Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison on Wednesday offered a particularly apt summation of Republicans on MSNBC's Morning Joe.
“It is a party built on fraud, fear and fascism," Harrison said. "They don’t deserve to be in power.”
The three Fs—Fraud, Fear, and Fascism—are a perfect alliteration for the GOP. The fact that it could fit on a bumper sticker is also a notable advancement for Democratic messaging.
Culling Republicans down to a sticky umbrella message about the pervasive corruption pulsing through the GOP would be super helpful for Democrats.
Every time Republicans say the 2020 election was stolen, the response can be, "There they go again."Every time they claim their efforts to suppress votes and rig election outcomes are legitimate attempts to curb fraud, the response can be, "There they go again."
Every time they blanket Democrats with repulsive smears like "pedophiles" or "groomers," the response can be, "There they go again."
But let's linger for a minute on the latest trope Republicans are rolling out to smear Democrats and anyone else who dares to disagree with them: the notion that they are pedophiles who are grooming children for sexual abuse. On one level, it's a preposterous charge—the whole pedophile ring thing is so 2016. But the coked-up party of orgies does have a recurring obsession with lobbing sexual smears at their political opponents.
The "groomer" charge is just so on brand and perfectly repugnant for the GOP, catering to QAnon cultists steeped in the notion of a global cabal of sex traffickers run by Democrats and their allies.
Moderate Republicans who still exist in this world get it. As Never Trumper and The Bulwark publisher Sarah Longwell says of the messaging, "When your team tries a coup, you gotta think hard about what’s worse than that. Hence, the 'groomer' discourse."
But The Bulwark's Jonathan V. Last absolutely nails the political strategy Republicans are employing and the choice they are making in the process.
"The modern Republican party has found a way to integrate voters who believe in a bizarre internet cult," Last writes. "But it has no desire to integrate voters who maintain that Joe Biden won the 2020 election fair and square."
That indeed is the modern Republican Party in a nutshell. And frankly, it represents an opportunity for Democrats: a critical slice of those reality-based Republicans are gettable for Democrats if they are continually reminded of exactly what the GOP has become.
For their part, Democrats cannot make the mistake of ignoring these Republican smears. They must train voters to see words like "groomer" or phrases like "endangers our children" as devices, dog whistles designed to draw Democrats into seedy defenses while juicing the impulses of their most deluded, fringiest members.
That's where a rhetorical phrase like "There they go again" can work very well, particularly if it's paired with an umbrella theme such as, “The GOP is a party built on fraud, fear and fascism." It allows Democrats to call out the despicable tactic, stay above the fray, and then pivot to whatever issue they prefer to discuss.
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