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The media narrative about ambitious Democratic proposals so often focuses more on the degree to which they might set off a Republican backlash than on the nature of the plans. 1/
I just read a George Will column in my local newspaper with the headline, “Will Democratic push for reparations help Trump?” 2/
The assumption seems to be that backlash is a function of Democratic overreach rather than the normal operating condition of the modern GOP. 3/
It strikes me that Republican proposals and policies tend to be treated on their own terms and not from the perspective of whether they will yield a voter backlash. 4/
The irony is that polling seems to have shown that negative reaction to the GOP plan to undermine ACA and their massive tax cut for the wealthy were factors in their 2018 election shellacking. 5/
Yet this big political defeat was rarely figured as a “backlash,” which is understood to work in one direction, as a common sense, popular reaction to liberal/progressive overreach. 6/
