most all, is how he acquired his wealth and also how I believe he will fall. And if there is justice, he will take the gutless Republican party down with him, as they allowed this indecent proposal to get away with so much, it is just plain necessary for the Gems to do as such, for they are the enablers of a traitor who attempted to steal an election, and is in the process of repeating said feat, and he must be beat, and his supporters deprogrammed, cause it is ridiculous that this "man" is even allowed on a ballot, for he should be being struck in his tiny tentacle like testicles with a splinter ridden wooden mallet
Trump associates had something like 200 contacts with Russians in the period up to and surrounding the 2016 election. Trump himself egged on Russia to continue hacking both the Democratic National Committee computers, and also Hillary Clinton herself. His son and son in law met personally with someone they thought was bringing them "dirt" on Clinton direct from the Russian government. Trumps campaign manager was feeding polling information to a Russian spy. Trump lied about never having met Putin and whether he was doing business with Russia. The FBI not only had a right to investigate him, they had a duty.
The old chicken egg argument. I don’t look to Political Parties for guidance on morality or ethics. Perhaps the voters get what they deserve.
Russian collusion has been proven, your (and other's) repeated claim that it was fake does not change the facts.
Is it possible for maga to tell the truth?
We should just call them the party of projection which is all they are.
'with a splinter ridden wooden mallet' ouch and awesome!
No, it was never proven. If it was you would have posted the evidence.
Steele Dossier and Russian collusion hoax is an example of Democrats going "high"; or maybe their media sycophants and followers were high for believing that BS. Have leftists found the "pee tapes" they have been searching for since 2016?
He was a Democrat- he used the same tactics that Democrats have been using and abusing for decades.
It didn't end Clinton's or Obama's. Or are you forgetting all of the women Clinton sexually harassed? Hillary and the media hounded them until their either were beaten into submission and retracted their claims; or went into hiding. "They cling to their guns and religion" didn't end Obama- it damn well should have. The left went along fully with Hillary's "deplorables" comment. Biden won the presidency after his "you ain't black" comment.
Again, he used to be a Democrat; and the Democrats are the party of 'grievances'- whether it be class, sex, sexual orientation, race, or religion.
Looking in the mirror when typing that? Democrats and leftists are all attack; and need their safe spaces when anyone hits back. Get ready for a run on coloring books, Crayolas, and stuff animals (sorry no live animals for leftists this time) after the elections are over.
I agree. Fuck Democrats. They have been getting their way for decades enough of their shit. Enough of their weaponization of government; enough of their lawfare and two tier justice system; and enough of their attacking courts when they are the first and foremost abusers of using them.
Great thing about stampedes is that they aren't controllable; and the Hyena, Democrats, their sycophants in the media, and sheeple followers are standing smack dab in the way of one. There will be no lying their way out this time.
Goebbels is a hero to Democrats everywhere.
Your facts are Democrat lies. Russia planned events aiding and attacking both sides. Democrats only concentrated on those that helped Trump.
Putin thanks you for your continued support of his disproven hoax and would gladly give you the "pee tapes" you are so desperately looking for; but they (like everything else) were a lie.
Lol. Not a single American was ever indicted for colluding with Russia to influence the 2016 election. Not one.
Even the Obama's intelligence officials saw through the Clinton bought "steele dossier" as a Clinton ploy to distract from her own problems.
He is half right, 1 candidate absolutely colluded with Russia, she hired a foreign agent to work with Russian intelligence to gather dirt on her opponent, there is no way to dispute this fact.
Trump handed all of his polling data over to Manafort I believe, cause there was a need to know order Putin. Yes the Russians were given the GOP voting demographic and where it was in Russia's best interest, to mole into social neatoe media to catfish up some bottom feedin scum with sleeping bags under their eyes of hazel. Did you ever read the final report ? Cause My=Utah Mutha fromquite an impression Abul mutha say take tit oooooftem
The Mueller report has been posted numerous times, why should I bother again just so you can deny reality?
Mueller refutes Trump’s ‘no collusion, no obstruction’ line
Or the Senate investigation?
Senate Russia report proves Trump collusion was very real. But do voters care?
Or even Trump's own words?
Trump admits son met Russian for information on opponent
Truth be known, but the Dems have always gone low and resorted to dirty tricks and lies, while the Republicans have stayed above the fray. But starting with Trump, the Republicans finally found out the fire needs to be fought with a backfire and have acted accordingly. I could waste a lot of time pulling up examples of this which would be ignored anyway.
It's called politics and just about anything goes, so it's not a game for the faint of heart, or those seeking truth and guidance. I haven't heard anything so far that would induce anyone to vote for the Dems.
Straight up PD&D + delusion.
The Obama campaign against Romney with Biden telling blacks he would make them slaves again, Reid laughing about lying about Romney's tax records because "they won" and dems running ads showing Romney and Ryan killing seniors made that clear.
Trump’s mama was so fat, she used Google Earth to take a selfie.
Any photos I've seen of her, she doesn't look fat, she looks dead.