Republicans have never been more united, and Donald Trump deserves all the credit for that. Pundits, editorial boards, virtually every Republican politician, Republican consultant, MAGA warrior, and rallygoer are united on one theme: Trump needs to put aside his personal grievances and complaints, focus on the issues, and attack Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz on their accomplishments.
The New York Times asked former Georgia Republican Rep. Jack Kingston what he thought about Trump’s recent attack on Harris for fabricating her black identity. He replied, “I would stick with the price of groceries.”
“All Trump has to do is talk about his positions, like he did in 2016,” says columnist Ann Coulter.
“He is more comfortable with personality-driven attacks than issue-driven attacks,” said Neil Newhouse, a Republican pollster who Just“But since Kamala is relatively unknown, the political and issue-based attacks would resonate more at the moment.”
Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro agrees: “He just needs to focus the attack and spend the war chest he has amassed on these extremist voters, to stick to a simple point: You were better off in 2019 than you will be in 2024.”
Even Trump’s campaign manager Chris LaCivita says so. “Ultimately, it’s about showing through her own words how dangerous, how weak and how failed she really is, and that’s not difficult when she’s speaking herself,” he told the Washington Post.
Obviously, it would be better to follow this advice than Trump’s current approach – race-baiting, voter denial, whining about Biden’s defenestration, attacking his fellow Republicans, boasting about crowd size, etc. – all of which are clearly ill-advised.
But “ill-advised” is the wrong word, because pretty much everyone who advises Trump tells him to stop. In other words, the general opinion is well advisedit’s just that Trump can’t or won’t follow through. This isn’t a new phenomenon. Expecting Trump to “refocus” or “act presidential” has been a political pastime for nearly a decade. It’s like betting that Godot will be on time or that Lucy won’t snatch the football from Charlie Brown.
But what interests me is not the exhausting assumption that Trump can be anything but what he is, but rather the assumption that he is guaranteed to succeed if he runs the targeted campaign that his supporters advocate. That would certainly improve his chances. But I believe that vibes have replaced issues and personal character as the deciding factors in elections, and I’m not so sure about that.
Since Trump came down the escalator in 2015, I’ve been asking my pro-Trump friends a variation of the question, “What can the next Democratic president — or Democratic candidate — do without you being considered a hypocrite for criticizing him?” There are a few defensible answers to that question, but they miss the larger point. Trump has been inconsistent on so many issues — abortion, national health insurance, transgender rights, debt, budget deficits, military intervention, criminal justice, etc. — that his supporters have largely given up on the idea that he needs to stick to a consistent position or principle. His personal character has been more consistent, but consistently pathetic. The people who love his slapstick like politics as a reality show. And those are the people he cares about, because their admiration validates his own self-respect. Trump wants to believe that his great personality is the only thing that should matter, and so he rejects the idea that he needs to change.
The problem is that he needs a majority.
Trump was slightly ahead of Biden in the polls because the Biden reality show conveyed a worse mood. His physical and mental decline reinforced his political weaknesses. Trump exuded strength and confidence, and that was enough of a mood for him. Unlike Biden, at 78 years old, he managed to be both the “youthful” candidate and the “candidate of change.”
The switch to Harris has reversed all that. The change in mood is real, as a number of polls have shown. People were tired of the Biden show, and when the alternative was a repeat of the Trump show, they settled for that. But now a whole new series is on offer.
Trump and his supporters have created the mood cannon and are now being let loose on it.
Now that Trumpworld is falling victim to the reality show politics they helped create, they want to get back to the issues. But what if voters – at least the ones who will decide the election – believe that politics as sentiment is the new normal, especially as Harris helpfully steps back from her most controversial positions? Trump has always benefited from the rules of normal politics applying to everyone but him. Perhaps he has succeeded in freeing his opponent from those rules as well.
