Dems finally playing chess

When I was in college, I took a course in philosophy, for extra credit, and at one point we spent some time on the art of arguing.

I don’t remember much from the class, but one thing did stick. People will use polls and statistics to make a point and you can manipulate numbers to support many different arguments.

You can also word things in a poll or survey a certain way to steer the results that you want.

Let me give you an example. A new poll shows that the vast majority of people in Troy favor the city buying everyone an ice cream cone. I’m pretty sure if that’s how we asked the poll question, most people would support it. A politician could then run around on a “pro-ice cream” ticket and get lots of votes.

But what if the poll question was, “Do you favor everyone in Troy getting a free ice cream cone, on the condition that if the budget comes up a bit short, they will raise your taxes to pay for the ice cream they gave away?”

Now all the sudden, people are anti-chocolate chip cookie dough with rainbow sprinkles.

The one line that stuck with me from that philosophy course was, “Some people will use statistics, the way a drunk uses a lamp post, for support not illumination.” In other words, things are not always as they seem.

Take the impeachment that the U.S. Senate is about to embark on. Most people think this is about punishing Donald Trump and to an extent it is, but that’s just a happy byproduct for democrats. The truth is the impeachment isn’t about impeachment at all, it’s about Election Day in 2022, 2024 and 2026.

For much of my adult life the democratic party has been playing checkers, meaning they make moves and react to what is right in front of them. Sometimes it worked, many times it did not serve them well. Now they are playing chess , seeing the entire board and making moves well in advance of their outcome.

Putting aside whether it is constitutional to impeach someone who, like Elvis, already left the building, what democrats are doing right now is forcing republicans to take a side. They know they likely don’t have the votes to convict the former president, but they will get every single republican senator on the record with their vote.

That’s what this is about. Making them stick their heads out of the foxhole and pick a side.

Imagine if you will, it’s a couple of years from now and a senator is up for re-election. A commercial comes on TV that shows Donald Trump stirring up the crowd, then it cuts to video of lunatics bashing the windows at the Capitol. The announcer says, “When it came time to decide where this senator stood at this moment in time, they voted for anarchy.”

You can argue all day that is not what they voted for or against, but the political ad will be effective. How do I know? Two reasons. We are already seeing commercials going after Elise Stefanik, only days after she was sworn in to begin another term. I have never seen political ads start this soon or target a house seat this early in the game.

It is clear her opponents want that seat, and they feel her connection to the former president makes her vulnerable.

The other reason I know the ad will be effective is because we saw it work before with health care. A couple of years back we saw the identical advertisement play in districts all over the country. It said, “Congressperson (fill in the blank) is trying to take away your protection for preexisting conditions.”

It was a highly effective strategy that worked, just ask John Faso.

So, while Tucker, Rachel and Anderson blather on about impeachment, understand you are watching a chess match and democrats are thinking six moves in advance. You might not like it, but it is pretty sound game theory on how to put republicans in a tough spot come reelection time.

Since we have space, I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge the one thing from the recent inaugural that brought people on both sides of the political aisle together. Bernie Sander’s mittens. Weren’t they great? I saw the senator from Vermont not only had a sense of humor about all the memes with him in those mittens but t-shirts and merchandise were quickly produced with the image raising over a million dollars for

charity.

I’ve said it before in this column and I’ll keep saying it until I’m blue in the face. Despite what cable news tells you non-stop, all of us like each other much more than we let on and we have a lot more in common than the media would have you think.

Don’t forget at the end of the day we are all Americans in a great country.

I ended last week’s column telling you to be kind to each other. I really meant it.