Maybe that whole “but they started it!” philosophy works in theory

My reasoning has nothing to do with who started it. It’s understanding that one side is using logic and reason and facts and data, and the other side is using empty rhetoric and emotional pleas and fear-mongering. One side is interested in upholding fairness and justice, and the other side is only interested in the attaining and holding of power.

Imagine there are two people competing in a boxing match. We’ll call them Blue and Red.

Standard boxing rules: (Gloved) fists only. No kicking. No hitting below the belt. No hitting someone when they’re down. No biting.

Now imagine that Blue is playing a fair game, abiding by the rules. But Red is breaking as many rules as he wants. He’s kicking Blue in the balls, he’s punching Blue when he’s down on the ground, he’s trying to bite any body part that comes close to his mouth.

The referee has been paid off to ignore any and all rule violations, and so Red faces no consequences for cheating.

Suddenly Red has a significant advantage over Blue.

That’s exactly the situation our politics is in right now. Republicans are not playing fair. They suffer no penalty for it, and it gives them a significant advantage. So they’ll keep doing it.

I’m not saying we should stoop to their level and start cheating and breaking the rules, too. But we should realize that Republicans have no interest in bipartisanship, they have no interest in meeting in the middle or finding common ground, and we should adjust our strategies accordingly.

Further alienating these people is a surefire way to give Trump another 4 years in office

After everything we know about Trump’s reckless mindset, his creepy and immoral lecherous-old-man behavior, his lazy four-hour workdays primarily spent watching cable news, all the corruption and the crime and the scandals — after two years of all that, his approval ratings among Republican voters are still at 90%.

There was a study I read a few months ago. I wish I had the link to it, but I don’t. Perhaps you saw it. It looked at the consistency of Republican and Democrat voters positions on certain issues under one president, and then under another.

What they found was that Democrats were largely consistent. If they were opposed to a policy under a Republican president, then they would still be opposed to it under a Democrat president. In other words, they’re not hypocrites.

But it found the opposite was true of Republicans. If a Democrat president does it, you get 90% disapproval. If a Republican president does the same exact thing, you get 90% approval.

All of which goes to show that Republicans are party over country. They don’t care about doing the right thing, they only care about winning.

The point I’m making is that these people are already alienated. You can’t alienate them further. There is NOTHING Democrats can do to win over Republican voters.