Friday, June 28, 2024

YOU CAN'T BEAT TRUMP BY UNDERESTIMATING HIS SKILLS

I watched a great deal of the post-debate analysis on CNN. While I agreed with the commentators that President Biden had a terrible night, I was furious when they all seemed to agree that Biden didn't look capable of serving for another four years. I found myself shouting at the TV: You all realize that he knows this stuff, right? You know he gets it, even if he struggles to get the words out. Why aren't any of you -- even the Democrats -- saying that?

For a long time I've believed that Biden is struggling in the polls not because the majority of the country is MAGA (it isn't), but because Trump's MAGA base is augmented by swing voters who feel unsettled by the strain of high grocery prices on their inadequate incomes -- and because they don't follow politics, they just want someone who seems like a leader. They don't know why inflation happens, they don't know why abortion is under assault (a non-trivial percentage of them blame Biden, because he's the president, and I guess they assume the president has the power to overrule Supreme Court justices and state legislators) -- they don't know much about politcs at all. So what they want to see when deciding on a candidate is someone who conveys a sense of leadership. It doesn't have to be by means of macho bluster -- they thought Bill Clinton and Barack Obama seemed like leaders. When something disturbing happens, they want someone who'll look straight into the camera and speak confidently and articulately about the problem.

That's why Biden is struggling in the polls -- on most days, he can't do that.

Many liberals reject the idea that presidential eloquence matters -- they sneer at the notion that a president might give one prime-time speech and change public opinion on an issue. They say if you believe that can happen, you have "West Wing brain." You're falling for the "Green Lantern theory" of leadership.

They're right about that -- in the real world, one speech can't turn the tide of history. But while presidential eloquence can't turn around public opinion on one issue overnight, it's cumulative -- many voters hear an eloquent president and think there's a steady hand on the tiller. They're willing to give these presidents the benefit of the doubt, even when they're dissatisfied with what's going on the country.

That's why Clinton and Obama won reelection and Biden probably won't. Voters who just want a sense of solidity and steadiness aren't getting it from Biden, because he doesn't sound solid and steady.

I'm using the word "eloquent," but voters don't necessarily want high-minded Ciceronian rhetoric. Sometimes they feel comforted by a hokey after-dinner speaker (Ronald Reagan) or an insult comic (Donald Trump). Reagan could segue from corny jokes to dire warnings about communism or "big government"; Trump can transition from Don Rickles in Vegas to fascist rhetoric about the enemy at the gates. It doesn't matter if hearing Trump (or Reagan) makes your skin crawl. I get it. I feel the same way. I think millions of swing voters agree. But what matters is that Trump, like Reagan, sounds confident and self-assured -- and there appear to be enough swing voters for whom that's sufficient this year, just as there were in 2016, and nearly in 2020. (Remember, Biden's total margin of victory in the states that gave him his Electoral Win was only about 45,000 votes.)

Most Democrats refuse to acknowledge something that seems obvious to me: Trump has skills. He's skilled at persuading at least some people -- and not just in the MAGA base -- that he knows what he's talking about and has a command of the facts. And of course he has this skill! He's a lifelong con artist! He's been appearing before cameras since the 1980s and telling people whatever it is he wants them to believe, with no regard for its truth value. He knows how to do this.

Most Democrats don't want to acknowledge this because they want to believe in a Trump of their own creation, one who's in advanced state of dementia and who has no idea what he's talking about. Many were sure that he wouldn't even show up last night. I tried to warn these people....




I think he'll try to be Stephen Miller at this debate, not himself. He'll try to do the prepared-text parts of his speeches (which are full of foreboding about our alleged descent into chaos under Democratic rule) rather than "Low-flush toilets, amirite?" And the Times will call him "presidential."

— Steve M. (@stevemnomoremister.bsky.social) Jun 27, 2024 at 6:14 PM


But that's impossible! I was told. He's the crazy guy who talks about boat batteries and sharks! He's not capable of a disciplined performance! He's just a drooling old dementia case!

But that's Trump in "observational comic" mode. We know he knows how to shift gears because he did it during his criminal trial. He focused a lot of anger at the judge, prosecutors, and DA, as well as at the Biden administration. It didn't win him an acquittal, but it reinforced his dishonest "lawfare" narrative, endeared him to his base, and opened a lot of wallets. Trump knew what he was doing. A dementia case wouldn't have.

I'm not arguing that Trump is unbeatable. I'm arguing that Trump is formidable -- especially running against a candidate who struggles to speak forcefully. I know that too many ordinary Democrats think a Trump loss is inevitable -- voters must see he's unfit, right? They can't possibly fail to see that, can they?

They can:


Trump won't beat himself. Democrats need to beat him. Underestimating him isn't helping them to do that. We need State of the Union Joe Biden every day in order to beat Trump -- and if Biden can't deliver, maybe we need someone else.
Posted by Steve M. at 9:24 AM

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