This is backfiring on Elise Stefanik already

When Elise Stefanik and some other House Republicans began referring to the January 6th attackers as “hostages” and “political prisoners,” we saw a lot of lamenting about how awful this kind of rhetoric is. I took it as a victory for us. Why? Because it’s a terrible, terrible, terrible strategy.

The rubber room far right base might see the January 6th attackers as victims and heroes. But the vast majority of Americans see these attackers as terrorists. When you play solely to your core base in a way that alienates the middle, you are by definition losing the majority. So if Stefanik and these other House Republican cretins want to go out there and stake the Republican Party to the official position that the January 6th attackers are heroes, then that’s great. Bring it on!

Sure enough, there are now a number of Republican politicians who are pushing back against this kind of stupid pro-January 6th rhetoric because, well, it’s stupid. It’s the kind of stupidity that costs a political party a presidential election and a congressional majority.

It would be better for us if there were no pushback at all from within Republican ranks, and they went into the 2024 election with a unified strategy of supporting the January 6th attackers. This would be the best kind of election advantage they could possibly hand us. But we’ll settle for this scenario, where various Republican politicians are now pushing back against Stefanik and her stupid messaging, which will at least cause internal division within the Republican Party in an election year.

This is why I refuse to sit back and say “woe is me” whenever the Republicans start pushing this kind offensively unhinged messaging. It only serves to work against them. They’re very stupid for playing solely to their own base, at the expense of the middle. It’s as if they don’t understand what a majority is.