1. If @DougJones DOES lose- it won't be for a lack of trying & he will always be Alabama's BEST senator, ever (low bar of course).

Jones KILLS it on messaging & is the 1st Dem to deploy the "GOP is the party of extremists" rhetoric I argue Dems ought to have been messaging a

2. long time ago. In poli sci, some brilliant political scientists developed a fantastic tool to measure ideology in Congress a couple decades ago- measures ideology for every Congress/every member & it is not subjective. Very good measure. And it reveals asymmetric polarization

3. which means that the GOP is more polarized than the Dems. In fact, that is no longer just a little bit. Its A LOT. The tool can't even really convey it anymore bc over the past 2 decades, the GOP's moderate wing got wiped out in primaries & replaced w more conservative people

4. then THOSE "moderates" got wiped out and got replaced with Tea Party conservatives. And now? Now the Tea Partiers are getting wiped out and replaced with Q'Anon nuts. BC it turns out, once a party acquiesces to its extremist wing- its game over. IT just becomes a shit show.

5. fact is the Rep Party, in its pursuit of power, accidentally did itself in by creating a right-wing media ecosystem and really intense campaign rhetoric and gerrymandering to help them beat the Dems- but it causes a Frankenstein Effect & it also ended up eating THEM. That's

6. how the "establishment" of the party found itself losing control of the nomination in 2016 & now forced to bend to the will of the Trump family. Or at least they think they do (but that's a story for another day). And in this process- the party moved from a platform that

7. believed in climate change, supported comprehensive immigration reform w a citizenship pathway, & renewal of the assault weapons ban (these are ALL positions GWB took!) to a party that votes universally against a law that would prohibit a domestic abuser from buying a gun.

8. and a party that in MI, daily intimidates their colleagues in the state legislature by allowing armed militia men with assault rifles to roam the state capital even though these men have ties to groups that blew up the OK City Fed Building, and to a party that has passed in AL

9. an abortion ban that would force a woman to have her rapist baby. To carry to term, inside her body for months, night after night, a baby that is sired by a rapist. So, a party of extremists. Yet, the Democrats have utterly failed to inform voters of this extremism, to talk

10. about the GOP's problem with extremism, to brand or frame the Republican Party as a party of extremists- and with this failure have yielded a massive strategic advantage because the entire center of the electorate is just sitting there, waiting to be solidified. So hopefully,

11. more people will pick up on @DougJones' rhetoric and realize how tremendously important this is, esp bc the Republican Party is constantly trying to erroneously frame the Democrats as having an extremism problem when their ideological flank is very small and contained within

12. a distinct cohort.