IMO, the whole topic is nothing but a political tool, and most people wouldn’t care either way.
So there is this one playbook that the Russian-aligned right likes to play, which is: take an issue nobody but a very small minority of people care about, but it has to be something they can’t just let go. For example, the rights of trans people in the US, but in Hungary it has been the existence of one particular university at one point.
Then start bombarding your base with misinformation about how this thing is bad for society and has to be opposed, and introduce legislation. Finally, watch the small minority protest continuously and very fiercely for the issue that is existential for them, and lay back while this issue occupies public discourse for months and years, precluding other serious issues being discussed as you can comfortably be in a majority position while doing whatever you want without public attention.
The insidiousness is that the issue is really existential for the people affected, so you can’t tell them to let it go, and a lot of very loud people would demonize you for letting it go as well since it is existential for them.
So you have three options:
Take up the fight in the issue and let it be the deciding issue for elections, driving turnout for your opponent - see gay and trans rights
Try to take the opposite side and leave the minority group to fend for themselves, and lose them as voters - see funding the Gaza genocide
Be a stereotypical politician and change the topic each time it comes up, which will blunt the first effect, but you will still get some of the second - this is unfortunately usually the good choice
But to actually win, what you have to do is:
Use the tactic to your advantage and make your own attacks, keeping the topics on your talking points
Just off the top off my head, here are a few ideas the Dems could have done the same to the Reps, and I’m not a genius:
Declare the KKK to be a terrorist organization
Make it illegal to fly the Confederate flag on public buildings
Institute a federal ban on child marriages
I know each of these would rile up some small segment of the Republican base, but that’s the point! You want to make them fiercely defend points that not all of them care about, as not all of them will turn out for all of these issues. You want the Mormons out in arms on the streets protesting the child marriage ban so you can be “tough on crime” and “crack down on the rioting Mormon paedophiles”.
IMO, the whole topic is nothing but a political tool, and most people wouldn’t care either way.
So there is this one playbook that the Russian-aligned right likes to play, which is: take an issue nobody but a very small minority of people care about, but it has to be something they can’t just let go. For example, the rights of trans people in the US, but in Hungary it has been the existence of one particular university at one point.
Then start bombarding your base with misinformation about how this thing is bad for society and has to be opposed, and introduce legislation. Finally, watch the small minority protest continuously and very fiercely for the issue that is existential for them, and lay back while this issue occupies public discourse for months and years, precluding other serious issues being discussed as you can comfortably be in a majority position while doing whatever you want without public attention.
The insidiousness is that the issue is really existential for the people affected, so you can’t tell them to let it go, and a lot of very loud people would demonize you for letting it go as well since it is existential for them.
So you have three options:
But to actually win, what you have to do is:
Just off the top off my head, here are a few ideas the Dems could have done the same to the Reps, and I’m not a genius:
I know each of these would rile up some small segment of the Republican base, but that’s the point! You want to make them fiercely defend points that not all of them care about, as not all of them will turn out for all of these issues. You want the Mormons out in arms on the streets protesting the child marriage ban so you can be “tough on crime” and “crack down on the rioting Mormon paedophiles”.