When I was a wee lad, first starting out in radio, a couple of comms guys for then-U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu, a Democrat, reached out to me, wanting to chat about politics, coverage, etc. During our conversation, we got around to discussing how divisive political rhetoric had become at the time.
For the record, this was 2009.
These comms guys were insistent that the problem was Republicans, and how they had so masterfully utilized short, simple name-calling to tear down opponents (i.e. “socialist” and “communist”). Completely missing from their perspective on political rhetoric, which I did not bring up, was how quickly and easily Democrats take to calling Republicans “racist” and other such names.
The media is also very quick to do it. It’s very easy to just throw the word “racist” into an article about any Republican. Not because anything any Republican says is racist, but…
