I was a shitty schoolyard fighter. No sooner would I land a really strong blow on the bully’s face than I would start to feel sorry for hurting the creep.
Big mistake.
As I gazed, transfixed at the pain I had just inflicted on my tormentor, he, who had no aversion to dishing out pain to me, would suddenly decide to serve me out worse. That’s one of the perils of empathy.
Later, when memorizing Shakespeare passages in Mr. Meade’s Sophomore English class, I read Polonius’ good advice to his son, Laertes.
Beware Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
Bear’t that the opposed may beware of thee.
That settled it.
I was reminded of this after Jon Stewart trashed Senate Republicans for betraying veterans, which led to the heartening spectacle of Ted Cruz cornered in the airport, vainly trying to explain his vote against compensation for veterans suffering from health problems related to burn pit exposure. For just a moment, Republicans were on the defensive. It would be such a shame not to keep them there.
Don’t drop the subject
Yesterday, Senate Republicans reversed course and voted for compensation for veterans suffering the after-effects of burn pit exposure. So should we let bygones be bygones and stop attacking them for their prior “no” votes? Hell no. That’s my schoolyard brawl error all over again. We should never let up when our enemy is on the ropes. We need to keep attacking Republican candidates for that shameful vote, and make them explain it over and over.
If you’ve read any of my other pieces, you know I’m pretty definite on one thing: explaining is losing. So as long as Republicans are explaining why they the shitty thing they did, they’re not attacking us. And right now, there are so many things to attack Republicans about, so many things to make them explain, that keeping them on the defensive should be like dynamiting fish in a barrel.
How to do it: build a snare with open questions
The best way to keep your opponent in a defensive explanatory crouch is by continually asking them to explain things they don’t want to explain. The words, “how” and “what” are best for this, as “why” often brings forth a thought-terminating cliche, and you don’t want to leave them that escape hatch. So ask,
“What are your reasons for forcing raped ten-year-olds to endanger their lives by and mental health by carrying their assailant’s offspring to term?”
“How did you decide to vote against protecting the health of America’s veterans?”
“What do you have to say to the woman in a hospital in Houston who is near death, bleeding out from an ectopic pregnancy, because you won’t allow the doctors to save her health with an abortion?”
There are less than 100 days left until the midterms and plenty of embarrassng questions to ask Republican candidates. We can keep them off-message, in retreat and on the defensive all the way to election day.
But we need to keep hitting.