"We're all supposed to believe that Democrats must practice "popularism" -- they should talk about popular Democratic ideas and only
popular Democratic ideas; none of this woke "defund the police" or
"Latinx" nonsense. Most Democratic politicians actually do just that,
but word gets around that every Democrat is excessively woke because the right-wing media says so.
But Republicans practice "unpopularism" -- they oppose even modest gun
control measures even after horrific massacres, they oppose abortion
even in cases of rape and incest, they block increased taxation of the
rich, they prevent increases in the federal minimum wage, they reject
state Medicaid expansion under Obamacare -- and none of this is ever
described as carrying "real political risk," presumably because they do
it so defiantly that voters just shrug and accept it as inevitable.
"In addition, of course, they benefit tremendously from the work of
reporters and pundits like Talev who assume that there's political peril
in everything Democrats do and nothing Republicans do. And these
journalists don't even notice that they're doing it." -- Steve M., at No More Mister Nice Blog, on a piece in Axios by Margaret Talev on the "real political risk" of vaccine mandates to Democrats. The polls Talev cites are, at best, contradictory; but, hey, why be bothered with contradictions when you've got a narrative to flog, amirite?!
