https://time.com/5826469/2020-false-equivalence-election/
President Donald Trump has an uncanny ability to project his own
weaknesses onto his opponent: He’s rubber, you’re glue, whatever you say
bounces off him and sticks to you. It’s a strategy that worked
remarkably well against Hillary Clinton. He nicknamed her “Crooked
Hillary” while his campaign was under federal investigation
for ties to Russia. He reignited the debate over her husband’s sexual
misconduct after multiple women came forward to accuse Trump of sexual
assault, which he denies. He even accused Clinton of fomenting the ‘birther’ conspiracy theory about Barack Obama. Reminder: it was Trump who did that.
That doesn’t worry Republicans much. “Whether it’s a false
equivalence is by nature kind of moot,” says Brown. “The way people
consume information, it kind of nullifies whether it’s false or not. It
becomes less a values question and more of a volume question.”
These are not exactly complicated campaign maneuvers. Trump is
skilled at the age-old political trick of blowing enough smoke at his
opponents so that voters assume there’s a fire there, even when he’s
being consumed in his own conflagration. One Republican strategist
called it “the ultimate whataboutism.” It also reflects the political
rule that the best defense is a good offense. “It’s a tendency of most
people in politics when they take fire to freeze and bunker,” says Brad
Todd, Republican strategist and author of The Great Revolt. “President
Trump understands that when you take fire you fire through it.”
Biden backers say he may be less vulnerable than Clinton was to the
fog of false equivalence coming his way. Biden is a known quantity with
consistently high favorability ratings
since he left the Vice Presidency. Clinton had been tarred with
right-wing vitriol for decades, which softened the ground for many of
the attacks against her. “It cemented in voters minds a skepticism and
an undercurrent and dislike towards her that Joe Biden just doesn’t
have,” says Sams. “That allowed Trump’s attacks to catch on with voters
in a way that I don’t think they will with Biden.”
Once again, the liberal media misses the point.
ReplyDeleteTrump succeeded with the "Crooked Hillary" brand because she WAS crooked. It was well documented. Tons of information on the Clinton Foundation and its corrupt ways of doing business. Tons of information on her and her missteps. What Time calls "whataboutism" was Trump simply pointing out hypocrisy. You think I'm corrupt and a thief? Well so's your golden girl so if you're just calling me out, it shows your moral deficiencies.
When stuff comes out about Biden - Ukraine connections, stuff he did as vice president, his groping of women, his dementia, Time and the others will do the same thing. "You're just saying that to distract us from your evils!" they'll shout. And yes, that's exactly why Trump will do it, but people will ignore Time and the rest because even if it's true about Trump, it's also true about Biden.
The liberal left's election platform has been "It doesn't matter if we run a pedophile murderer, you'll vote for him because he's not Trump! We have no moral responsibility because we're not Trump!" And the electorate doesn't agree.
You have to remember that there are two ways to attack your opponent during an election. One is to attack his platform. Your economic plan won't work. Your foreign policy is going to cause problems. Any retort like "Well you're sucks more!" can be rebutted.
ReplyDeleteThe other is to attack him personally. "You're corrupt!" This time a retort like "Well so are you!" can't be rebutted. "I'm not corrupt!" Who will believe that, especially when we know he or she is.
The Democrats almost exclusively attack Trump on a personal level. Hillary's campaign platform was "Trump's evil. Vote for me!" But enough voters thought "Well no, she's also evil" and that gave Trump the election. In 2020 the Dem's show every sign of doing the same thing, with the same possible result.