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🧵You can't talk about Natalie Harp w/o talking about how strange she is. This isn't making fun of physique or bearing. It's about obsessive/creepy behavior. And it matters on policy. As a former Republican media consultant, I can tell you that this attack is astonishingly effective w/the public...

Most people don't pay much attention to politics. They find it too complicated and depressing because they don't understand, but also because the news itself is often negative. How bad is this? In 2010, 41% of adults couldn't name Joe Biden as the VP, even though he'd been in office for 18 months.

But while people are often ignorant about the particular policy views of politicians, they are very sensitive to the politicos' branding. Republicans have understood this for decades. This is why they offer many (often monstrous) cultural or human-interest type narratives to the public.

Republicans have to do this by necessity because most of their policy views are unpopular. The reason Trump is always talking about "transgender for everyone" or fighting with Jimmy Kimmel is because these types of subjects are simple to understand.

Not only that, these types of cultural/personal attacks (like insulting the intelligence of Democratic women lawmakers or calling reporters "piggy") allow Trump to paint himself as a victim of elites. This is blatantly false, but it's effective w/people who hate celebrities and the secular state.

Democratic governmental systems necessarily rely on candidates getting votes from the people. To win, you have to convince a plurality that it's you and them against the elites. Republicans have convinced ppl that unemployed college students and city council members are the elites in America.

While cultural and personal attacks (Kerry is a flip-flopper, Dukakis rode in a tank, Obama is a Muslim foreigner) have worked miracles for Republicans for decades, Democrats have resisted using them. I can see why. Republican attacks are often vicious lies like Michelle Obama is a man.

But personal and cultural attacks don't have to be insults about physique or total fabrications. Jon Ossoff's insult of Trump's total reliance on a cultist like Natalie Harp is a perfect attack that is true while also being factual and policy-relevant.

Now that almost everyone in the country has been directly harmed by at least a few of Trump's bizarre and moronic policies, many people are wondering how it is that he could be so stupid. Bluesky users know that it's because he got subsumed into an extremist movement at war w/modernity.

But there is the immediate reason as well: Trump is a deranged and decrepit moron who thinks magnets are ruined by water and that wind turbines cause cancer. In his first term, there were a sufficient number of rational people around Trump that his infantile desires were ignored. Now they're gone.

In the 2024 presidential campaign, Kamala Harris made this a regular point, saying that people like John Kelly wouldn't be around to block Trump's insane plans like stealing Greenland. She was right, but the problem is, almost no one knew who John Kelly is.

The great thing about the Natalie Harp attack by contrast is that even the sociopaths & zealots who work for Trump think she's a freak. And it's obvious why: -She runs after Trump on his golf course bc she can't be apart from him -She rides in car trunks to be w/him -She has insane religious views

While you might be right that on a comprehensive scale Trump is a "midwit", on the scale he should be assessed, past presidents, he's a moron, as you earlier said.

A "midwit" is someone too stupid to spell "dimwit".

I didn't have enough space to say that I think when he was younger, he was just a mediocre rich guy. In his dotage, he's lost most of the intellect he had, and will believe anything, not matter how stupid it is.

Why would Trump keep someone so obsessive around him constantly? Why don't his aides or family keep her away? These are serious questions to ask. There are more personal insult-type attacks as well such as how Harp looks like a Stepford Wife. Politicos don't need to use them if they don't want to.

The “drape” of his jacket sleeve. So odd.

Elderly Democratic advisers like David Axelrod and James Carville don't understand any of this. That's because they think Dems should try to pretend to be JFK Jr. But that is a shtick, and it hasn't worked since Trump came along. You have to be funny, sharp-elbowed, and willing to throw punches.

David Axelrod humiliated himself today by demonstrating that he's learned nothing about how to win in the Trump era of politics. He is clinging to the idea that a single message is the way to go. Nope. Trump gives thousands and it works. (Out-of-touch Axelrod is paying Elon Musk for Xitter btw.)