It's a bit of a game of chicken. They know our strategy is to win over their base, and so we'll play directly to their red-baiting by willfully alienating whatever remains of our base on the left fringe. Meanwhile, they get to use red-baiting to arouse their own base. This election will hinge on which of us is ultimately able to convince a tiny sliver of older right-wing suburban white voters. And naturally, when this fact becomes undeniably apparent, we'll use that as evidence that our strategy was the correct one, win or lose.