Can progressives learn anything from Republicans?

[Anomalocaris]

Sometimes..we imagine that the GOP "strategy" is a car that we can take all of the gop shit out of and fill full of other shit..but its not.  The racist bit is the fuckin wheels, it's not like a bag in the trunk.

Racist shit is just appealing to the morbid fear of those who think themselves entitled but did not equip themselves with real valuable ability.

Those who think themselves entitled but did not equip themselves with real valuable ability is the raw material readily exploited by any side, including the Russians. You can either exploit them better than everyone else, or you can make a Faustian deal with them, or you can imagine there is some bankable descency in them that provided no evidence of themselves until now. Russians did the first, republicans did the second, and democrats did the third.

There are many other ways to use the same strategy to manipulate an electorate that deserves no better.  What is amply understood on the other side and squeamishly denied on this side is ruthlessness is a indispensable virtue without which there can be no success, and it is not a virtue at all unless one is determined to always possess it in greater abundance than one’s opponents.