Perplexing

This is intriguing and I do not fully understand what is happening.  

A couple of days ago, Nancy Pelosi's husband was attacked in their home in San Francisco by an individual with mental health issues.  Despite his being a San Francisco, nudist hippy type living in unconventional circumstances, Democrats and the mainstream media asserted, without evidence, that this was a MAGA inspired attack by a Trump supporter on Pelosi and on Democracy.

They have begun modifying the bizarre messaging but they are still essentially claiming that Republicans are responsible for an attack in San Francisco by a mental health individual.

Then there is this response to a minor hiccough yesterday.  The White House communications team put out a tweet claiming that through Biden's leadership, Social Security recipients would be receiving the largest increase in their social security checks in ten years.  

Twitter appended a context notification based on reader feedback pointing out that the increase was an automatic increase due to inflation and had not involved any leadership or participation by Biden.  It was a purely automatic administrative adjustment according to legislation passed in the Nixon era.  

The White House communications team immediately deleted the tweet but of course everyone had already screen-shotted it for immortal embarrassment purposes.   Asked to explain, the White House Press Secretary did so by pointing out that MAGA Republicans are a threat to democracy.

KJP asked why @WhiteHouse deleted tweet flagged by Twitter that credited Biden for SS payment increase

"The tweet was not complete—Usually when we put out a tweet, we post it with context. [...] Let's not forget [...] about MAGA Republicans in Congress & their continued threat." pic.twitter.com/VzOCWCxh4y

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) November 2, 2022

Yesterday, listening to a piece on some extremely anodyne event, a meeting of Eastern European economic ministers perhaps or something of that nature, the central news reader interjected, in the middle of the report, a question to the field reporter based on an analogy to Trump and MAGA.  The news event was entirely unrelated to Trump and the analogy was a false and irrelevant one which the field reporter politely deflected as if it had not been asked.

I have of course noticed the sustained effort of Democrats to tie this election to Trump rather than the consequences of their own policies.  That makes at least some sense under the circumstances.  But the Trump obsession is usually lumped in with other arguments.

As we approach the November 8th election day though, it feels like the Democratic Party argument is refining down to solely Orange Man Bad! MAGA Bad!  Baba Yaga Trump!

That, I don't understand.  If that is all the message is, presumably it is effective with core supporters and would possibly work if their concern is that core voters won't turn out.  Such bankrupt sloganeering would have either no effect on conservatives or would possibly increase their ire and turnout.  And if independents vote their pocketbooks, the blatant emptiness of positive achievements reflected in such  slimy partisan ad hominem sloganeering would also likely drive up independent turnout in desperation for relief from bad economic management.  

I must be missing something because this interpretation means that Democrats are anticipating a catastrophic result and are focused on turning out the dyed-in-the-wool supporters.  In other words, they are concerned about their core.

Yes, they are likely to take some hard hits these mid-term elections, possibly even a landslide defeat.  But in their desperation, their messaging seems to be that they are not good at governing but they are enthusiastic in their baseless ad hominem attacks.  

Furthermore, its desperation lends credence to the belief that they are so desperate to cling on to power that all the various allegations about using the security state to punish political opponents and abridge long protected civil rights have some merit.

Sometimes you have to take your lickings and plan how you are going to keep on ticking.

In this instance, it feels like Russian battlefield desperation.  Throwing anything and everything at the perceived problem regardless of the consequences.  

And that I don't understand.  I must be missing something but I don't see what it is.