Um, maybe this is just the no-light-escapes cynicism talking but…

…why would anyone think that smears based on actual material would be better than made up shit barely rooted in reality?

I mean, how many completely fictional scandals have we seen chucked at presidential candidates successfully? The idea that a scandal being really-real will make it more effective is, well, hard to reconcile with observable behavior.

I say this because the negative of this argument: that other people won’t have Bernie-sized controversies the other side can build ads on, doesn’t hold water. In the current media environment anything salacious is devoured by all levels of media like a gazelle. Fake scandals gain verisimilitude because of the performative “concern” and substanceless “analysis” that repeats the idea over and over in public.

Accepting conservative framing of events and issues is always a trap.

“Support the troops.”

Trap. Say the magic words, and then you’re going to get comma-fucked on the details of how much you stan stupid fucking wars that, on record, members of your party have criticized in part or whole. To appease the people who unthinkingly use this phrase, you have to alienate the people who think in detail about US conflicts and try and evaluate their cost-benefit.

“Bernie Sanders hung with communists”

Let’s talk about the scale of the trap here:

If you think Bernie Sanders’ record isn’t going to be used against any candidate…let me sell you some herbal remedies. His actual, factual socialism isn’t going to stand out when there’s thirty years of accusing the entire Democratic Party of comsymp. Like half the YouTube videos I watch include a Trump ad talking about ALL OF US as “socialists” and “crazy.”

If Bernie Sander’s didn’t exist, they’d just use Ilhan Omar. Or Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. Or Dennis Kucinich. Or Jane Fonda. It’s the Land of Bad Faith, it’s doesn’t actually matter what people did, just whatever accusation you can pantomime outrage over.

Same as above: accept Republican framing of “SAY COMMUISTS ARE BAD NUTTIN ELSE” and you will be checked, over and fucking over, with every instance of supposed “pro-communism”—which, again, Republican “communism” is a meaningless word into which they insert anything. It’s bad faith, working the ref, pick your preferred fucking metaphor: your idea as a liberal of what is “bad leftism,” which includes nuance and detail, has no relationship to how the term will be used in the upcoming election. You are arming for the wrong war.

Successful meet all their fucking challenges and they’re still going to call you a socialist pig, while all the abasing will result in losing more leftists who can recognize when they’re being jettisoned.

Stop being reactive.

Fucking punch.

Support the troops?

I support the troops being deployed to do tasks that have finite objectives that actually help this fucking country.

Bernie Sanders did a communism?

So…what?

Bernie hung around with pissed off 3rd-Worlders, who were pissed off because some rich people fucked up their country by funding gunmen and dictators.

Coincidentally, there’s a group of people has kept their tongue up the asses of dictators for fifty years, which explains all the brown shirts. And recently they’ve been fletching communist dictators, too.

At least Bernie is consistent about what he likes about communists. As opposed to what would appear to be the single least appealing cadre of international jetsetting autocracy whores this side of Mars…who also occasionally pull a socialism but only for their rich backers.