Let us not forget that uneducated moron Lauren Boebert called the separation of Church and State “junk.”
Once again, we are facing the most important election of our lives. The midterm results will either mean that we preserve democracy, or that we descend into Christofascism. But all we hear from Dems are pleas to vote. WE will. And so will the party of fascists, forced-birthers, misogynists, rape apologists, racists, fake Christians, and those who hate anyone who isn’t cis and/or heterosexual. We NEED the Independents, whose voting bloc is larger than ours or that of the GOP. But “Please vote blue” doesn’t inspire the undecided or indifferent. MILLIONS of Americans who are eligible to vote DON’T vote. And that serves the GOP. They can’t win without indifferent non-voters, gerrymandering, voter suppression, the elimination of ballot boxes, corrupt election officials, and corrupt Secretaries of State. Our messaging needs to reach both Independents and red state voters who may be unaware of the GOP agenda and how it will affect THEM.
Conservative brains are wired to react to fear. The GOP (and NRA) understand this all too well, and use it effectively in their messaging. They inflame their voters with dramatic rhetoric, claiming that they’ll lose their guns, teachers are groomers, books will change a child’s sexual orientation, and other lies. And their mostly uneducated base BELIEVES this crap, spreads it through social media, and they turn out in droves to vote, mostly as single-issue voters who know NOTHING about the GOP’s more nefarious agendas.
Republicans will gut Medicare and Social Security. Given that many Republican voters are seniors (and the most reliable voting bloc) and that red states are the poorest, WHY DON’T THEY CARE? Is it because right-wing media doesn’t see fit to inform them? They literally don’t KNOW what will happen to them, their parents, and their grandparents if THEIR party cuts Social Security and Medicare? To pay for tax cuts that benefited only the very richest people?
The GOP has been bamboozling their voters for decades. (Also defunding education to keep them ignorant, but that’s another rant.) They claim to be “the party of law and order,” yet they ignore subpoenas and commit all manner of crimes, from child rape/molestation to voter fraud and lying under oath. They quote cherry-picked parts of the Bible, while completely ignoring the teachings of Jesus. Their constant, overweening hypocrisy is a basic tenet of their politics.
ALL of this nonsense needs to be USED as messaging to sway Independents and non-voters. Hypocrisy needs to be shown and MOCKED. Lies and ignorance need to be MOCKED. DeSantis claimed that math textbooks were teaching CRT, ffs. Of course they weren’t, and that claim was debunked. Duh. But by then, DeSantis had moved on to more lies. And the damage was done. Marco Rubio tweets out Bible verses. But he has voted AGAINST everything that would help the poor and suffering. How Christ-like. I would like to see Val Demings mock this hypocrisy, by showing Bible verses he’s quoted side-by-side with his votes in Congress.
We cannot be nice and polite at this point. Too much is at stake. We are hurtling towards dangerous times. We likely narrowly avoided DFG declaring himself President for Life. DeSantis might pull the same crap. Republicans who lose elections are already whining, claiming fraud, and refusing to certify an election that a Democrat won in New Mexico (a judge forced the certification).
While too many forced-birthers claim that they just want “to save babies,” they don’t have an answer for the well-being of those babies AFTER birth. Nor do they care. “Well, they can just be put up for adoption.” I think that we need to show the financial effect on the states of many, many thousands of unwanted babies being left at fire stations or hospitals. And the economic effect of pregnant people dropping out of school, likely not completing high school or college, and being able to get only low-wage jobs. Show how this benefits ONLY the very rich, those who own companies that employ hourly workers. And how Republicans have fought increases in the minimum wage for DECADES. They are NOT the party of the people. We ARE. The GOP belongs to, and acts solely on behalf of, its donors.
Overturning Roe was cheered by fools and idiots who have NO understanding of the far-reaching implications, nor of the dangers of the harsh trigger laws that went into effect in some red states. They’re just happy that “loose women” will be “punished for their sins.” There have already been cases in which hospitals were AFRAID to treat patients who were in danger of losing their lives due to an ectopic pregnancy, a miscarriage, or pregnancy complications.
I doubt that right-wing media carried any of these horrific stories. Time to educate GOP and Independent voters that these women were NOT abortion-seekers. These women could be their mothers, wives, sisters, or daughters. And the GOP absolutely DOES NOT CARE IF WOMEN DIE. These laws don’t ONLY affect “leftists.” Republican women have ectopic pregnancies, miscarriages, and pregnancy complications, too. This needs to be HAMMERED HOME, IMO.
Some states want to criminalize miscarriages. Miscarriages happen for a variety of reasons. Many, many miscarriages are of wanted babies. Mine was. This, too, will affect ALL women, not just non-Republicans. TELL THEM. Do ads showing a happy woman and her partner, beaming at a positive pregnancy test, dreaming of a nursery, a boy playing baseball, a girl dancing ballet, etc, and then…she starts bleeding. And bleeding. She’s losing the baby. She goes to the hospital, and the police are there to arrest her. This is the future under the Republican party, if they are allowed majorities. SHOW THAT. And then show what Biden and Democratic governors and lawmakers are doing to PREVENT that dystopian nightmare from becoming a reality.
Make them understand the many ways that this rogue SCOTUS and misogynistic, greedy, and uncaring Republicans will negatively affect THEIR way of life, not just OURS. Do ads showing an elderly man sitting in his living room, drooping trump flag in a corner, MAGA hat on a rack. Pictures of grandchildren on a table. He gets his Social Security check and opens it with gnarled fingers. His jaw slowly drops, and a tear leaks out of one eye. He looks up and says, “They cut my benefits. I worked for 50 years, starting at 17, paying into Social Security every paycheck. And those bastards took my money to pay for tax cuts for billionaires. And they call this an ‘ENTITLEMENT’? The hell with them. It’s MY money, that I worked for. And now I’ll have to choose between good food and my medicine. I can’t afford both.” Then say that the Democrats are fighting to SAVE Social Security and Medicare.
STOP ASKING PEOPLE TO VOTE BLUE. SHOW THEM WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF THEY DON’T. Show the weaknesses and hypocrisy of GOP candidates. Show their STUPIDITY.
Mock them. Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert: all of these people have tried to make Congress into a circus. They’re the clowns. Clowns should not hold public office. Run ads showing them behaving badly (howler monkeys during SOTU) and showing dumb things that they’ve said. Then have the Dem candidate say, “We need to restore dignity to Congress.” Also point out that the clowns’ voting records did NOT benefit their constituents AT ALL. “Are you a veteran? Well, we tried to pass a bill…but the Republicans BLOCKED it.” Gas price-gouging, baby formula shortage, etc.
Also, tell them that right-wing media HIDES things from them. Because uninformed voters stay home, or vote GOP.
Another horrible issue that needs to be addressed, forcefully, is that 15 states have no exceptions for rape or incest. What does this mean, in real terms? Simple. Not only will rape survivors be forced to experience daily trauma from carrying a child conceived against their will, likely in tears and terror, but they will have to give birth to that product of rape in blood and pain. And in states with particularly cruel GOP leadership, they may be prevented from giving the baby up for adoption, and forced to co-parent with the rapist. Interesting that there is an assumption that the rapist will be roaming free and not in prison, isn’t it?
And incest….ugh. We joke about how trump supporters are inbred morons. But these laws WILL result in genetically and mentally defective babies, who will grow up to be voters. And in red states, they know all too well that uneducated, mentally deficient people will vote Republican because they’re easily manipulated. Not allowing exceptions for incest is disgusting. And in many cases, I would think that the incest would also be rape, which makes it even worse. That doubles the trauma. Did Republicans actually think this through and decide that since the populations of red states will likely drop as a result of these draconian laws, they need to rely on forced births? Or is it just fervent misogyny? I don’t know.
I do think that, if these Republicans aren’t voted out, within 20 years (or much less) red states will be freaking disasters. There will be a brain drain, because people don't want to work in states with restrictive, backwards laws. Young women don't want to go to college in states where they don't feel safe and can't make their own healthcare decisions. So, many big red state colleges may become sausage fests. This, in turn, may lead to young men choosing colleges in blue states, which will have robust populations of young women. Bye-bye college football. The Tide will Roll no more.
Republicans are always short-sighted. They rush towards instant gratification, trying to get publicity and votes, without EVER considering the future ramifications of these hasty, ill-advised laws and policies. They CLEARLY have not considered the potential and likely inevitable economic fallout from their purely misogynistic attacks on women. This, and the likely bleak future of college football in red states, needs to be advertised in red states BEFORE the midterms.
Republicans are always babbling about being the “party of freedom.” How ridiculous. They are ACTIVELY working to TAKE AWAY OUR FREEDOMS and push authoritarianism. They want to force Christofascism down our throats. They want to prevent women from crossing state lines to obtain care outlawed in their states. What the serious F? They think that their reach can extend across state lines? That women aren’t fully human, but merely vessels in service to the state? This is obscene. This is UnAmerican. They’re also coming for the freedom to love and marry anyone that we love, the freedom to be who we are, and the freedom to vote. All of these can be hammered home in bleak ads. We cannot ignore these issues and hope that somehow voters are aware of them. They hear lies and misinformation, carefully framed so as to obscure the actual issue.
