Republicans have been calling Democrats weak, communists, and godless since forever.

How is it that Democratic strategists have, after all this time, failed to learn that “No we’re not!” is extremely bad counter-messaging?

Stop accepting the fascists’ framing pleaseandthankyou

Republican: Pansy!

Democrat: You’ve got it all wrong, I love guns and tanks and saber rattling at bad guys!

R: Commie!

D: (Mumbles something about “the beauty of markets and competition” and hey maybe we could regulate a little but that’s still definitely free enterprise)

Republican: Immoral atheist!

Democrat: If you please, O esteemed colleague, I am a devout churchgoing Christian who bases my politics on the Sermon on the Mount

I think what’s behind the Democratic failure to challenge bad faith Republican framing is the fear that gun-toting, swaggering, macho, ignorant, white conservative Christians truly are the “real Americans,” and so they must be catered to.

We have to stop thinking this way!

Instead of conceding to Republican badgering about how “this is a center-right country,” Democrats need to do the brave thing and have a serious debate about American values without centering white conservatives. It should go something like this:

Republican: Pansy

Democrat: Most Americans want a fact-based foreign policy that promotes democracy and regards war as an unfortunate last resort. Your childish saber-rattling is destabilizing and runs counter to those goals.

Republican: Commie!

Democrat: Your knee-jerk aversion to basic protections and a social safety net is ignorant and harmful. It keeps Americans poorer and sicker than their peers in otherwise similar countries. We won’t stand for unaffordable healthcare and education anymore!

Republican: Godless nihilist!

Democrat: The Democratic Party celebrates pluralism as the lifeblood of democracy, welcoming Americans of all religious traditions and none. Your exclusionary Christian nationalism is a denial of who we are as a country and will not prevail.

Note how the answer above does not claim that Democrats are “more Christian” than Republicans or that authoritarian Christians are “fake Christians.”

That entire discussion is predicated on Christian supremacism. It concedes the false assumption that “Christian” = “good”

Republicans will scream and gnash their teeth and gaslight us no matter how much we concede. So it’s time to call them on their authoritarianism and stop conceding anything. Let them scream.

They are Lucy holding the football. Let’s stop being Charlie Brown. It’s not that hard