Yesterday I made a modest proposal. I said a candidate should attack Trump at his points of assumed strength.
I have witnessed the seduction of the Trump approach to the victim of the attack. The whole idea of the Trumpian insult is to move the argument from some substantive point onto some personal item of belittlement, with the target essentially validating the point whatever he does.
If the target ignores it, they are "weak"--to their peril. Dukakis and Kerry were each accused of being cowards, and their refusal to "dignify the insult" suggested they were avoiding the conflict-- and were therefore cowards.
However, if the target joins the battle they "dignify" the issue and make it a legitimate point of debate. Now they are debating on a subject of the accuser's choosing.
Lose either way.
The best response is fast, public, obliteration of the accuser on the point. We have seen this twice in this campaign. Trump accused Carly Fiorina of being ugly. She hit back with a debate comment and an ad celebrating her pride in every wrinkle in her 60 year old face. It was a superb response, resonating with women, causing Trump to back off ("She's got a beautiful face.") Briefly she skyrocketed in polls, and moved into a high tier candidate. But it is a crowded field and she couldn't sustain the gain. Watch the superb ad:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODfUOnw2x0g
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| From "Faces" Ad |
Bush's attack on Rubio's attendance was responded to immediately, hard, in the Republican debate with tens of millions watching, in a well practiced response undercutting Bush by saying "someone convinced you that attacking me is going to help you" making Rubio look independent and Bush a weak puppet. Devastating. Bush folded and Rubio moved up into the top tier where he has stayed.
But Trumpian attacks can work well. They force candidates to argue and re-argue the point, moving them off message essentially in the weak position of asserting that they are not the belittled fraud Trump says they are. Trump accuses Obama of being foreign born and today millions of Republicans think that it is maybe true, against all evidence. Trump says Rubio sweats like a little boy and Rubio is creating ads showing himself happily drinking water, trying to make a joke out of the belittlement. Trump has turned his focus onto Hillary by attacking Bill's sexual behavior. Hillary and Bill are trying to figure out how to respond as both a feminist and Bill's wife.
I have witnessed how seductive it is to respond to the attack. I made a brief version of yesterday's proposal on my Facebook page. Someone took the bait.
Yesterday I said a candidate should deny Trump's claim of being smart, a great businessman, and a candidate good for working people. I argued he just inherited money then has underperformed badly. Say he is a loser and a fraud in business, bragging when he should be embarrassed for lousy performance.
Trump supporters feel the sting. It challenges a key assumption Trump asserts, one that is essential to Trump's value proposition.
Someone took the bait, and is now arguing that Trump really did do OK, that real estate wasn't as good as the stock market, etc. I see the power of moving the debate to this arena. I now have the opportunity to accept the excuse of Trump's defender, that he actually did make money before he inherited it, and Trump was dealing in real estate only, and throw it back, saying this proves that Trump is a bad businessman since he put his money in the wrong asset class, real estate not even an index fund. Good. Now we are arguing in the arena of why Trump picked loser investments.
Just having that as the subject area of debate destroys the bedrock foundation for Trump's legitimacy. Him being a good businessman is no longer an assumption, it is a question. And there will be hundreds--indeed millions--of people who did better than Trump.
If the debate continues and there is some basis for Trump having done pretty well there will be endless opportunities to show that he did way, way, way worse than other investors and investments, including ones that will seem passive and unimpressive. He has massively underperformed Warren Buffet of course, but also any factory worker in a Phillip Morris cigarette package assembly line who bought and held 5 shares of company stock.
Any response by Trump or his supporters prolongs the debate and weakens Trump. It is the Trumpian method. The accuser can always stay unsatisfied. Obama's birth certificate was the official form, the "short form". Not enough. The newspaper reports of Obama's birth. Maybe they were faked 50 years ago. Hawaii presents the long form birth certificate. It might be a forgery.
The accusation that Trump is only half smart and a lousy businessman can never be refuted. There will be thousands of people with better grades than Trump, even if he releases his transcripts, which he will not because they will almost certainly be shown to be mediocre. And there will be endless ways to show that he underperformed millions of people in his investments.
Trump is uniquely vulnerable to a Trumpian attack because it is in Trump's nature to attack back, which will validate the issue and keep it on the table. Plus, Trump uses Trumpian tactics. He is a very effective bully, and people like to cut bullies down to size.
Let's see if any candidate "goes Trump" on Trump.
3 comments:
Come On, Losers, I’ll Give you all a Smackdown!
You think you’re up to getting into the ring with me, come on, all of you at once, I have been given more scrutiny than any of you, you couldn’t take it for minute, maybe score a point on a chicken crap soundbite, but not in the ring.
Rubio, you little whatever, you want to say I’m not all that successful, what would you know, you never earned a dime in your life, can’t even pay a credit card on time with other people’s money, use the pay check you are stealing from hard working Americans to buy your little fashion shoes, which really make you look stupid, I’m sorry, like a scared little boy wanting to walk the mean streets of New York in shinny shoes, a cleaning lady could put you down, yeah that’s right, she works for living.
And you fat boy, Christe, oh look at the fear in his bloated face, I’ve barely started on you, shmuck, that’s what we call idiots who shut down the tunnel onramp to get pay back on real people trying to get to real work, you want to brag about being a bad ass prosecutor, who ever even heard of you when you were collecting your fat paycheck from the government, really did anyone ever hear of this guy when he was a prosecutor, don’t think so, except maybe when you groveled for Obama hurricane money, huggie kissie huggie kissie with the most incompetent president in American history, a disgrace, just a disgrace, so stupid and disgusting you and your pal, prosecutor nobody ever heard of, ridiculous.
Whose next, Carly, I wouldn’t waste much on your Trump-ain’t-so-great spiel or it’s-daddy’s-money lie, oh such a liar, you and Hillary are twins, you couldn’t hold a job in the real world even with your lie about working your way up from secretary, yeah right, ivy league secretary, I mean really, what a loser, a Stanford degree and you’re a secretary, great, go for it big shot in your own mind.
Next, oh Bush, hey Jeb- boo!!!, oh he got scared, sweating like your little ex-bestie Marco over there, what are you up to now, 3%, wow, you’re the skim-milk Bush, I guess, just what America needs, I out poll you by like a thousand percent in your own state, a joke, isn’t he a joke, talk on little man, since the only time anyone listens to you is when you’re off to the side on the stage with me.
Whose left, oh Cruz, sorry I don’t use notes, but what exactly did you do before getting you’re little Senate job, sorry “junior senator” job, you don’t think I was successful enough in the real world, we call it the global private sector, you wouldn’t know since you’ve never been there, right, am I right, name any job you ever had where you didn’t collect a government pay check, Federal Trade Commission you regulated real business people, you weren’t one of them, then what, oh yeah, pay check at the DOJ, you thought it was private law firm I’ll bet, then to the GW Bush campaign, are you kidding me, sucking off his superpac, then onto the dole in Texas as solicitor, soliciting what, votes for your next government job? Get a life.
Anybody else, guess not. Step into the ring with me and you’re going down, this for real men and women, not wannabes like you.
From Christie: Well you must feel real fine, living the high life. Good for you. Enjoy! The houses, the planes, the wives, you're on top of the world. And you know whose putting their lives on the line so that the people huddled up in buildings that you have made target number one--well, those are the people you sneer at. Brave policemen. The investigators checking out leads on who is planning to sneak a bomb in anything marked Trump. The prosecutors. Yeah, prosecutors like me who prosecuted the two biggest terrorism cases in America. You see, I'm proud to be in the public safety business because its a dangerous world and as US Attorney and as a Governor I am sworn to protect everyone. The men and women on the streets of New Jersey and New York and San Bernardino or anywhere Islamic Terrorism decides to make a statement with a bomb. You think because you are rich that you are safe, because you are rich and you live high up in buildings with Trump on the side. No, Donald. You are safe because the people you demean are on the job. While you are trading Valentines with Putin real American heroes are following up on leads, following money trails and walking the beat in front of the gold doors of your buildings. You're right, they can't afford to live there. Neither can I. But you live in ground zero now, and I we are sworn to do our best to keep you and your neighbors alive. And I am proud to do that work.
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