Sweet are the Uses of Adversity

Sometimes you are better off when you lose.

Colin Kaepernick slams Hillary.   Whew.

One of the themes of this blog is that in politics--and in life--sometimes the things that appear good on the surface are really bad, and the things that look bad are really good.

The pundits thought that Trump's gaffes (Mexicans are rapists; women have every advantage; support for torture and war crimes) would hurt him.   In fact, the controversy over them kept him in the news nonstop and it turns out that enough people agreed with him that he won the GOP nomination.

Rock breaks Scissors.  Patriotism beats Competence

Hillary Clinton is generally assumed to be--more or less--an extension of Obama's presidency, and Obama would easily win a 3rd term if he could run.  But Obama's policies have largely been stopped by a Republican congress, so there is no clear legislative direction for voters to look to, nothing like the New Deal record that candidate Truman could point to.   Obamacare is a mixed bag, particularly since Republicans have blocked efforts to fix problems with it.  The bailouts that saved the auto industry and the financial industry are old business.

So Hillary point to her competence as her selling point.  Competence, not policy direction.   

That is what Michael Dukakis said back in 1988.  Theoretically this should work.  Hillary Clinton has a great advantage on the issue of competence.  She is experienced in government; Trump is not.   Of course, Trump has attempted to use her strength against her, her experience proof of her imbedded conflicts of interest.  Hillary's strategy is to show that Trump is hugely incompetent, temperamentally unsuited.  It may work, but her strategy has vulnerabilities.

Think of the game Rock, Paper, Scissors.  The power of each position, and their vulnerabilities, are asymmetric.  Rock smashes Scissors, but loses to Paper, which can be cut by Scissors. 

Big flag at the Boca Raton speech I attended

We learned something in 1988.  Competence is not enough.  Competence doesn't compete only with Competence.  It competes with Patriotism, and it loses to flag waving patriotism.  Why?  Because the Patriotism argument puts into question on whose side the competence is used.  Trump says he is fighting for us, and that competent Hillary is fighting for foreigners. 

Asymmetric warfare.

Donald Trump is patriotic, nationalistic, flag waving, America First strength.  America is good.  America must fight.  America must win. America must be strong. 

The Bush Charge stuck

Michael Dukakis, as Massachusetts governor, vetoed a state law that would have required teachers to salute the flag.  There was close Supreme Court controversy over whether the proposed law was constitutional or not.  Here's some background: Click Here.

Maybe the law was constitutional, maybe not.  What is undisputed, though, is that Dukakis was vulnerable to the charge that he was unpatriotic for not standing up for America, for the flag, for loving America, because that is what George H W Bush charged, and it worked.  In the high point of his Republican nominating speech Bush condemned Dukakis for that veto and he called on the convention to rise and proudly recite along with him the Pledge of Allegiance.

Lots of flags

Patriotism beats Competence.

Last week Colin Kaepernick refused to stand for the National Anthem.   He condemned police violence against blacks.  He also condemned Hillary Clinton.  He says harsh things about her. 

This is a blessing for Hillary.   

Trump is positioning himself as the American patriot in contrast to Hillary Clinton as the globalist.  She is vulnerable here.  She is in fact global in her thinking, recognizing that America's economy and safety depend in large part on conditions around the world.  (Trump, too, recognizes this, but he has voiced the frame that we Americans are in a competition against the world, rather than a player in the world.)  

Trump gets to position himself as the defender of America, America First, while Hillary's loyalties are muddled by concern for international order, for fairness, for reasonableness, for equality.  Trump identifies this as foolishness and weakness.  Trump doesn't want fair.  He wants America to win, win, win, win, win.  

David Duke: face of the KKK

Trump is well positioned to articulate the contrast because there is good basis for it.  Hillary is, in fact, part of the long American traditional of internationalism and globalism, a bipartisan policy since World War 2 and the Marshall Plan.  Better to help Europe and Japan than fight wars over them.

Had Kaepernick said anything nice about Hillary then Trump could tie Hillary to refusing to stand for the National Anthem.   It could have been a replay of 1988: Bush putting Dukakis on the defensive.   We would see Hillary on defense, saying she loves the national anthem, that Kaepernick does not speak for her.  We would see Trump surrogates condemning Hillary for her hatred of America.  Somewhere there must be a photo of Hillary in mid blink during the national anthem, looking sleepy or bored.   We would see a lot of that photo in Trump advertisements.  Why not.  She hates America and the national anthem.

Anti-Semitism; Hillary is a witch.  The alt-right is a bad ally.

Trump and the KKK.  Trump might have said about Hillary exactly what Hillary is now saying about David Duke, the KKK, and the alt-right radicals on talk radio and the internet.  Dangerous friends go both directions.  The alt-right people say they prefer Trump.  He likes whites and hates immigrants.

The Clinton campaign is delighted to associate Trump with extremism, racism, and hate speech. 

Hillary is fortunate that Kaepernick trashes her.  Trump must be wishing that David Duke and the websites of the Alt-Right would say equivalent things about him, but so far Trump is not so lucky.