Thread by @politicalmath

The renaming of the USNS Harvey Milk is such a perfect example of a smarter right-wing that has learned how to set a narrative trap

The Navy "leaks" that they are going to rename the ship, leveraging the volume and scale of the media to spread wide this info /1

The predictable outrage ensues. Nancy Pelosi calls it "shameful, vindictive erasure", which is not a thing she said about people tearing down statues of the founding fathers

The governor of Maryland says this name change is "lying about history" /2

https://x.com/iamwesmoore/status/1930038413605924891

That's where the trap is sprung. The Dem's outrage machine has given the story legs and visibility. The right can leverage that visibility to sabotage Milk's legacy

They can talk about how a 33-year-old Milk was sleeping with teenage boys /3

Or they can talk about how Milk defended Jim Jones and helped keep a father from saving his 6-year-old son from the cult leader who would ultimately kill him /4

https://x.com/JerryDunleavy/status/1930268498342666392

If the right tried to bring all these skeletons about Milk up in isolation, they would seem obsessed and creepy

But by using this ship re-name as bait, they got Dems to make praising Harvey Milk a part of their national platform & now Milk's bad behavior is fair game /5

Even if you hate the results of this strategy, you have to admit it's a good strategy. The new right understands how the outrage machine works and how the narratives play out & are leveraging that mechanism. Dem's haven't caught up yet. /end