You’re Being Gaslit
By Mitch Berg
When trying to win a rhetorical or political battle, the idea is when the fact reflect the proposition that you are winning, and that your victory is inevitable. Not only does it show you are on track to win, but it sucks the morale out of your opponents as the contest slogs to its miserable, inevitable end. Sort of like a Timberwolves season.
The next best thing?
To paraphrase the old law school trope: when the facts are against you, argue the ideals. When the ideals are against you, argue the facts. And when the facts are the ideals are against you, convince the enemy that they favor you anyway.
And that’s what Big Left is trying to do; convince Real America that the game is already over.
It’s nothing new – it’s why they parroted twaddle about “the emerging Blue majority” and “Texas will turn blue!” over the past 20 years, as if all political trends are linear.
But there’ve been a few hot ones lately.
“Minnesota Is Irreversibly Blue!”
The DFL outspent the GOP 18:1 in the 2022 elections – and flipped the decisive seat by less than 400 votes.
Fewer than 1,000 votes would have put the House in GOP control.
But for a pretty dismal showing by the Jensen campaign, and the overturning of Roe (which can’t happen again), the Attorney General and State Auditor were on the cusp of winning.
Yes, statewide races are a problem – and I despair of the current MNGOP cracking that code, not that I’m not gonna try to push it.
But saying “Minnesota is pure blue!” is premature.
“Millennials Are Eternally Progressive!”: Maybe not so much anymore.
In the 2020 presidential election, voters who were 18 to 29 in 2008 backed Joe Biden by 55 percent to 43 percent, according to our estimates, a margin roughly half that of Mr. Obama’s 12 years earlier.
The exit polls show it even closer, with Mr. Biden winning by just 51-45 among voters who were 18 to 27 in 2008 (exit polls report results among those 30 to 39, not 30 to 41 — the group that was 18 to 29 in 2008).
And last fall, the young voters of ’08 — by then 32 to 43 — preferred Democratic congressional candidates by just 10 points in Times/Siena polling.
Nobody stays young and stupid forever (DFL communications staff notwithstanding).
“The General Public Is Embracing The Transgender Ideology”: Sincie 2021, the public perception that there are more than two genders has shifted six points.
Away from the transgender narrative.
Sack up, campers. This fight is just beginning.
June 15th, 2023 at 12:41 am
[…] Shark Tank: Salazar Introduces Venezuelan Adjustment Act With Bipartisan Support Shot In The Dark: You’re Being Gaslit, Heads You’re Racist/Tails You’re Destroying The Climate, STUMP: Suicide: Trends […]
June 15th, 2023 at 6:55 am
Unlike you fellows, I can read Putin’s mind. I know what he wants. He wants a deep water port on the Black Sea. He wants Odessa.
To get there, he needs a defensible land bridge connecting Crimea to Russia, which coincidentally covers the provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk, which coincidentally have been in rebellion against the Ukraine government for a decade, which coincidentally was the area Lesko Brandon authorized him to take in a ‘limited incursion, and which coincidentally Putin has controlled for the past year. When Russian domination of this region is firmly established and the fighting ends, the push to Odessa can begin, maybe not for a few years, but make no mistake, that’s the goal.
Putin has what he wants, for now. He’s just waiting for the Lesko Brandon administration to finish squeezing the last few drops of graft and kickbacks out of the situation, then they will abandon Ukraine as Democrats always abandon our clients. Then Russia can make its move to push the last few miles to take the port city.
Russia took Crimea in 2014. It will own the land bridge by 2024. It will have taken Odessa by 2034.
Americans are shit at long-term strategy, we only react to crises. China is the master of long-term strategy, making small moves in a longer game while its enemies snooze. Putin is playing a long-term strategy, not for personal grandisement, but for the betterment of future Russia, to enable it to resist its true enemy, China.
The Ukraine War is over. Russia won. Everybody knows it. Now, it’s just a matter of formalizing the surrender.