Positive alternatives are good. Very good. But that doesn’t imply zero attacks.
Everything is case by case. The videos of him ripping on Trump? Run those in North Carolina. It’s not about sincerity, it’s about identification. It’s not about whether he’s really gay, it’s about whether he identifies as gay or as a bigot. Remind people that he’s not a reliable member of the Trumpkin universe. That will cost him votes. Does that count as him being a hypocrite?
Again well said and so obvious it is odd it needs to be stated.
Obviously, it counts. How could it not?
That’s why your " no one cares that Graham is a hypocrite or at least has had that demonstrated a million times over" stance seemed to make no sense.
There has to be a way to dogwhistle this so that it’s both effective politically and subtle enough so as to not cause collateral harm.
I explained, in that post, why using his anti-Trump clips would work.
Yeah, I get that.
In this post, you seemed to handwave away all hypocrisy attacks:
Then you cleared it up with your later post.
I agree, but I think we’ve reached the point of limited returns with guys like Graham and Trump. No one in 2020 is going to be shocked to find out that Graham has no principles, we knew that already. It’s just like when Dems spent all of 2016 reminding us that Trump is a horrible person or these Lincoln Project ads reminding us that Trump is a bad person. They never tell us why their alternative is good, largely because the eDems and NeverTrumpers don’t actually stand for anything other than shipping money to the consultant class and honoring the legacy of John McCain.
No. In that post where you think I cleared it up, I explained that it was about identity.
That’s what I’m referring to as clearing up.
You’re clearly OK with some kinds of hypocrisy attacks. (e.g. ones about identity)
I’m not morally opposed to attacking people for being hypocrites. Is that seriously what you’re thinking?
Not morally. I thought your objection was based on ineffectiveness (“no one cares that Graham is a hypocrite or at least has had that demonstrated a million times over”)
Are you trolling or just not paying attention?
The effectiveness of the anti-Trump hypocrisy is that it’s about how he identifies, not that he’s being a hypocrite in and of itself.
I don’t object to going “lol, Lindsay is gay” because it’s ineffective. I object because of the suggestion that it’s bad to be gay - same as “lol, Huckabee is fat”. “Oh, I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with being gay, but you Republicans do, how do you like your gay Senator? ha ha” is not ok.
That’s generally how all hypocrisy attacks work. They make the voter question whether a belief that a candidate has is real or not.
This
is literally an example of this
I understand that the whole outing Lindsey attack has features beyond hypocrisy that are undesirable. That is a separate issue from what I am talking about.
If people are talking about attack ads based on it, then yeah, I’m not advocating that. It’s the idea that there’s some big moral issue in reporting the story as a news item, that’s going too far. Closeted diplomatic immunity was an exaggeration, but if there’s harm in simply reporting it, it’s Graham who’s culpable, not the reporter. Attack ads no, though.
That’s better. Let’s get some more reports about Graham’s proclivities and make sure they hit every church bulletin board in upstate.
When I started reading this sentence I thought it was going to be about the immigrants, Iraqis, or lgbtqs that Lindsey Graham is responsible for murdering, but no it turned out to be an attempt to shield him.
I know it’s not about sheltering LG, in a similar way that broadcasting the outlandish hypocrisy is not about having an issue with homosexuality. I’m just wondering if this is the most efficient battle for you to pick.
Can you quantify this collateral damage? And, if you quantify it and persuade me that it’s significant enough to be worth considering, can you tell me why it’s my responsibility and not Lindsay Graham’s?