One of the reasons why Democrats have some difficulty in “messaging” is that they simply do not know how to frame an issue for rhetorical impact. The latest example of that is the incredible statement by Jon B. Erpenbach, a Democratic member of the Wisconsin Senate who, speaking during the lame-duck session of the WI Assembly and Senate that resulted in lame-duck legislation that would diminish the powers of the incoming Democratic governor and attorney general, compared the action to someone “stealing towels from a hotel.” Pardon me? Stealing towels from a hotel? WTF! This was an unbridled power grab by a bunch of anti-democratic legislators who actively sought to thwart the will of Wisconsin voters. Rethuglican Assembly and Senate mob bosses, Robin Vos and Scott Fitzgerald—two as insincere, dishonest, untruthful, false, deceitful, duplicitous, lying, mendacious, hypocritical pieces of scum as you are ever going to find slimming the halls of power —mouthed justifications about “balance of power” that would be laughable if they were not so blatantly fascist. And all Mr. Erpenbach can say is that this is like “stealing towels from a hotel.” Shame on you Senator Erpenbach. Shame on you. But this sort of framing is so typical of the Democrats. What’s more powerful, Pro-Life or Pro-Choice, even though pro-lifers really are only pro-birthers and care little about life after the womb. Pro-Choice sounds like part of an advertising pitch from your local ice cream shop.  How about “Make America Great Again” as opposed to “We’re Better Together”? Of course MAGA means make white nationalism, racism, and misogyny an acceptable part of the national dialogue. But the god-terms—America, Great—are higher up the rhetorical impact ladder than “We’re better together” which sounds like a line from one of those kumbaya songs popular during the folk song scare of the ’60s. As long as mealy-mouthed politicians like Erpenbach choose to define unprincipled attacks on the fundamentals of democratic government as “stealing towels from hotels,” the fascists win. It is as the historian, Norman Cantor, wrote: “The hard men with The Truth usually prevail over the tolerant liberal who, by his own philosophy, cannot bring himself to destroy his opponent, while his opponent does all in his power to destroy him.” The time has come (it is really long past the time), for the tolerant liberal to draw a line in the sand, roll up his sleeves, spit in his hand, and deck the “hard men with the truth.”