Yeah. Thanks everyone for listening. It's a trope that dates back more than a decade, but the rise of Senator Bernie Sanders and House Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has seen a recent surge in, what we're calling the Liberal's "Inexplicable Republican Best Friend," a specific genre of concern trolling where a long-time Republican operative, politician or pundit offers supposedly well-intentioned "advice" to Democrats about how they can win elections, which always relies on, get this, avoiding veering "too far left."
Adam: These takes — frequently featured as earnest appeals in liberal and centrist outlets — are ostensibly framed as straight-talk advice that should be accepted as objectively in the Democrats' best interest, and never presented as an ideological argument that would otherwise make sense coming from a right-winger. "Republican hates socialism" isn't that newsworthy of a headline, whereas "GOP operative identifies Democrats' best interests," somehow is. As with most ideological scams, it only travels in one direction: leftward. One seldom hears liberals or leftists give "advice" to Republicans about they ought to do to win. This isn't a posture they ever mimic, or they'd be laughed out of the room.
Nima: Somehow the inverse is never true. Anti-choice, climate change denying, racist, rape apologist, warmongering, overpaid mercenary GOP "strategists" are treated like objective, neutral voices simply looking out for the best interests of the very people and institutions they've spent literally their entire careers trying to destroy.