"When a political ally does something controversial, there are three ways to respond: defend it, repudiate it, or deflect attention away from it. Defense is the obvious option if you think the action is acceptable enough to the public. Repudiation makes sense if the matter is so toxic that you can't afford to keep the guilty party in your coalition."
"Alternatively, you might claim that the offenders in question are too powerless to be held publicly accountable. Vance employed both tactics. "Grow up! I'm sorry; focus on the real issues. Don't focus on what kids say in group chats," he said on The Charlie Kirk Show. This despite the fact that the participants included people in their 30s, and many work as high-level staffers in Republican politics."
Young Republican leaders' group chats contained rampant bigotry, endorsements of rape, and praise for Hitler. Some Republican colleagues publicly condemned those messages, while Vice President J. D. Vance refused to join condemnation, urging critics to "grow up" and to focus on other issues. Political responses to allies' misconduct include defense, repudiation, or deflection. Deflection is used when an ally's behavior is too toxic to defend but widespread enough across a coalition to make criticism politically costly. Deflection can mean downplaying significance or portraying offenders as too powerless to be accountable, even when many participants are adult staffers.
Read at The Atlantic
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]