Waves mount from the huge campaign competence gap—the lewd, tantrum-throwing toddler vs. the savvy, disciplined politician
What’s the ultimate decider in winning the White House? Not likely foreign policy, a presidential variable only when GIs are at risk. Ditto, messy issues of transient inflation and interest rates, price-raising tariffs, even immigration, less potent in key Midwest states remote from the border. Employment is strong, inflation descends along with interest rates. What about scatter-gun, culture politics? Only abortion rights count, a big Democratic winner, across purple states.
In the end, what matters is the quality and professionalism of a coherent, focused campaign—able to maximize strengths, engage voters, and then get enough voters to the polls. Second factor is candidate character, or media perceptions of it, linked to life experiences. Third looks to be one’s accomplishments and bragging rights, if these align with what most voters want, or think they want. By these standards, Trump needs a miracle to reverse the trends this summer. For, despite being “divinely-ordained,” his off-message, self-destructive campaign stinks—and the age of miracles ended centuries ago.
Trump not only looks worn-out, distracted and incoherent but he’s still convinced that he’s the ultimate political know-it-all—an astonishing self-deception, having never won the popular vote or hit the 50 percent approval threshold. Item: On J. D. Vance, Trump and staff failed to do even rudimentary vetting, stumbling into the most tin-ear, unpopular, and media-skewered VP pick ever. At least Sarah Palin had up moments before imploding.
So much for the Boaster-in-chief, knowing how to pick the very best people. When party leaders sharply pressured Trump to abandon his crude, personal attacks, wild threats and predictions of calamity, endless, wholesale lies—this genius won’t be second-guessed, scoffing at mere professionals. Trump is the unabashed cheerleader in the Let Trump be Trump brigade. Go for it, a roadmap to losing.
Since willful tunnel vision drives Trumpism, one must ask: When does he run out of campaign remedy options? What would a savvy, more realistic figure do, assuming he’d ever accept he’s fallen behind? After all, he has dictated there’s no way he loses a “fair election.” Further, has he not shredded his wiggle-room by boxing himself in with contradictory “commitments” (on abortion, the military, taxation, unions and sponsoring right-wing autocracies)? On the pro-abortion Florida amendment, within one day he was both critical of excesses (six weeks too short), then reversed himself (after being pummeled by anti-abortion fanatics) and now opposes the amendment. Being so oblivious about today’s most controversial moral nexus, a sure right-wing loser, explains his tin-ear word salad on everything else. And Trumpers wonder why their hero’s addiction to faking it is getting very old? Debate, here we come.
What new moves for this over-the-hill act?
No doubt, having no principles on abortion (or anything else), he hasn’t a clue about human suffering from total bans, deluded that his slippery default to “states rights” will save his bacon (another obsession). But the issue isn’t the arbitrary limit from sleazy politicians, but that huge majorities of all genders can’t stomach any governmental power interfering between women (or pregnator), and their medical wishes, their bodies, doctors, economic/family finances, or what to spend the rest of their lives parenting.
That Trump is a convicted sexual prediction only impugns anything he says about women, or their rights. But if Trump further muddles things, or hedges on signing a national ban, then fixated evangelicals (alongside worried gun owners and militant extremists), could opt out. The implications, IF any of Trump’s dwindling support balks at voting, are devastating for the Loser-in-Chief, the House and Senate, enabling a Dem sweep.
Ditto, Trump’s belligerence on immigration, and his sleazy private Senate stunt that killed rather conservative legislation, thus exiling one rational solution. Easier to keep the media “border infection” open than advance the ball. Trump can’t change his subservience to Netanyahu (and the message: Pulverize Gaza) or to Putin (as he gleefully betrays NATO and our Ukraine ally). Nothing will ever stop him from telling cringe-worthy bad jokes, making vulgar sexual slams, or showing racial primitivism against (black) women.
The best campaign takes the cake
Thus, the best campaign beats an inferior one. Trump the one-trick pony has squandered his levers to change tone or direction (still obsessed with Biden). The novelty and drama of the Harris campaign presents far greater options on messaging, eye-catching proposals, and quick shifts if something falls flat. Being less known (so she can define herself) and without baggage delivers the kind of edge Trump played off in 2016. Consider Harris’ ideal catbird seat: She’s not strictly an incumbent (and can distance) yet can freely boast about Biden wins plus her earlier AG triumphs. She hasn’t a vulnerable Senate record, though with dramatic VP tie-breaking wins. That defines the perfect, flexible Goldilocks balance: not too hot, not too cold. Harris also has access to a far superior Democratic bench, whether popular Congress members, ex-presidents, or a slew of anti-Trump ex-advisers and Never Trumpers.
Harris will have impressive endorsements from respected adults vs. Trump’s truly weird oddball backers, like RFK, Jr. or Tulsi Gabbard, with dubious electoral leverage. Are these two losers the only “Democrats for Trump”? OMG. What notable(s), comparable to the status of top Dems, can Trump front with leverage over the 10 percent of voters in purple states who matter? Not Lindsey Graham, an on-again, off-again Trump knave who favors a national abortion ban? House speaker nincompoop Johnson? Loudmouth Jim Jordan? Compromised Ted Cruz? Ham-fisted Hawley? Backward, desperate to please Trump sons and in-laws? Not one compares with the clout of the Clintons or Obamas or a fistful of well-heeled, appealing senators.
So, tell me how a multiply-indicted, convicted felon who incited an election-overturning, insurrectionist riot, talks trash and epitomizes being over-the-hill can compete with a shining new face whose first month delivered an amazing reversal, signed up tens of thousands of workers, and amassed more money in a shorter time than any other candidate in history? Donald is banking on the old loser’s delusion that an out of touch candidate can mine something from nothing—or Trump trickery well beyond its pull date.
What Trump once had, novelty, shock and outrageous headlines, won him more publicity than a blind, three-legged dog who just saved a drowning kid. Celebrity and money won’t offset the Vance blunder, an insular party convention, the horrendous Arlington cemetery boomerang, total abortion bans, criminal infamy, and gobs of verbal gibberish. What historically optimistic majority would still go for Trump’s lying chatter that the world is crashing, America is done for, and re-electing a failure who made COVID worse is the answer?
Indeed, name one specific Trump feat that amplifies his centrist, moderate appeal? Name anything that Trump can do to answer what’s becoming a Harris tsunami? Whatever his changes in tone or substance will I argue cost as many votes as they may gain—and we still have the debate, the trial sentencing, a D.C. hearing on Jan. 6 evidence—and unforced blunders we can’t imagine. Nothing is over until it’s over, but steady erosion doesn’t change by wishing for good weather—and positive, miraculous Black Swans.
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