America spent 30 years convincing itself Hillary was a uniquely corrupt evil, so it was easy to believe when left & right vilified her

It was harder to sell that somehow EVERY single viable Dem candidate other than Bernie this year was a grue who feasts on the blood of the poor

The Democratic field was diverse in 2020, old & young, male & female, black, white, Latino, Asian, outsiders & insiders.

The hate & furor that greeted EVERY one of them as soon as they rose in the polls didn’t seem as believable as when it was just Hillary, the Great Satan.

So I think aggressive attacks sort of became part of the background noise

Bernie’s base hates surging candidate? No longer newsworthy. And so, with that energy spent too early, too often, against too many targets, that they hate Biden will not weigh as heavily as it did on Hill

Most people are not Very Active Politically Online. They never even heard that Pete was a price-fixing rat or whatever. They just tuned out, because the groundwork for believing such outlandish conspiracies hadn’t been laid over 30 years for Pete, or Liz, or Kamala, or Yang.

It was a mistake to go so hard against so many when it was likely always going to be Biden given the polls.

Especially if as reported the strategy was to squeak in with a plurality. They really needed everyone to stay in, pulling their <10%, as long as possible.

It’s the boy who cried conspiracy theory.

It’s simply not believable to the average person that EVERY Dem politician not named Bernie is a historic evil threat to progressivism on the level of the Hated Hillary, oh & also basically the same as Trump.

So the barb loses its sting

It was also hard not to notice that candidates only became slavering monsters in the eyes of some when they began to approach, not the lead, but second place.

People like Marianne Williamson, who actually sucks so much, never got any real scrutiny or an emoji. She was no threat.

So aside from being helpful to Trump/fascism, we may find that attacks against the Dem nominee don’t have much sticking power.

Pete was a rat, Liz a snake, Kamala a cop…everyone bad. People got used to it. It’s expected, & most voters clearly don’t think there’s a wolf anymore