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Hi, y’all. Welcome back to The Opposition. I’m headed to Maine tomorrow to report on the Senate race and I’d love to know what questions you have about Graham Platner, Janet Mills, and Susan Collins. Drop me your thoughts in the comments. But before we get to that, I want to talk about how Democrats are using more humor to try to fight back against Donald Trump. If your social media feed looks anything like mine, then you’ve probably spent a good amount of time these last few days watching videos of people dancing in the streets of Portland wearing inflatable animal costumes.
It’s because of the support of our members that I’m able to head out to Maine this week. Please consider becoming a Bulwark+ subscriber yourself. Signing up will let you read today’s full newsletter and participate in the comments section—and you’ll be supporting our work. We’d love to have you aboard.
–Lauren
Can Democrats Mock Trump Into Defeat?
As the president embraces strongman politics, Democrats are increasingly trying to make him seem little.
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OVER THE PAST FEW YEARS, Democrats have developed a well-earned reputation for being the party of scolds; a collection of people who ran overly serious campaigns for class president only to get trounced by the jock looking for an extracurricular to stuff his resume.
So as the country careens into a succession of crises brought about by the hand of Donald Trump, it’s semi-shocking to see Democrats resort to humor as a primary form of pushback.
But here we are. They’re mocking the president and his aides as insecure, wannabe despots. They’re embracing crude jokes and viral memes as they let it rip on their social media accounts. And they’re ridiculing the administration’s deployment of the National Guard to cities like Chicago and Portland not only as gross overreaches of power but as frivolous publicity stunts.
The approach is not meant to downplay the severity of the moment. It is, instead, an attempt to try and break through the modern media environment. More than that, it’s a gamble that ...
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