My favorite political journalist, Josh Marshall, makes the point in the gift link below that Trump’s recent rhetoric about elections and more is a sign of weakness, not strength, and the proper political response is contempt and mockery, not outrage:
I agree. As unfortunate as it sounds, I think modern politics is much like pro wrestling - about dominance and humiliation, but also about quips and snark and contempt and mockery. Democrats have been weaker in this language than Republicans for as long as it’s been like this (since the 80s, perhaps, at the very least). As much as I think Newsom sucks, I do like what his comms team has done with the mockery and sarcasm. Similarly, Tim Walz was doing this successfully, IMO, with his “they’re weird” remarks - and it worked because they really are weird. Their obsessions with genitals and sex and the private lives of others really is weird. Their bullshit faux-Christianity is weird. Lots of other things they do, and many of their big names like Bacon and Miller are really, really weird. They made Walz stop the “weird” stuff and I think it was a big mistake.
I think this needs to be a big part of Democratic messaging going forward, especially for the next presidential candidates, IMO. What candidates can speak this language with skill? I’m not sure yet.
The GOP is way better at power (i.e., win at all costs) politics and messaging. We Dems need to figure this out, fast. The objective, as noted, is to become the badass who gets people to laugh at the flailing losers. Unfortunately, elections now turn on such things.
As also noted, with some exceptions (Walz, Newsom), Dems are shitty at this. We have the aggrieved, outraged harrumphs down to an art, though.