A user on X named Political Math explained today how Democrats just got played by the new right-wing under Trump, who he says has learned how to “set a narrative trap” for Dems using the own outrage machine.
First, here’s the backstory:
The Pentagon plans to rename the USNS Harvey Milk, named after the late gay rights leader, and is reviewing the names of a class of ships named after Black and Hispanic civil rights leaders and prominent women, officials say.
The USNS Harvey Milk is named after the Navy veteran and San Francisco politician who was assassinated in 1978. There’s no timeline for the renaming or what new name the fleet replenishment oiler will be. CBS News first reported the proposed name changes.
And here’s what Political Math wrote about this today:
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
— PoIiMath (@politicalmath) June 4, 2025
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" /2https://t.co/oxGGLlGTbJ
— PoIiMath (@politicalmath) June 4, 2025
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
— PoIiMath (@politicalmath) June 4, 2025
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 /4https://t.co/mCBMTd4ftB
— PoIiMath (@politicalmath) June 4, 2025
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
— PoIiMath (@politicalmath) June 4, 2025
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
— PoIiMath (@politicalmath) June 4, 2025