Trump: "a wretched human being."

     “He panders to racists and prevents sensible immigration reform in a nation built on immigration labor and intellect. He tweets conspiracy theories. He’s cavalier about COVID-19 and had led poorly through the pandemic. He seeks to dismantle the Affordable Care Act without proposing a replacement. He denies climate change.”

     Notwithstanding that, "Vote for Donald Trump."

             Spokane, Washington Editorial

Vote for the jerk? Really? Yes, they really said that.

There are editorials on both sides of the upcoming election. The editorial in the Spokane, Washington Spokesman-Review tells us what this election is really about for a lot of people.

 The simple, biggest choice in this election is Republican vs. Democrat, the red team versus the blue team, two brands. Coke vs. Pepsi. Red Sox vs. Yankees. Ducks vs. Beavers. The fact that Trump essentially reversed the ideological policies of Ronald Reagan on immigration, on Russia, on foreign wars, on NATO, on trade, and yet GOP voters followed the party label rather than the principles, shows how powerful the brand name is. As this blog noted a week ago, in the simplest and most obvious of observations, Republicans vote for Republicans because they are Republicans.

There is a second potential frame, the one Biden is promoting, bad character vs. good character. This is a fight for the "soul of the nation," Biden says. Trump shows ample evidence of bad character, and even his supporters see it. Trump isn't trying to be a choir boy in response. Instead he is trying to make the issue a wash to defang the issue. Biden is corrupt! Hunter! Hunter!

A third frame is the one Trump is using in his closing argument. He is the jobs candidate and the one who says America can power through the COVID epidemic by going about our lives, taking the hit to the old, weak, and soon-to-die-anyway, and by hurrying up the vaccine. Trump says we have already "turned the corner" while Biden, the cowardly mask-wearing weenie, hides out and has a defeatist policy of job-killing social distance tyranny and economic depression. Vote Trump for a strong economy.

The Spokane editorial reminds readers that there is a perfectly satisfactory way for Republican-oriented voters both to contemplate Trump's tweets, dishonesty, authoritarianism, dog whistle racism, irreligiousness, and overall "wretched" character, and still vote for him. It's because those character flaws aren't flaws.

The editorial posits that "the policies that Joe Biden and his progressive supporters would impose on the nation would be worse." Biden would be the "doddering doting uncle who would hand out gifts the nation can't afford in order to win people's love." We cannot vote for that, so "economic policy and principle should prevail."

The editorial brings us back to basics. For many, the election is actually about the potential for re-distribution of wealth. At every level of the economic spectrum, people fear their tax money will be given to the undeserving. The secure and wealthy don't want it given to the middle class in the form progressive taxes and expensive benefits like Medicare for All and affordable college. Working people--the non-college white men that are the centerpiece of Trump's base--don't want it given to people they perceive to work less hard than them, or to get jobs and promotions they better deserve.  Women are getting men's jobs. Black people seem to get preferences, as are Latinos. Immigrants get hired to work under the table. Everyone sees someone they consider undeserving. Trump does not need to reference redistribution to Blacks. He can mention suburbs and Cory Booker invading it. People who want to get it, get it. People who want not to hear it, can ignore it. 

Mitt Romney made the argument of "makers" and ""takers, the latter being the 47% who will sponge off hard working productive Americans. Circumspect Romney said this the polite way, the Republican way. Trump said it the George Wallace way. Romney got more votes than Trump in the Upper Midwest swing states, but he ran against Obama, who had saved the auto industry, and Trump ran against Hillary and her emails. Romney ran as a normal, regular Republican. Trump's message realigns the GOPs core constituency, exchanging Archie Bunker for the suburban housewife.

It is easy to overthink messaging. This blog has spent five years doing that. This editorial reminds us that there is one big underlying issue out there. The Democratic brand is associated with income and benefit distribution downward. Democrats are the "share" Party. The Republican brand is associated with the struggle to make sure that you get your full share and other people don't get money that belongs to you. They are the "don't get fleeced" Party. 

If income redistribution is the issue, then Trump being a cruel, selfish, dishonest, intemperate dog whistler about low IQ Blacks and looting taking place under cover of Black Lives Matter protests isn't all that bad. It takes someone like that to keep people from taking your money.