Wednesday, March 20, 2024

TRUMP MIGHT WANT THE SEIZURE OF TRUMP TOWER TO BE A CAMPAIGN EVENT

Dan Pfeiffer, a former Obama press aide, thinks Donald Trump was demonstrating some campaign discipline a while back -- but not anymore. Pfeiffer writes:
There was a sense that Trump had become a better, more disciplined candidate than in his two prior campaigns. Trump did show up to big moments like that CNN town hall better prepared and with a semblance of a strategy. On the campaign trail, he followed the script a little more and didn’t step on his message of the day. In other words, he behaved more like a typical candidate and less like a raving lunatic driven by an underlying urge to sabotage himself....

However, since the General Election kicked off almost two weeks ago, Trump has returned to his old, chaotic, self-destructive ways. After securing the delegates as the presumptive nominee, Trump has made critical errors daily. He can’t seem to stop saying insane, deeply politically damaging stuff. In the last two weeks, Trump has said:

* He was open to cutting Social Security if elected;

* There would be a “bloodbath” if he lost the election;

* He would pardon the January 6th rioters on his first day in office;

* He doesn’t think immigrants are “people;” and

* “Any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion. They hate everything about Israel and they should be ashamed of themselves because Israel will be destroyed.”
(I would have also mentioned Trump's threat to deport Prince Harry because Harry has acknowledged using recreational drugs. This isn't a major issue, but if I were a public figure trying to get President Biden reelected, I'd be talking about this a lot. Trump wants to do what? Is this really the kind of thing he intends to focus on if he's elected again? And if so, isn't that ... deranged?)

Some of the items on Pfeiffer's list aren't new -- Trump has been promising to pardon January 6 prisoners since last spring, and he said similar things about Jews who vote Democratic during his presidency, in 2019. But Pfeiffer thinks it's a sign that "Trump is cracking under the intense scrutiny of the General Election."

Is he? Or does he just have a different theory about how to win in 2024 -- a theory we hope is utterly wrong?

David Frum thinks Trump is approaching the general election with a bad strategy. Frum writes:
Almost 30 years ago, I cited in The Atlantic some advice I’d heard dispensed by an old hand to a political novice in a congressional race. “There are only two issues when running against an incumbent,” the stager said. “[The incumbent’s] record, and I’m not a kook.” Beyond that, he went on, “if a subject can’t elect you to Congress, don’t talk about it.”

The same advice applies even more to presidential campaigns.

Trump defies such advice. His two issues are his record and Yes, I am a kook. The subjects that won’t get him elected to anything are the subjects that he is most determined to talk about.
I hope Pfeiffer and Frum are right. It's clear that Trump thinks they're wrong. I'm reading this story in the New York Post, and I suspect that if it's true, it's part of Trump's strategy to be the most-discussed person in American life every day from now until November because he thinks it will lead to victory:
As Donald Trump faces a Monday deadline to post a $454 million bond in the civil fraud case against him in New York, insiders said he may be weighing a little-discussed option: Doing nothing....

A ... possibility ... is to let the deadline pass, leaving it to New York Attorney General Letitia James to seize Trump’s bank accounts or buildings — including Trump Tower....
Why would Trump want this to happen? The story says it's "partly because he believes the chances are good that he could recover the assets on appeal, even if he is forced to take his case to the US Supreme Court, according to friends." But if he takes this approach, I think it would mostly be because he thinks he benefits electorally from appearing to be persecuted -- even though that seems to work for him mostly among Republican voters, and not the larger electorate. He may also hope for another January 6 when and if the marshals come to seize Trump Tower.

I hope Trump is misreading the electorate -- like most old white people who binge-watch Fox News, he probably believes that all of America thinks the way consumers of right-wing media think. If that's a bad plan for the general election, I hope Trump pursues it from now until November.

*****

ALSO: The Biden campaign's message seems to be Yes, he is a kook.


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