.....Politicians are already listening. They listen very carefully to whoever they’re most afraid of. And right now, in case after case, that’s not you.
Every politician operates on a simple assessment. Who can make my life easier or more difficult? Political survival depends on correctly calculating which forces will have the greatest impact to your career, your reputation, your future.
For the past several years, one answer has dominated that calculation. The MAGA base, Trump’s apparatus, the organized right-wing media machine has mastered the art of making themselves the primary threat. They show up consistently at every level of governance. School boards, city councils, state houses. They practice single-issue absolutism that destroys careers. They’ve built well-funded primary infrastructure specifically designed to punish deviation. And critically, they make daily life miserable for politicians who cross them through harassment, doxxing, and sustained campaigns of intimidation.
The general public, by contrast, shows up every two to four years, forgives “strategic” retreats, rarely primaries anyone, and can be taken for granted. We are, in the cold calculus of political survival, the less dangerous constituency.....
cmarmitage.substack.com |
