Democrats greeted the House passage of Republicans’ Obamacare replacement in a very curious manner last week.
At the prospect of a bill that Democrats warn will kill thousands of Americans, they began cheerfully singing “Na Na Na Hey Hey Goodbye!”
The singing was done to “troll” Republicans that the bill will destroy their congressional majority in 2018 and lead to big victories for Democrats. It made great fodder for The Hill and other left-leaning publications that live on “X Democrat/celebrity trolls Trump” content, but it made a bizarre sight for voters.
In the past, politicians would at least try to obscure their vulgar political considerations before the public. You don’t cheer on an opponent who makes an embarrassing gaffe or gets hit with a scandal, even if it does benefit you. It’s bad form, and ends up making you look crass, according to past reasoning.
Apparently, Democrats aren’t worried by the optics when they get cheered on by journalists on Twitter for engaging in such behavior — even when leaders like Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Sen. Cory Booker are warning of immense suffering if the Republican bill becomes law.
Despite the confidence that the backlash to the healthcare bill will benefit Democrats, this doesn’t seem like good politics to be gleefully cheering on something you think is going to literally kill people. Especially, when you’re just singing over the supposed political benefits.
But this event is another sign that Democratic lawmakers are increasingly playing more to their Twitter fanbase than to real-life voters. In a healthcare debate where they could’ve easily offered an alternative to Republican plans, they instead sat back, smirked and went on to MSNBC to look like crusading heroes for saying Obamacare is amazing.
And it paid off on Twitter, which is a service only 21 percent of American adults use.
Another case from last week of Democrats looking for retweets instead of effectively changing policy comes from Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. Bob Casey. When a young illegal immigrant and his mother were getting deported, Casey went on a tweetstorm about the matter and said he was sending a picture of the boy to the president. The senator even included an MSNBC appearance in his tweet thread.
None of that actually stopped the deportation, however. But he did conclude his thread with the dire warning that the child and his mother would now be murdered since they were sent back to Honduras, without any shred of evidence to substantiate that claim.
But at least the thread received thousands of retweets and likes.
Another recent example of a Democrat playing to the niche tastes of liberal Twitter is California Rep. Ted Lieu — who’s become a star thanks to his obsession with Trump’s unproven collusion with Russia — pushing a resolution for Congress to honor a “Day of Reason” to counteract the nefarious influence of the Day of Prayer.
Because pissing off religious people to please smug internet atheists always makes for smart politics.
As Lieu’s recent popularity suggests, the favorite topic for Democrats at the moment isn’t talking about how President Trump’s policies and proposals are going to hurt ordinary Americans, but how he is controlled by the Kremlin. This conspiracy theory has become the favorite topic of the preeminent liberal pundit Rachel Maddow — greatly overshadowing all other topics on her MSNBC show — and has made Democratic lawmakers like Lieu and Maxine Waters darlings of the Left. (RELATED: Russia Has Turned Rachel Maddow Into The New Glenn Beck)
Waters has been able to overcome her corrupt past to make herself into a tough talking folk hero for liberal millennials. At least, according to Maxine Waters herself. Many of the things she says veer straight into tin-foil hat territory, such as pondering without evidence that Rep. Jason Chaffetz resigned because of Russia, and sound like they were ripped straight from a DailyKos comment thread.
For example, Waters last month called for both Trump and former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly to be “locked up” for alleged sexual harassment.
That sounds like great rhetoric to your aunt furiously sharing Occupy Democrat content on Facebook, but is not going to connect with the everyday folks Democrats are struggling to connect with.
Regardless, MTV honored Waters by letting her present the award for “Best Fight Against the System” on Sunday night.
That probably summarizes what’s wrong with Democratic rhetoric at the moment. While their lame “trolling” and conspiracy theory spouting earns them the adoration of Hollywood celebrities, Beltway journalists and woke millennial activists, it hasn’t shown any evidence of translating to votes.
If voters see your party as more concerned with getting praise on Twitter than addressing their concerns, they are not going to reward you at the ballot box — no matter how much the opposing party fumbles.
While Democrats may believe thinking up ways to make a stick-figure representation of Trump as a giant penis go viral is good politics, voters in 2018 are probably going to think otherwise. Nobody who’s worried about their economic future wants to hear their representatives scream about Russian spy terminology on the stump.
They want to hear about how lawmakers will try to make their life better. Even if Republicans fail to accomplish that one objective by 2018, their chances of retaining control of Congress look good if they’re facing off against Maxine Waters’ clones.
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