According to Heather Cox Richardson’s column today, 

MAGA loyalist Steve Bannon recently said: “They’re petrified over at MSNBC and CNN that, hey, since we’re taking control of the cities, there’s going to be ICE officers near polling places. You’re damn right.”

People like me—I am on the left edge of democratic liberalism and a career-long political scientist—instinctively react with horror to Bannon’s remarks.  I look at my own attachment to free and fair elections and the clear threat to them Bannon promises and it makes me angry.

Lately, however, I have begun trying to separate the clear meaning of statements like these from the feelings they convey.  How could the emotional tone of Bannon’s remarks be received, leaving the content of the remarks aside?

“They” are described in the classic way to clearly say “not us” and to imply “bad guys.”  The bad guys are further specified as MSNBC and CNN.  That will have clear and particular meaning for people who regularly watch Fox News and who hear President Trump casually and routinely refer to everyone but Fox as “fake news.”

Add to that the broadly established finding that a substantial part of the Trump base is already angry [1] and you have a public that is ready to celebrate both the defiance and clarity of the remark.

Imagine for a moment that Churchill routinely made extravagant and negative remarks about Hitler.  Now imagine a committee for “Fairness in the Press” publishing after each such speech, analyses that correct and rein in Churchill’s remarks.  This is at a time when the war is raging and the prospects are dark.  What I am inviting you to imagine is the emotional reaction of most Britons to Churchill and then to the Committee for Fairness.

All you have to do is to put this group of pro-Trump voters in the position of the people of Briton in 1940 and you can see how the response would be more to the tone of Churchill’s remarks than to the specific proposals.

Bannon is clearly implying that there will be coordinated federal intimidation of any voters who are likely to vote for Democrats.  But he isn’t saying that.  He is saying two things.  One, “the bad guys are afraid.”  Two, ‘You’re damn right!”

I genuinely hate the plan Bannon is talking about and also the language he is using to convey that plan.  But I try not also to be foolish about the things I hate and I think that disguising from ourselves how satisfying Bannon’s plan and his emotional appeal are—is just that: foolish.

So what does that mean in terms of electoral advantage?  Does it mean that more Democrats ought to learn to talk like that?  Does it mean that the people, generally, are going to see that language like that is associated with catastrophic outcomes for them? [2]

At this point, I think it could go either way.  Governor Pritzker’s rebuke to President Trump is a good model for Democratic language, but you have to wonder how many Democrats have that tool in their toolkits.  The alternative is to wait for the 2026 elections to see if the voice of sober moderation—what we have been trying for some time now—will work better as the crisis becomes more vivid.

[1]. Arlie Russell Hochschild’s superb book Stolen Pride is very good at conveying both the realities and the emotional reactions to those realities.

[2]. I am not thinking of economic outcomes.  I don’t think that will move enough voters, particularly since they have already been likened to “the necessary pain that follows a crucially important surgery.”  It will have to be culturally catastrophic and there will have to be an alternative other than armed revolt.