Intercepted: Democrat talking points for the coming week

From: Democrat Leadership
To: Our media friends
Subject: Talking points for the coming week

Thanks to the discipline of our members, our strategy to regain majority control of both chambers next year is working.  We need to keep up the momentum.
  Continue to work with TV stations and papers in your districts to get our message out to voters, and we'll work with the networks. 

1. The government shutdown: We're winning!  Our polls show that the longer the government is closed, the more voters blame the Republicans.  This is particularly apparent when flights are cancelled or delayed due to control towers being understaffed.  It'll get worse as more federal workers are fired.
  Also, several courts have blocked Trump from firing more workers, which gives us a great talking point, that Trump is acting like a king--which Americans readily understand and hate.

2.  ICE and deportations: We're winning this too, as larger crowds turn out to "peacefully protest" against "Trump's thugs."  Also, keep talking about how "Trump's brownshirts" hide their faces because they're scared to reveal their identity.  Our focus groups show this phrase strongly resonates with voters.  And our media allies know not to point out that all the protesters cover their faces too.  If you get that question, change the subject.
  A good topic to dodge questions is to claim Antifa doesn't exist.  All our leaders have been stressing this, and our focus groups show more voters now believe that's true.

3. Note that in almost every case where good Americans have sued Trump, judges have ruled against Trump, both in deportation lawsuits and those about firing government workers.  

4. The Gaza ceasefire: Trump is claiming credit for brokering a ceasefire.  So our talking point is to suggest that the ceasefire has allowed Hamas to re-group on the surface where they're executing scores of men they claim opposed them.  So in reality the ceasefire has directly led to the deaths of scores of Gazans, due entirely to Trump.
   Another point is that "hundreds of details have yet to be resolved, any one of which could send everything back to square one."

5. On Trump's orders the U.S. military has now blown up five boats in international waters.  Trump claims they were were transporting drugs, but there's no proof of that.  So it's quite possible Trump has killed innocent recreational boaters.  "It's just one more proof that Trump is a dictator." 

6. New York City mayoral race:  We're about to win this one by a huge margin, because Dem voters struggling with the high cost of housing, transportation and utilities love his promise to "make the city affordable."  
   Republicans are saying Zohran is a socialist.  The way to counter this is to say "He's said he'll pay for his generous programs by increasing taxes on just the rich, by just two percent.  The rich need to pay their fair share of taxes, and such a small increase won't cause them any hardship."
   Americans LOVE fairness, and our focus groups show this phrase polls *very* well.
   If Zohran wins by more than ten percent we've already sent stories to our Media allies to claim this is "the wave of the future," and that we plan to roll out similar candidates in every Democrat-run city.  "Democrats are the party of fairness!" polls *very* well.