Brian Beutler writes that The Trump Lie Machine is Broken, and uses as evidence the right’s failure to negatively define Tim Walz and Trump’s apparent inability to convert two assassination attempts into any bounce in the polls. I suppose there’s something to this, but I’m not really convinced.
It’s true that efforts to Swift Boat Walz have had nowhere near the impact they had on John Kerry. But I think the explanation for this is probably different from the one Beutler offers, which is that “tried-and-true GOP tactics ha[ve] suddenly stopped working” and “Republicans can no longer dependably scandalize their enemies with concerted bullshit.” First, we need to understand why the Swift Boating of Kerry worked so well.
The 2004 election, which took place during the height of the War on Terror, was one in which the Democrats were laboring to convince the public that they had the toughness to protect the country from another devastating September 11-style attack and to take over responsibility for the faltering wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Democratic primary voters understood this, and they chose a Vietnam War hero as their candidate over more convincing and committed antiwar alternatives. Kerry had the sterling military credentials to ward off attacks from chickenhawks like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. But Karl Rove’s strategy was always to attack your opponents’ strengths rather than their weaknesses. Attacking Kerry’s war record blunted his advantage and undermined the very purpose of choosing him over someone like Howard Dean.
Tim Walz was chosen by Kamala Harris for entirely different reasons. She likes him. He’s affable and funny. He’s down to earth. He’s midwestern. He’s totally normal. He’s a white man. He has executive experience. He’s got an attractive bio that does include military service but also a long career as a public school teacher and sports coach. It’s a total package, so you can’t target just one strength and do any kind of fatal damage.
Walz has the best favorability ratings of any of the four candidates at the top of the ticket, so clearly the Republicans were not successful in making the American public dislike or distrust him, but I think that has more to do with Walz being a difficult target and a good choice than some sudden failure of tried-and-true GOP tactics.
As for the second example, Trump’s decision to falsely blame the Democrats for the attempts on his life rather using the opportunity to signal personal growth is the main reason he’s getting no bounce. Beutler notes this, but focuses on Trump’s inability to sell the Democrats as the culprits.
Nobody outside Trump’s existing pool of supporters has time for his shit anymore. Everyone at some level knows that he sowed the maelstroms that now threaten to sweep him into oblivion.
Here I think the problem is somewhat the same as it has always been with Trump. It’s not that he’s convincing to most Americans. It’s that about 45 percent of Americans will stick with him no matter what he does. And I don’t know how much that’s attributable to people believing his lies, and how much it’s a byproduct of people being willing to overlook his lies to get the parts of his political movement that they want.
Whatever stupid shit he says or unethical thing that he does, he’ll appoint conservative judges, cut taxes for the rich, and insult people who need insulting. That’s good enough for more 4 out of 10 American voters, and this won’t likely change. When you add this strong floor of support to the advantages he has with the Electoral College, he’s still in a toss-up race against Harris.
Almost all the recent national polls of the race have at 45 percent or below, and he shouldn’t expect to do much better than that. I’d guess his ceiling if he gets some breaks is about 47 percent, although I doubt he’ll get so lucky. But he doesn’t need to win the popular vote or even get close to winning the popular vote. Whatever has worked for Trump in the past seems to be working just about the same for him now.
If he were more flexible, he might be able to raise his ceiling, but it’s really his floor that fascinates me. His stubborn level of support is confounding and deeply depressing, but very little of it seems driven by the effectiveness of his lies on people outside of his core supporters. It’s much more accurate to say that many of his supporters have given him permission to lie in the interests of winning and getting satisfaction out of his slanderous attacks on people they consider their political enemies.
Sure, there’s a group utterly convinced that the 2020 election was stolen and the Democrats are trying to kill him, but that’s a small subgroup of his core of support. What gets him to near parity with Harris is the people who have abandoned every standard in the interest of owning the libs and getting some policy they want. I don’t see whatever process drives this dynamic as broken at all. Because it still works, Trump can easily win this election.