I think she is right. Especially since Harris’ campaign is hiring people to take the low blows, it is hard not to respond in kind. But, it is the wrong thing to do, if you want to be successful with the people you need to win over.
This article is very good and the entire thing really needs reading.
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https://naomiwolf.substack.com/p/ho...ent?utm_campaign=post&showWelcomeOnShare=true
She makes some good points about swing states and appealing to as many people as possible on common ground issues.
On the other hand, I believe she suffers from a common human problem, where she believes that others think as she does. Conservatives always want to appeal to things that are important to them. They want to talk about concrete issues like how the nation is run, which includes the economy, inflation, spending, immigration, crimes, etc.
Then she says to stay away from emotional appeals, such as "intrusive attacks on opponents’ private lives, personal slurs, nasty jokes". Ok, take the high road, but does that really appeal to people other than the conservative base?
Let's face it, what appeals to the left is emotion. "Intrusive attacks on opponents’ private lives, personal slurs, nasty jokes' are their bread and butter. Stormy Daniels anyone? They may have some level of concern about concrete issues, but it doesn't effect how they vote. They are more interested in who is painted as the "bad guy", who are the victims, and do they relate to the victims.
One thing to consider is that Trump was successful in a political sense by engaging in leftist style attacks. He did engage in "intrusive attacks on opponents’ private lives, personal slurs, nasty jokes". He did it excessively, and it was so successful that the Democrats just decided to cheat in the key swing state metro areas the second time around.
Trump won by appealing to the left, because he played by their game, at least in the public sphere. What Trump didn't do was learn to play dirty electoral politics at the local level.
I would agree with a lot of what Wolfe said, but would add that Trump should continue with the personal attacks, just be careful to not alienate "moderates". Don't attack Kamala on something that many if not most women can relate to. Did Kamala sleep her way to the top? Of course. But Trump should consider whether this a positive or negative to the majority in the modern world. Above all else, Trump should only attack Kamala if he can almost universally make her the "bad guy".
Here's a great example of successfully painting Kamala as the bad guy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1-CRrMDSLs
