“America’s enemies are on notice. The president is no longer an eloquent pushover professor-president but a ruthless real estate developer and television network brawler-president whose principle weapons are blunt candor and walking away from the table.”
Hugh Hewitt, conservative talk radio host, defending TrumpTrump could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and get away with it.
Trump was the "remedy" to Obama.
Back in January, 2016, David Axelrod gave the oscillation theory of presidential politics. Trump was barely on the national radar back then, but I had seen his up close twice in New Hampshire and I had already predicted that he was going to be big trouble for Democrats. Axelrod was the former senior strategist for Obama. Here is how Axelrod described his theory:
"Open-seat presidential elections are shaped by perceptions of the style and personality of the outgoing incumbent. Voters rarely seek the replica of what they have. They almost always seek the remedy, the candidate who has the personal qualities the public finds lacking in the departing executive."
Trump picked up and ran with a theme that had dominated Republican and Fox News descriptors of Obama. Weak. Irresolute. A pushover. McCain said that the "kindest work I can use for Obama's foreign policy is 'feckless.'" For a time in 2016 "feckless" was the talking point word of all sixteen presidential candidates.
The charge had currency in part by Obama's manner. He sounded self controlled and thoughtful. Obama didn't shout. He prided himself on being "No-drama-Obama." At the time most voters thought that was a good thing. He was "presidential."
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Obama mocked himself over that characteristic at a White House Correspondents event, doing a bit with an "anger translator," a voice who repeated what Obama said, but in a tone of angry outrage.
Trump was the oscillation. Trump "fixed" what some thought was missing in Obama.
Trump is a rule breaking bully. He communicates a you-can't-stop-me attitude. He is a bull in a china shop, and has communicated that he is a rule breaking bully on issues that many Republicans really care about: abortion judges, support for Israel, control of the southern border, and disdain for liberal political correctness. He is persuasive as a change agent for issues GOP voters want.
Trump is consistent, and GOP voters take the bad with the good. Sure the Access Hollywood video is embarrassing Sure, he tweets too much. Sure, he was heavy handed in trying to stop investigations. Sure he wheeled and dealed and went bankrupt and underpaid his taxes. He is, as Hewitt put it, a ruthless brawler, so he does stuff GOP voters and officeholders ignore or dismiss because he is simultaneously a ruthless brawler on the stuff they like. That is who Trump is. He gets away with murder, as the saying goes.
Democrats think--hope--that an impeachment inquiry will show Trump's misbehavior in such detail that the public will be turned off by it. I suspect the opposite will happen. People won't be shocked and they will see it as Trump being someone unconstrained by rules of political sportsmanship, and will feel positively about it, thinking "We need someone who will shake things up."
Trump-the-bad-boy-rule-breaker is a schtick that still has legs.
Democrats are talking about the "rule of law," the reverse of Trump-ism. Every candidate presents him or her self as the antidote to Trump, with Sanders and Warren emphasizing new progressive policy, and candidates like Biden and Buttigieg emphasizing mature, no-drama temperament.
For the past 120 years it has typically taken a full eight to twelve years--not four--for a theme to play itself out, and to oscillate back. A majority of people may want things shaken up, and if so, Trump has the credibility as a guy who won't let laws, rules, norms, conventions, manners, sportsmanship, or politeness stand in his way.
Here is a hypothetical:
If Trump really have a Secret Service agent kill some Democrat on Fifth Avenue, Nancy Pelosi for example, or one of the FBI staff members on the Mueller team--and if Trump defended it vigorously and proudly as necessary to protect America because Trump said the person was plotting treason, a capital crime, wouldn't Fox News support him?
Of course it would.
2 comments:
Hillary and Bill have been responsible for the deaths of dozens of their political opponents (like Ron Brown), but they got away with it.
Hillary took $145 million in bribes from the Russians, and she got away with it (thanks to Obama).
Hillary set-up an illegal email server, and she illegally destroyed 33,000 emails, and she destroyed her government-owned computer hard-drive, and she got away with it.
Hopefully, Joe Biden and his son won't get away with taking $1.5 billion in bribes from the Chinese government.
Trump referred to the loyalty of his supporters when he said he could shoot someone and still get elected. We know for a fact that both Hillary and Joe Biden have committed numerous felonies, and as of today, they are getting away with it.
Are we blaming Obama "weakness" for allowing Trump? That's pretty revisionist.
You neglect to mention that Republicans blocked Obama initiatives at every turn ("One term president" - McConnell) and Democrats weren't much better, complacently going along and grooming Clinton to take over and restore the glory days of the 90's. We will never know how much Obama might have accomplished had there been even a smidgen of bi-partisan concern for the issues facing this nation. 20/20 hindsight actually may serve us better now.
Frankly, Republicans are cornered, with a dwindling ever more dimwitted constituency who are taking them over a cliff. A seemingly healthy economy may allow another term, but it's a house of cards and when it falls the fickleness of the "deplorables" will be revealed and when they turn, Trump may find himself running down 5th Avenue with a mob barking at his heels.
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