As Democrats try to pick up the pieces after the disastrous 2024 elections, there’s one thing that everybody seems to agree on: Democratic communications suck.
Thom Hartmann says “Democrats must build a powerful media and policy network.” He is not alone in that assessment; Newsweek says the same thing and the internet is replete with commentary along those lines. Here’s a representative sample from Politico where “top Democratic strategists, activists and thinkers” weigh in.
There’s a lot of intelligent, incisive and overall worthwhile ideas in the Politico article, and Thom’s analysis is both comprehensive and brilliant, as always.
But even with the staggering advantage the Republican disinformation machine has over Democratic communications, I think the distribution issue is only half the picture. The other (arguably even more important) half is content. And for the most part, I see all too little discussion of the quality of Democratic communications, which all too often can seem disorganized, unfocused, scattershot, overly-complex and even borderline hysterical at times.
In any event, the bottom line here is that the Democratic vision has failed to sufficiently capture the imagination of the American people. And until it does, all the media exposure in the world won’t make enough of a difference.
If people don’t like what you’re selling, they won’t buy it, no matter how many times they see it. Period. And I think a lot of it comes down to one thing that few people really understand, which is not surprising in that its effectiveness depends on you not understanding it:
Branding.
As NY Times columnist Gail Collins has somewhat indelicately, but emphatically put it, “The Democratic brand is in the toilet.” Uh, yup. Couldn’t have said it better myself.
Chuck Rocha (founder of Solidarity Strategies, former Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign adviser and expert on the Latino vote) gets it:
“We have become way too reliant on polling modeling and ad testing, and we have stopped talking to a wide swathe of people with low voter scores who get up every day and take a shower after they are done with work not before. This correlates a lot with the Latino performance because the fastest growing segment of the working class are Latino voters and one in four Latino men are tied to the construction industry. These voters aligned with the Democratic Party. They just don’t trust the brand anymore because Fox News and the podcast brosphere tell them we are weak.“
The “why” is less important here than the “what.” We can investigate and speculate as much as we want, but the bottom line is that as long as a large segment of the population thinks of Democrats as “weak,” Democrats will continue to lose.
As I’ve said elsewhere, Republican branding is strong. It’s “Build a Wall,” “Make America Great Again,” “God” and “Pro-Life.” It’s simple, seemingly proactive and powerful. Democratic branding is not. When it comes to Democrats, the branding is “Black Lives Matter,” “Tax and Spend” and “Defund the Police.”
Effective sloganeering, for sure. But there’s a lot more to the picture than just coming up with clever phrases.
Yes, language is super-important; that’s a fact. And Democrats keep looking for the “magic words” that will change hearts and minds. (One oft-used example is Frank Luntz’ calling the estate tax a “death tax,” which resulted in its near elimination. Mission accomplished.)
But absent a well-established brand, mere words fall flat. In fact, it’s worse than that; powerful words without a solid foundation seem insincere and “phony,” which, as a politician, is probably the worst thing you can possibly be.
Negative party branding is like a millstone around every Democrat’s neck. It’s a handicap out of the starter’s block that every Democrat needs to overcome just to compete. Because when Republican branding meets Democratic branding head-on, Democrats usually lose.
Think of branding as “political shorthand,” if you will, where only a few words evoke a whole host of associations, warranted or not. A negative brand identity is very, very difficult to overcome. And this is something that can no longer be ignored; giving the topic short shrift in any discussion of Democratic Party strategy is tantamount to political malpractice.
If you don’t deal with the failure of the Democratic brand, you’re ignoring the 800-pound elephant in the room. If Democrats fail to straightforwardly deal with the issue, the party’s very survival is at risk, if not that of democracy itself.
Yes, it’s that serious. Make no mistake about it.
Now, branding is a topic that can be tricky to discuss. First of all, not everybody agrees on what the term means. I say “branding” is how you feel about a subject; not how you think about it, but there are others who would define it differently. And there are certainly many more who are far more knowledgable than I will ever be on the subjects of decision-making and brand loyalty.
But regardless, I think all would agree that successful branding is a subconscious process. It’s something you’re not supposed to notice; indeed, that’s the whole point. Telling people they’re not feeling what they’re feeling is a fool’s game, and I’ve written a lot about how I think Democrats have been losing the branding war.
So here, instead, I’d like to step back a bit and explore what winning Democratic branding might look like. Let’s start with how major organizations build a winning brand… and see what we might learn from them about how it’s done.
Building a Winning Brand
OK – here we go. So how do you go about building a winning brand?
The answer is:
Nobody knows. Not really.
You can come up with what might sound to you like good ideas that you think should work… and then watch helplessly as they fail in the real world. Hillary Clinton’s “Basket of Deplorables” was mind-numbingly tone-deaf, but the amateurish attempts of some Democrats pale in comparison to some of the branding pratfalls of multi-million-dollar corporations who ought to know better. Here’s a link to some epic ad fails. You can find a lot more with a quick web search… and some of them are pretty hilarious. But you get the idea.
A successful ad campaign will start by first listening to the consumer. Then and only then can the advertiser work on strategies to get their point across in a way that will appeal to the consumer. Then it’s test, test, test, and even then there are no guarantees.
So it’s not “tell” and “lead,” as so many Democrats are wont to do. It’s first “listen,” and then “engage” – and if you do it right, the voter will think it was all his/her idea in the first place. It’s about making the consumer/voter (not you) the star of the show.
This is something Republicans manage to do all the time. Democrats, on the other hand, can often take an accusatory tone, scolding the voter for not already being as “smart” as they themselves are.
So I pose a question: who would you rather listen to? The person who insists on “teaching you”?
Or would you rather listen to the person who says you’re brilliant.. and that you’ve been right all along? Oh, and by the way, don’t forget your MAGA hat on the way out.
Does the tree that falls in the forest make a sound if there’s nobody there to hear it? For now, let’s assume that it doesn’t. No sound at all. Because unless someone’s listening, it doesn’t matter.
Some Communication Basics
I was fortunate enough to spend some years working with Ed Szydlik, former Divisional Merchandise Manager for Target Stores. Ed was in charge of merchandise purchase… for the entire Target chain. The term is overused, but Ed truly was an absolute genius, particularly when it came to simplification.
Ed was a big reader of classical literature, particularly from ancient Greece. One day Ed said to me that when it came to persuasion, Aristotle had it all figured out… over 2,000 years ago. According to Aristotle, persuasion comes down to three basic elements: Ethos, Pathos and Logos. I’ll summarize:
- Ethos: You can trust me.
- Pathos: There is a problem.
- Logos: There’s something you can do about it. Why don’t you?
You need all of them… and in that order. If the argument fails to meet any one of the three criteria, the argument will fail.
Aristotle’s analysis is absolutely brilliant in its simplicity. Let’s try it on for size using an utterly pedestrian example.
- Ethos: Shot of family in kitchen, cleaning up after dinner (Yes, you can trust them.)
- Pathos: Shot of mother removing plates from dishwasher, some with food still stuck to them. Mother has disapproving expression. V/O: “Boy, I’m tired of having to wash my dishes twice.”
- Logos: Internal shot of dishwasher cleaning plates. V/O: “The new GE Ultrascrub Dishwasher makes dirty dishes a thing of the past!” (TITLE: Now on sale at P.C. Richard for only $499.95!)
It’s no exaggeration to say that you’ve probably seen this construct millions of times, both successfully and unsuccessfully. Nothing could be simpler. And yet, as basic as it is, the concept is something I’ve been trying to communicate to the Democratic Party for over 20 years now. See the DailyKos piece, “Democratic Party Leaders, Please Get this Man on the Phone” from 2004. (P.S.– I’m still waiting.)
In any event, my point is this: negative Democratic branding means that “Ethos, Pathos, Logos” fails at step one. So by the time you get to Pathos and Logos, nobody’s listening. There isn’t anybody around to hear the tree fall.
Ethos = Branding. And as of this writing, it looks like Republican branding may well have been successful enough to overturn almost 250 years of American democracy. Nice work.
So how did Republicans create such powerful branding?
The answer is: They didn’t.
Instead, it’s the successful branding that ended up creating them. Republicans were swept up in the tide of Trump’s popular appeal, something that few saw coming. Trump was absolutely loathed (and still is) by the party leadership, but opposing him ended up being political suicide. So virtually the entire party caved, and they did so in record time, basically falling all over each other to do so.
Republican cowardice and their near-total fealty to his whims enabled Trump to remake the party in his own image – a party that is now entirely subservient to Trump, and only Trump – the Constitution and 248 years of democracy be damned.
Now this party-turned-cult is setting to the work of destroying America’s democratic institutions, from the ground up. And it looks like there may be very little the rest of us can do about it.
Such is the power of a winning brand.
One more point here: Timing matters too. In our age of media saturation, people have a lot of choices. Branding isn’t always the be-all and end-all; sometimes the political process is no more complicated than simply deciding to change the channel.
(I use TV the metaphor deliberately; since Eisenhower in 1952, TV has played a pivotal role. See further down the post for a do-not-miss example from the 1952 campaign.)
- In 1980, Carter had a solid lead over Reagan, but between inflation, the Iranian hostage crisis (treasonously prolonged by the Reagan campaign in secret negotiations with Iran) and Reagan’s TV appeal in the lone debate he had with Carter, people decided they wanted something new. Reagan ended up winning handily in a 489 to 49 Electoral landslide.
- After George H. W. Bush’s victory in the Gulf War, few people gave the Democrats much of a chance to win the White House in 1992. (The seven Democratic presidential hopefuls were derisively called “The Seven Dwarfs.”) But after 12 years of a Republican-controlled White House, a young, dynamic Bill Clinton surprised all the experts.
- There could hardly have been a greater contrast in presidential candidates than between the 72-year-old John McCain and the 47-year-old Barack Obama in 2008. After eight years of a very, very White and very Republican White House, America was ready for a change.
In each case, the branding ended up being self-apparent, but it was also secondary to Americans’ desire to make a change. So as important as branding is, it’s not always the determinate factor.
At least not in a fair election, with a reasonably even playing field. But whether or not we will ever see another fair election in our lifetimes very much remains to be seen.
The Science Behind Building a Brand
Yes, there is a science to building a brand. And yes, there’s analysis and testing that’s involved, but to a great extent, the process is basically this:
Throwing shit against the wall and seeing what sticks.
Or, in other words, trial and error. It really isn’t much more scientific than that. (I’ve been there. I know.)
If it sticks, you feature it, debate it, promote it and elaborate on it… until some stickier shit comes along. Then it’s rinse and repeat. (Although not so much the “rinse” part when it comes to the Republican message machine. Their stuff tends to stick around.)
When Trump denigrated John McCain’s military service, I thought it was the death knell for the Trump campaign. I also thought that Trump coming down the escalator was one of the dumbest things I’d ever seen. (I still do.) And calling Mexicans “rapists” had to be one of the most idiotic, hateful things I’d ever heard. As I recall, at the time, most Republicans couldn’t distance themselves from Trump fast enough. The guy was obviously a clown… and a loser.
But voters ended up thinking otherwise. Yes, coming up with a successful brand is not all random chance, and there’s no denying that intelligent analysis and planning are essential to creating, protecting and nurturing a brand identity. But the long and the short of it is that the faster you realize that you don’t really know what’s going to work, the faster you’ll be able to come up with something that does.
There are three big advantages the Republican disinformation machine has over the Democrats here:
First off, Republicans are not constrained by any journalistic or ethical standards. They have no problem spreading known disinformation if they feel it’s in their best interests. Note the $767 million dollar settlement Fox paid to Dominion voting machines without breaking a sweat. It’s all part of doing business.
Secondly, the Republican Party has many more sources for inflammatory, attention-grabbing material than Democrats do. The internet is a hotbed of nutty conspiracy theories (like Marjorie Taylor Greene’s assertion that California wildfires are caused by “Jewish space lasers”), so there’s plenty of fodder to fester in the Republican fever-swamp.
And finally, Republicans have many more walls to throw the shit against. The incubator can be talk radio, podcasts, blogs, even Facebook posts, like what happened with the accusations of Haitian immigrants eating pets. This was an utterly baseless rumor, but the highly-charged implication that Haitians engaged in cruel, animalistic behavior helped to make it “stick,” reaching presidential proportions when both Trump and Vance claimed it was true, although both knew that it was all a malicious, bald-faced lie.
Once a damaging story proves to have “legs,” the floodgates of Republican support open wide, flooding the zone with millions of dollars worth of media exposure. It doesn’t even matter whether or not the story is true; simply repeating the disinformation reinforces it and the inflammatory nature of provocative reports keeps the viewers tuning in.
That’s how it works.
What will end up sticking is anybody’s guess. And the right-wing communications ecosystem provides a vast laboratory for testing what works, and what doesn’t. We’re now living in a hyperconnected, ad-driven world where “eyeballs” are the most valuable commodity there is, so anything that has “shock value” is digital gold. Haitians eating pets? Sure! Hillary Clinton running a child sex ring? Bring it on! You have my attention, which is, of course, the whole point.
It’s worth noting that this strategy was born out of Republicans’ fear that they could never again legitimately win on the national level. So instead of losing legitimately, making changes and hoping to win the next time, they made the deliberate decision to do whatever it took to win – no matter the cost. (See “Endgame,” here.) The cost was our American political system itself, which may well now be broken beyond repair unless Democrats can get their shit together… and fast.
It’s all part of “The Big Lie” strategy, a concept formulated by Adolf Hitler himself. (Hitler seems to be having more than a bit of a renaissance in today’s Republican party, but I digress.)
Let me add another ingredient to the mix: Schadenfreude. Wikipedia defines it as “the experience of pleasure, joy, or self-satisfaction that comes from learning of or witnessing the troubles, failures, pain, suffering, or humiliation of another.”
Schadenfreude is something we all experience. All of us.
Remember that kid you couldn’t stand in high-school? Tell me that your heart didn’t beat a tiny bit faster when you read in the paper that he was arrested for embezzlement. Remember Leona Helmsley, the so-called “Queen of Mean?” Didn’t you smile just a little bit inside when you heard she was arrested and jailed for tax evasion?
We’re all-too-ready to believe something negative about somebody we don’t like; that’s just human nature. But I bring it up here because it’s a really important element in figuring out what “sticks,” and what doesn’t. It’s all about “context,” which is the last and arguably most important element of what constitutes effective branding.
Context and Narrative
I’ve said it on various posts and I’ll say it again here:
Emotion trumps logic… and tribe trumps everything.
(I’ve been saying this for 30 years, by the way… long before Trump.)
Democrats are on logic, and Republicans are on tribe. It’s a losing battle. On two levels. Let me ask you: when was the last time a Democrat got you so pissed off at what Republicans were doing that it made your heart race? I mean, really race? That’s emotion.
Bryan Ferry wrote the song “Love is the Drug.” So is hate, or any strong emotion, for that matter. As I said earlier, telling people they shouldn’t be feeling what they’re feeling is a fool’s errand. Trump gives his MAGA crowd a “high,” and it’s addictive. (Watch any Trump rally and you’ll see the people are having the time of their lives. Read about it here.)
And just like any addictive drug, you need an ever-higher dose to get the same high. And Trump and the Republican Party are more than happy to give it to them. We are truly staring into the abyss here.
Democrats don’t have anything like this. At least not right now.
But it gets worse. Whereas emotion is powerful, “tribe” is even more powerful still. Why? Because tribe is a survival-level instinct. Without your tribe, you’re really on your own; your chances of survival are greatly reduced. If you don’t get your emotional high, well, it’s a downer. But tribe is a matter of life or death. Because if your tribe doesn’t survive, chances are that neither do you.
So the statement really packs a punch. And the context that makes it all work for Republicans? Simply this:
Republicans successfully define Democrats as “other.”
“Other” is something that instinctively scares the living daylights out of a lot of people, although they’ll never express it to you in precisely those terms. Tribe is your family, your friends, your neighbors, your church, everything you’ve grown up with. Anything that’s “other” is an unknown, something to be feared as a potential threat to all you hold dear.
That is the heart of the negative Democratic branding – branding that Democrats must transcend if they are to have any hope of once again becoming a majority party. Demographic trends had buoyed Democrats’ hopes of assembling a durable winning coalition, but the erosion of support by various groups in the 2024 election likely means that Democrats’ hopes of becoming a mainstream party any time soon have evaporated.
What does that mean? I contend that it means that the Democratic brand, as we know it today, is dead. Or, at the very least, it’s on life support, with little chance of recovery in its current state.
Today’s Democratic Party needs to be reborn, with a completely different vision – one that will capture the imagination of Americans everywhere and consign today’s Republican Party to the fringes of American society or, better yet, to the dustbin of history… where it belongs.
How? That’s the big question. But let’s take a stab at it.
Rebirth
Oh… if only there was only a model to emulate. Something new, yet American as apple pie. Something that would resonate with Americans of every stripe – rich, poor, Black, White, you-name-it.
Our heroes would embody freedom, yet also represent the integrity to follow through on a promise no matter what. Our heroes would be synonymous with courage and incorruptibility, with no tolerance for grifters and charlatans who take advantage of others.
Our heroes would freely express love of, and pride in this amazing country of ours, from sea to shining sea. Short on talk, but long on action, our heroes would exhibit common sense, and have little patience for those who can’t express simple concepts in simple words.
And above all, our heroes would project strength – inner strength. Our heroes are survivors, with a toughness earned through experience. You mess around at your own peril, because if you do, odds are that you’ll lose.
Yes, it’s a tall order; there’s no doubt about that. But as it happens, there’s already a brand that fits the bill. And even better, it’s a winning brand, a brand that’s deeply embedded in the American consciousness.
If Democrats can manage to pick this up, adapt it and run with it, it might… just might be a game-changer. Watch the below.
Got it? Good. We’ll come back to it in a minute.
But first, as promised, below is an embed to some of the 1952 Eisenhower TV ads I mentioned. This was the first presidential TV ad campaign ever. For the “Eisenhower Answers America” spots, Eisenhower’s “answers” were scripted; he was told simply to deliver his lines, and deliver them looking down and to the right.
Only then, once Eisenhower was done, did the ad agency cast the “voters,” who were told to deliver their scripted lines looking up and to the left. The two were then edited together to make is seem as if Eisenhower was spontaneously responding to the questions of real voters.
Looking at it from over 70 years later, the spots are pretty hilarious, particularly when you know how they were made. But they’re also absolutely brilliant in demonstrating great branding technique in establishing context for all of Ike’s answers.
Anyway, so now that you’ve got the idea of both branding and context, let’s see how it could all work:
Context and Narrative – Putting it All Together
The Cowboy Way
A few overall things here:
- Demeanor: A good cowboy is calm, composed and confident. Listen first and smolder; don’t explode into full flame unless it’s called for. Keep your powder dry, but know that when the shootin’ starts, you’ll be ready. And speaking of which…
- Shoot Straight: A cowboy’s word is his bond, and a handshake his solemn oath. A good cowboy is always a straight shooter and never overpromises.
- Honesty: A good cowboy is as honest as the day is long. And a good cowboy won’t tolerate a liar; he’ll call ’em out so fast it’ll make your head spin. Don’t even try it.
- Patriotism: A good cowboy is as American as American can be. A cowboy loves his country… except for Americans that are trying to screw other Americans. That’s just not… American.
- Valor: A good cowboy will come to the aid of the weak and defenseless… even if means putting his own life on the line.
- Manners: A good cowboy knows how to treat people, especially a lady. (Thank you, Ma’am.)
- Simplify: A good cowboy is a man (or woman) of few words. Take one topic at a time and make it stick. Lose the typical Democratic “laundry list” of issues and frame everything in the Democrats’ larger context, which should always be…
- Justice: Just like “othering” Democrats is the larger context that makes negative branding work, Democrats need to make justice their north star. Always.
Justice, justice, justice. And did I mention justice? Oh, and let me not leave out justice.
Superman’s motto was “Truth, Justice and the American Way.” Now, with a criminal con man and rapist in the White House, the American Way is better described as the perversion of justice, at least as far as the Republican Party is concerned.
I contend that this is how Democratic messaging should be framed. And there’s no better model of how it should be delivered than the cowboy. Or cowgirl. (Ladies, you can do it.)
One last point: Talk about what the people want to talk about first, and not what you want to talk about. And please, do your homework and learn all about the local sports teams, OK? That’s a no-brainer. Jeez.
So saddle up, folks. Let’s try a few examples on for size:
Sample Q&A
Q: What about Transgender kids?
A: What about them? We think parents know what’s best for their kids. As far the rest of us are concerned, it’s none of our business. Not yours, not mine and certainly not the government’s. And besides, only a little over 1% of the US population identifies as transgender. To my knowledge, they’re not hurting anyone. Aren’t there other things to worry about?
Q: What about Gays?
A: What about them? This is America – what you do in your personal life is your business, not anybody else’s.
Q: And abortion?
A: When it comes to womens’ health care, there’s room for two people and only two people in the room: a woman, and her doctor. That’s it. Some politicians – most of them men – have decided that they should have the power to decide what happens in a woman’s body. And women are dying because of it. Personally, I think every politician who voted for bills that ended up killing women should be charged with murder. Republicans have a sick obsession about inserting themselves where they have no business to be. It’s sick. Get this straight: government has no business in your pants… or between your legs. Period.
Q: What about the border?
A: Republicans and Democrats wrote a bipartisan bill that dealt with border security. But Trump killed it because he thought its passage would have given voters less reason to support him. This was politics… pure politics. In fact, Biden deported more people than Trump did in his first term, and the border crisis was way overblown. (See chart here.) Let’s see what the new/old guy does; I’m still waiting for Mexico to build the wall… and pay for it.
Q: And Immigration?
A: Who do you think picks the fruit you buy at the grocery store? And who do you think packs the chicken cutlets you buy at the supermarket? There are an estimated 11 million undocumented workers in the US and if you don’t think deporting all of them – if it were even possible – would have a major negative impact on the economy, you’re dreaming. These people aren’t a drain on jobs, or the economy; they’re helping to make it run. We’re in the best economy the US has seen in over a century.
What chaps me is how these and other fake “crises” have distracted Americans from what’s really going on: an American “ruling class” that’s robbing us blind… and getting away with it. That’s just not American – not at all.
Big Picture
Here we go:
Trump and his cronies are predators. They create nothing; they’ve made their fortunes by using other peoples’ money to enrich themselves, while screwing others in the process. That’s not American.
Wanna know who these people really are? Watch this:
Trump is a convicted con man who’s guilty of defrauding the taxpayers of over $350 million. That’s not including the $83.3 million he owes in the E. Jean Carroll sexual assault defamation case. And that’s also not including the six bankruptcies Trump left investors on the hook for. That’s not “strong.” That’s not “smart.” That’s criminal, pure and simple.
Elon Musk is no “self-made man”. His father had a stake in an emerald mine in Zambia, for godsake, and Musk’s claims that he had a hard time growing up are just self-serving bullshit. A founder of PayPal, Musk took the proceeds of its sale to invest in Tesla Motors, where with an initial investment of only $6.35 million, he became the majority stakeholder. Tesla is currently under federal investigation for failures of its Autopilot system, which has caused 467 crashes, with 54 injuries and 14 deaths. Now that Trump is back in the big chair, what do you think will happen with all the investigations into Musk’s companies?
That’s not American. Oh, and by the way, neither is Musk. Musk is a product of apartheid South Africa and with his support of Neo-Nazi parties in Europe, he apparently thinks this whole racist thing is a pretty good idea. That’s definitely not American.
Musk is Trump’s “First Bro,” but Trump has also surrounded himself with criminals, incompetents and shameless grifters. Top on the list (so far) is Trump’s own son-in-law Jared Kushner. Jared received an investment over $2 billion from Saudi Arabia right before the end of Trump’s first term. For what? It sure isn’t for Kushner’s investment savvy; as of late 2024, Kushner has charged hundreds of millions in fees, but has yet to make any profits at all.
The speculation is that the Saudis’ $2 billion investment is nothing more that a blatant effort to influence American foreign policy. D’ya think?
And criminals? Sure. Here’s Trump’s “List of Felons.” (Too long to list here.) And incompetents? If you’ve been paying any attention at all to the news, we don’t even have to go there.
And what was Trump planning to do (or perhaps already did) with the classified documents he stole? We’ll never know. But what we do know is that Trump openly cozies up to dictators like Kim Jong Un, Viktor Orban, Vladimir Putin and Joao Bolsonaro. That’s not American.
Trump a successful “businessman?” Please. He blew the $400 million he inherited from his Dad, swindled people out of millions more and even and had to pay someone else to take his college entrance exam for him. In truth, he’s a fucking idiot and anybody who knows anything about him knows it. Republicans just don’t have the courage to tell him to his face.
And now Trump has a list of over 200 executive orders. Our entire federal government has been thrown open to a criminal con-man sociopath with zero moral compass and even less self-control. That’s not American.
It’s only a matter of time before Trump and his cronies get down to the business of robbing America blind. That’s what they know how to do. Everything’s on the table: Your Social Security, Your Medicare, Medicaid, VA benefits, the EPA… everything. And if you don’t think they’re going after it, guess again.
And then there’s the matter of America’s nuclear arsenal. How much do you think Russia and China would pay for just a few nuclear launch codes? Not all of them; just enough to take out a city or two… how about New York and LA? Heck, China’s movie industry could use a boost, Putin would rather see Budapest as a financial center and besides, California and New York are blue states anyway.
None of this is American. None of it. And the rest of us will not stand for it.
You break the law, you go to jail. You rape women, you can brag about it on the cell block instead of on a TV interview. You lie to the American people, you get thrown out of office. You support criminals, you share their fate. You betray the Constitution and cozy up to America’s enemies, you pay the price for being a traitor.
That’s justice. And that’s American. Or at least it used to be. Who will stand with me?
Anybody?
