Donald Trump is a uniquely polarizing figure, but it goes beyond people either loving or hating him. It’s also extremely hard for people to agree on what makes him effective or to predict what will cause him political harm. And this isn’t a problem that has a strict right/left split to it. Consider how the people around him responded to his Tweet last week about Martin Gugino, 75-year-old protester from Buffalo whose assault by the police was captured in a viral video.
Buffalo protester shoved by Police could be an ANTIFA provocateur. 75 year old Martin Gugino was pushed away after appearing to scan police communications in order to black out the equipment. @OANN I watched, he fell harder than was pushed. Was aiming scanner. Could be a set up?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 9, 2020
Even though Gugino was still in the hospital receiving treatment for head trauma, and despite two Buffalo police officers being arrested, the president suggested that he was a provocateur who may have faked his injuries.
Asked about this, multiple aides told ABC News, that they have turned off notifications for Trump’s Twitter account because “What’s the point?”
Yet, another group dismissed everyone’s concern, and went one further.
However, two other outside advisers to the president instead said it wasn’t the president’s rhetoric that was problematic — adding that’s in part how he won in 2016…
The first group is clearly demoralized. It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that they’ve given up on Trump winning a second term. For them, they don’t even want to know that the president is “citing a bizarre report by fringe right-wing television network One American News” to libel a political protester. It’s pretty hard to help a campaign if you won’t even look at what it’s doing. Beyond that, they clearly think Trump’s behavior is a problem that is hurting his chances.
But the second group sees this kind of unhinged and morally indefensible act as central to his political success. It’s hard to argue that the Gugino tweet was materially different from countless others he made in 2016 that people thought would sink his campaign.
I’m tempted to say that both things can be true at the same time, but I don’t really believe that. Either Trump’s crazy and dickish behavior is helping or hurting him, and I think it’s now hurting him.
But maybe this isn’t the most productive way of thinking about this question. A better way, I think, is to ask what Trump would have left in his political arsenal if he simply stopped saying half-baked and cruel things every day?
On this score, he can point to a ruined economy that was robust prior to COVID-19 outbreak, and stock prices that are at historic highs. He can point to a big tax cut for the wealthy and a transformed federal court system that now has a heavy conservative tilt. But he has no forward-looking legislative agenda. He has no foreign policy successes. His appeal is almost entirely wrapped up in his act, or his ability to make a spectacle of himself. If he didn’t tweet on a regular basis, there’d be no reason to pay attention to him. If he didn’t do outrageous things, there’d be no reason for anyone to enjoy the show.
So, Trump’s act may be old and curdled, but it’s the only thing that makes him attractive at all, and if he abandons it in an effort to pick up more support, he’ll only wind up depressing the enthusiasm of his true fans.
In this sense, the advisers who see the Gugino tweet as unproblematic have a point. Yet, the advisers who no longer want to look at Trump’s tweets at all because “What’s the point?”–they have a point too.
Trump is incapable of change and has only one trick. If the trick isn’t good enough to win in 2020, so be it, but he’s going to go down swinging.
3.5
Been saying since 2016 to stick to his shitty policies. Trump being an asshole to everyone else is self evident. No one likes to be hectored, and its to easy to turn critiques of racism/sexism of Trump into condemnations of you if you weren’t horrified enough.
“Trump’s act may be old and curdled, but it’s the only thing that makes him attractive at all”
Exactly! I’ve been saying this for a while. Trump has two aspects to his personality. The first is that he’s an asshole. The second is that he’s incompetent. It’s in his interest to get everyone to focus on his assholedom, because otherwise everyone would focus on what a loser he is.
He can get 40% support as an asshole, because there are people who are happy about who he is being an asshole to. As a non-asshole, he’s got no support.
“It’s also extremely hard for people to agree on what makes him effective.”
It’s actually pretty simple if you think of him as a shark – excellent predatory instincts, tiny brain, not a lot of depth. Trump is a psychopath – bold, indifferent to rules, utterly narcissistic, incapable of empathy, a liar. Everything he says or does is consistent with him being a rather stupid psychopath or malignant narcissist if you prefer. As you point out, he doesn’t add tricks because he can’t. He is what he is and will never be anything more.
His support is built on the rock of white evangelicals, people raised from birth to believe transparent liars with bad hair talking nonsense.
But how effective is he really? If the scope of effectiveness includes “all voters” then he’s not that effective,having never been able to get half, let alone a majority of voters to consistently fall for his bullshit.
The cult of Trump effectiveness (and yes, its a cult) lives exclusively in the realm of mainstream and right wing media. For example, Trump can tell a readily provable lie, with documented proof using his own words. And yet the media reports it as “the President says…” as if a boldface lie is acceptable pushback. Its like if I said 2+2 = 3, and kept insisting that were the case, and it continued to be reported verbatim as “He said…” when the reality is Trump’s boldface, provable, documented lies should ever be presented as push back, or an “opposing view” or “alternate truth” and yet it is.
Trump has been effective at nothing other than keeping a cowardly GOP in line, and were it not for that and a click bait obsessed media he’d have experienced a lot more failures and might not even be in office right now.
I’m more impressed that Trump knows how to use the word provocateur in a sentence. Well above his usual 3rd grade level of english.
He is the id of the right and they love him for just this kind of shit, so he’s going to keep on keepin’ on. If the voters out there are as tired as I am of this whole sorry act they will kick the R.’s to the curb in November.
The Dow crashed 1861 points or 6.9%. Trump has to be beside himself, poor baby. Keeps this up and he will lose by a landslide.
This is a strong argument for his de-platforming from twitter being an essential service to the nation.
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Trump’s act may be old and curdled, but it’s the only thing that makes him attractive at all, and if he abandons it in an effort to pick up more support, he’ll only wind up depressing the enthusiasm of his true fans.
E.g., Trump has nowhere to go but down, and his poll numbers are trending that way. Running on race to get the “white vote” is no longer the sure bet it once was, what with the apparent enlightenment of many white folk on racial tribalism we’re seeing of late, not to mention that demographic changes have made it a tougher path to victory.