Fighting at Harvard

Sometimes I am in the room.   Sometimes I am just outside the room.  Meanwhile, the campaign managers tell all.

Showtime:  Tapper, Conway, Mook

I did not get to ask a question on CNN.   There were five hand-picked Harvard students who took up most of the time and the microphone was on the other side of the room.   But Jake Tapper basically asked my question:  What was Trump thinking in saying that there were millions of fraudulent votes, in the face of his indignation at the very suggestion that possibly his close wins in the upper midwest should be audited.

Kellyanne Conway is a spectacular communicator.  When asked the question directly I watched her switch the subject to Bill Clinton's dalliance with Monica Lewinsky then say that the media and Democrats are sore losers and then say that we should look forward, not backward.   Deflect. Accuse. Ignore. Run out the clock.  And say it firmly without a hint of apology or recognition that one is deflecting, accusing, ignoring, and running out the clock.

Cynical  Brilliant. Underhanded but effective. Just what one would want in your attorney.   

The Campaign Managers conference at Harvard is in the news for the moments of fireworks--the Clinton campaign saying that Trump used xenophobic dog whistles.  Kellyanne Conway was indignant.  The media is acting surprised and there are headlines and news stories on cable news this morning over this flash of disagreement.   This dustup reveals in itself the nature of dog whistles.   Dog whistles can be signaled, but denied.  They can be heard without being uttered.  It is the nature of dog whistles that they can be denied.  No fingerprints.  Kellyanne denied dog whistles, looking straight at the camera, sincerely and with indignation.

Every Republican campaign manager complained about the Trump celebrity all-Trump-all-the-time on the news shows.   CNN received sharp criticism from multiple sources.  They showed an empty stage and lectern marked Trump rather than a live speech by another candidate.   Yet, each candidate manager reported on their own sense of when they realized that Trump was a force to be reckoned with.  Bobby Jindal's campaign manager said it was when he was at the Jindal booth at the Iowa state fair and people were asking him questions abut Trump.   The Bush manager said it was when the staff people in the Bush campaign stopped what they were doing to watch the Trump announcement with rapt attention and then, two days later when it was repeated on a cable network every staff person again stopped to watch it again.   Trump made news.  Trump was interesting.  Trump drew ratings.  This blog referred to the campaign as a spectacle.  The campaign managers confirmed that view.

The Hillary Clinton campaign manager said he was not asleep at the switch and unaware of his candidate's liabilities.  He said they understood perfectly well that this was likely a change election.  They understood that the economy was overlooking some people in the rust belt, exactly the kinds of people who defected.  They understood that Hillary did not connect with young people and that her saying she had not driven a car in 20 years was off-putting.  He said they went to Pennsylvania, that they worked for the votes of working people.

He said something revealing of the problem.  He said they addressed these with policies that focused on "children and families."

This blog reported on Hillary's closing argument TV ads, and noted that they presented her as a warm and likable person concerned about "children and families".  (The phrase "children and families" was spoken often both by Hillary and at this conference by the campaign.)

It makes sense that the Clinton campaign badly underperformed with white male blue collar workers.  "Children and families" does not address manly work.  Hillary's campaign--and even now her campaign spokesman and manager--did not speak to images of males as breadwinners, as people who do work then come home to shower.   A Facebook post which showed the attached photo with the portable boom lift machine drew a comment that it looked like a photo of "boys toys."   It did, indeed. The dozen or fifteen electricians who spent two days setting up the lights were all men.  Solid men, who wore coveralls and boots.   Lighting the forum was "man's work" in fact if not in law.  Hillary's campaign did not speak directly to jobs, to hard blue collar work, to factories that make heavy things, things like air conditioners, or steel, or mine coal.  

Trump did.

Setting it up was men's work with boy toys

Trump's supposed "thank you tour" shifted into an end zone celebration dance and what might have been an un-alloyed success became tainted for him by the gloating tone.   I was right, the media was wrong, he said.   I won, Hillary lost.  I can change America quickly and easily and bring jobs back, and the existing president could not.   The crowd caught the triumphal tone:  "Lock her up!"

Trump is running the risk here of the "Mission Accomplished" trap that George Bush fell into.   Gloating is dangerous.

The Hillary campaign manager said this was a "post-fact" campaign, and the conference speakers were critical of the media for not better fact-checking Trump.   (Right there last night Jake Tapper attempted it with Kellyanne Conway and the "millions of fraudulent voters" assertion and she swatted it away.) 

Trump has upset the old international order, one based in part of the reality of technology and demographics and capitalism.  Democrats and the establishment-Republicans together had formed a political understanding regarding America's place in the world: first among many, a beneficiary of international rules, a trading partner who gained as much as it lost from the international order.  An element of this is acceptance of facts, of reality, of common sense.  The canard is familiar: "You are entitled to your own opinion but not to your own facts."   Trump broke that rule, with the consent of the American voter.  In Indiana he was triumphant in victory, saying he won the election and he saved the jobs and that things were going to be wonderful.  

He wrapped himself in patriotic service.  If Trump won then America won.  Trump promised to win.

Does that put Trump in great peril?  After all, if reversing the tide of technology and economics were easy then it would have been done long ago.   Isn't Trump setting himself up for a fall?

Not necessarily.

Now Obama is reality, Trump is Hope and Change

Trump has seized the mantle of patriotism, while the foolish Democrats and old-style Republicans are stuck with the burden of realism and common sense and facts on the ground.   When Democrats cannot stop the reality of technology and economics it is a sign of their weakness and failure.   When Trump faces the same reality he is inoculated.  Trump is not attempting to explain the reality of anything.  He is a warrior on behalf of America. The  inevitable problems are not a sign of his weakness but the perfidy of our enemies and competitors.

Kellyanne Conway demonstrated how the Trump campaign and presidency deals successfully with the problem of inconvenient facts being presented to you:  deflect, accuse, ignore, and look forward.   Trump is well positioned to withstand the perils of mere reality.