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Wednesday, February 20, 2019

Republicans Hope to Sway Voters With Labels That Demonize Democrats


Feb. 17, 2019
WASHINGTON — In the 116th Congress, if you’re a Democrat, you’re either a socialist, a baby killer or an anti-Semite.
That, at least, is what Republicans want voters to think, as they seek to demonize Democrats well in advance of the 2020 elections by painting them as left-wing crazies who will destroy the American economy, murder newborn babies and turn a blind eye to bigotry against Jews.
The unusually aggressive assault, which Republican officials and strategists outlined in interviews last week, is meant to strangle the new Democratic majority in its infancy. It was set in motion this month by President Trump, who used his State of the Union address to rail against “new calls to adopt socialism in our country” and mischaracterize legislation backed by Democrats in New York and Virginia as allowing “a baby to be ripped from the mother’s womb moments before birth.”
Then last week, Republicans amped it up, seizing on a Twitter post by a freshman representative, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, which even some Democrats condemned as anti-Semitic, and ridiculing the “Green New Deal,” an ambitious economic stimulus plan unveiled by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a self-described democratic socialist. Suddenly even Jewish Democrats were abetting anti-Semitism and moderate Democrats in Republican districts were Trotskyites and Stalinists.
House Republicans have identified 55 Democrats they regard as vulnerable, including many freshmen. Some flipped Republican seats last year, some represent districts carried by Mr. Trump in 2016, and some are in districts held by Republicans until recently. Bruised by their losses last year, Republicans are determined to start earlier and be more aggressive on the offense in 2020, and are hoping to exploit the Democratic presidential candidates’ courtship of the left.
An advertising offensive is already underway. The Congressional Leadership Fund, a political action committee affiliated with House Republican leaders, began running digital ads last week that link two freshmen who flipped Republican districts, Representatives Colin Allred of Texas and Antonio Delgado of New York, to Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and her “radical Green New Deal assault on the American economy.”
Democrats see an insidious effort to use women and minorities, especially women of color, as the new symbols of the radical “other.” And they are calling out Republicans as hypocrites, noting that Mr. Trump and other Republicans trafficked in anti-Semitic tropes and racist dog whistles long before anyone noticed Ms. Omar’s Twitter feed.
In the Senate, where five Democrats are already running for president, Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, announced he would force a vote on the measure, drawing howls from Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, who slammed the move as a “cynical stunt” intended solely to put Democrats, including the presidential candidates, on the spot. A vote in favor of the Green New Deal could help them court progressives in the primary vote, but hurt in a general election.
“Democrats have handed Republicans this messaging on a silver platter,” said Andy Surabian, a Republican strategist and former Trump White House official, adding that he believed socialism and Democrats’ stance on abortion were more powerful lines of attack than anti-Semitism. “All these controversies dovetail perfectly with the president’s messaging at the State of the Union.”
Democrats say they intend to counter the offensive by talking about the issues they ran and won on: reducing health care costs and prescription drug prices, passing an infrastructure package and rooting out corruption in Washington.

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