It’s called the “pivot.” It’s that moment when a politician who has been playing at the fringes for primary purposes tacks to the center, just in time for the general election, the better to appeal to independents and moderates who might be turned off by red-meat rhetoric.
A particularly clumsy execution of what should be a deft move could be observed after New Hampshire Republican Don Bolduc won his primary fight and the right to run for the U.S. Senate against incumbent Democrat Maggie Hassan.
After running as a true Trump devotee, swallower of the election lie that Donald Trump was denied the presidency because of fraud, and signing a letter saying Trump won, Bolduc had a come-to-truth conversion as soon as the primary votes were counted. “I’ve done a lot of research on this,” he said to explain his about-face. “The election was not stolen.”
Did he forget that videotape exists and social media is forever?
In politics, there are actually all kinds of pivots.
One that erases the lived experiences of human beings is underway right now, as buses and planes crisscross the United States, courtesy of governors competing to see who can score the most political points on the backs of brown people.
Who are these men, women and children? Where exactly are they from? Are many in the country legally, stuck in an immigration system that is overloaded, unwieldy and in need of reform? What’s going to happen to them now? Who is paying for this stunt?
Before all these questions are deeply explored, notice how quickly conversation about GOP Govs. Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron DeSantis of Florida transporting asylum-seekers northward segued from the details about the people on those buses and planes to analysis of how these politicians’ cynical moves will play among voters.
Eventually, those details dangerously lose their power to shock, the names and faces blurring.
Consider how little has been reported on the fate of a 1-month-old baby dropped off in front of the Washington, D.C., residence of Vice President Kamala Harris, courtesy of Abbott.
Put yourself in the place of desperate parents trying to give your infant a better life; wonder what kind of despair and hope would lead to a trek into the unknown.
Oh, that’s right. In Donald Trump’s recent ominous and threatening Ohio speech, the one in which he labeled anyone opposing the MAGA movement as “thugs and tyrants” with “no idea of the sleeping giant they have awoken,” he could not pass up the chance to refer to some immigrants as “murderers” and “rapists.”
The clear message was that “these” people are not like you, smoothing the way for a pivot from people to threats to political pawns, good only for the opportunity to “own the libs” and bank a few votes.
When taken to task for not giving social services in Martha’s Vineyard advance notice, the better to make preparations, DeSantis press person Jeremy Redfern embraced the oversight, tweeting, “Do the cartels that smuggle humans call Florida or Texas before illegal immigrants wash up on our shores or cross over the border? No.”
Anyone who invites a comparison to human-smuggling, lawbreaking coyotes might want to examine his life choices.
It’s not even an original tactic.
