Is Trump Even Running for President?
A familiar question is again a reasonable one.
Former Obama strategist and current podcaster Dan Pfeiffer asks, “Is Trump Cracking Under the Pressure of the Election?“
Donald Trump made it through the Republican primary largely unscathed. He never had to get on a debate stage or adopt a position to outflank a rival. Primaries are usually messy, and the winners often emerge battered, bruised, and broken. Trump floated above the process, and his rivals’ impotence made him look strong by comparison.
The dynamic was interesting. Trump used his MAGA schtick to lock down his base without catching the attention of the broader electorate. He mostly communicated through MAGA-friendly media; so even when he made a mistake, it never traveled outside the MAGA media bubble. There was a sense that Trump had become a better, more disciplined candidate than in his two prior campaigns. Trump did show up to big moments like that CNN town hall better prepared and with a semblance of a strategy. On the campaign trail, he followed the script a little more and didn’t step on his message of the day. In other words, he behaved more like a typical candidate and less like a raving lunatic driven by an underlying urge to sabotage himself.
These small improvements in his performance were worrisome.
However, since the General Election kicked off almost two weeks ago, Trump has returned to his old, chaotic, self-destructive ways. After securing the delegates as the presumptive nominee, Trump has made critical errors daily. He can’t seem to stop saying insane, deeply politically damaging stuff.
This is followed by a bulleted, hyperlinked laundry list of insane stuff that OTB readers have likely seen and probably isn’t actually all that politically damaging given Trump’s history.
Pfeiffer continues,
Is the old Trump back? Did the ivermectin wear off? Or is he cracking under the pressure and scrutiny of a general election?
Well, Trump didn’t change. He is just as unhinged as ever, but now people are paying more attention. Trump is cracking under the intense scrutiny of the General Election.
Longtime progressive journalist Brian Beutler actually goes further, arguing “Donald Trump Isn’t Running A Presidential Campaign.”
Every now and again it’s fun to hold the unfiltered public comments of normal politicians up against the Donald Trump’s ravings on social media. “Merry Christmas” vs “Haters and Losers” etc.
If you try that this week, you’ll find Trump completely unmoored from the calendar or any national circumstance. No good tidings for St. Patrick’s Day, no particular interest in federal policy. Trump’s mind has been neatly divided between his hallmark agitprop and unrelenting obsession with evading the nearly half-billion fine he owes the state of New York for serial business fraud.
When you pan out even further it becomes clear: Trump is scarcely running a presidential campaign. He might become president in spite of this, but his efforts are overwhelmingly fixed on evading justice or mooting judgments he’s already lost by any means necessary. He’d ideally like to prevail in these efforts before the election, but the task will become much easier if he’s able to win or steal the presidency despite the legal peril.
Granting that there’s some motivated reasoning going on here, they’re not wrong that Trump has seemed erratic and unfocused even by his standards. Then again, he was pretty damned erratic and unfocused in 2016 and managed to win the damn thing. Indeed, he didn’t run anything resembling a normal campaign then, either.
Like it or not—and I decidedly don’t—Trump saying outrageous, nasty, crazy things has long since become part of his brand. Supporters seem to actually like it and goodly number of Republicans who don’t like it have been willing to look past it, seeing Democratic policies as the greater evil.
I would like to see the bubble burst this time. But I’m going to need to see his standing in the polls drop before getting to excited about the prospect.
I know that these articles you are discussing are designed to come off as a bit cheeky, but I can’t help but feel that the GOP is going to become more and more distressed as more articles like this appear in print over the weeks and months to come.
Trump’s “crazy drunken old racist Uncle at a party wearing a lampshade” schtick seems to be starting to wear thin (we already had 4 years of this, do we really want another 4 more years of this act?). A few days back Kevin Drum insisted that it did not matter that Biden did not get a SOTU bump, as he really did seem to flip the script, if you will, and the media was no longer as obsessed with reporting on the fact that Biden is old, aka, reminding Americans daily that water is wet and touching a hot stove will burn your fingers.
I respectfully disagree that the media pivoting to focus more on Trump’s vile ranting and raving is not going to help Biden at all. It may have been all fun and games to stick it to us liberals by installing Trump in the White House, but people on both sides of the political aisle are starting to ask themselves, do we really want this guy back in power, we have a perfectly good and bland candidate standing to our left, and even that candidate is not as bland and devoid of life/excitement as it has been reported, because he does seem to have sprung to life a bit since the SOTU.
IT’s funny how Republiqan politicos rant and rave against Biden’s policies, then claim credit for popular bills they voted against.
Lardass isn’t under strain from the election, but from the need to pay half a billion dollars (American), which he doesn’t have and can’t raise.
And the four pending criminal cases against him.
This points to a broader takeaway about the underlying structure of the American Political System: either national party could run literally ANYONE, even a 35-year-old Big Mac, and it would most likely get at least 40% of the national vote and win a significant number of geographically sorted states.
And I intentionally wrote “either national party.” While the Democrats haven’t had a Trump-like Presidential Candidate (I am sure some of our commenters will disagree), there are no actual structural barriers preventing a similar populist movement from happening in our party (I am a registered Democrat). I do not doubt that if that happened, said candidate would carry most Democrat-leaning States.
This situation is exacerbated by the fact that our electoral college system currently gives one party a baked-in advantage.
Alas! This is the “what’s wrong with this picture” quality of the current climate. When I was saying that Democrats would vote for Stalin or Hitler if he ran as a Democrat back 50 years ago, I was being hyperbolic (thought I did, in fact know leftists who yearned for authoritarian Marxist government back in the day from living among Weather Underground people). And I said the same things about Republicans because even then I was becoming jaundiced at the degree to which partisanship was already beginning to overshadow other factors in elections. (Alas, “perfect being the enemy of good” is bred bone deep in my Calvinist soul.)
Still, the idea that otherwise honest and sensible people will vote for Trump is beyond me. That this is possible is an indictment against 47% of the voting population.
@Matt Bernius:
Matt, why do you believe this is a feature of just the American Political System? Isn’t the whole idea behind the formation of a party anywhere, that individuals gain power by acting collectively? What would the point of joining a party be if everyone ignored the affiliation when voting?
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
But Mondale was a step too far.
This is one of those articles that makes me wonder what it must be like, being Donald Trump. Though the fact that I can ask that question may mean it’s impossible for me to understand what his mind is like.
Disagree. Democrats are not Republicans. Cults of personality find fertile soil in faith communities, not amongst religious skeptics. We do sex cults, they do religious cults, and NXIVM is not going to field a presidential candidate. The precursor to Trump was not George W. Bush, it was Jerry Falwell and Billy Graham. The psychology is very different. They want to obey, we want to keep shopping. They want power, we want to be right, which is one reason why they tend to be more effective than us: they understand the nature of the game better than we do. Power is the game.
Would the partisan breakdown by state still hold if we ran an objectionable candidate? Mostly. But not if, for example, we ran an anti-choice or racist or anti-gay candidate.
Firstly, Trump is running to grab as much money as he can to pay off his legal obligations, both fees and penalties. Secondly, he wants to get back into the oval office just long enough to grab all the immunity and self-pardons he can. Thirdly, he’ll be openly on the take with China, Russia and anyone else who can afford to pay him what he thinks he’s worth. Is there any question about any of this?
Look, the big ticket items about Trump are:
1. He incited a crowd to try to disrupt the established election process to stay in office. He refused to intervene while it was ongoing. He promises to pardon those people who have been convicted of interfering with the “official business” of transfer of power.
2. He took very sensitive government documents, lied about having them, kept them in an insecure bathroom and ballroom, showed them to other people, and transported them to avoid their recovery.
3. He raped E. Jean Carroll
4. He attempted to persuade election officials to change official vote counts so that he would win.
I think we need to keep our focus on this rather than the “bloodbath” of the day. That’s playing his game.
It’s only March, and 2016 is repeating. It’s like the media and pundits learned nothing.
@Gustopher: If you’re asking about me, I was unrepentantly conservative and in a relatively high-income job for the times. As I recall, Mondale’s tax plan was going to significantly index the tax rates of unmarried adults with no dependents to the effect that my taxes would have gone up a bracket or two. I voted my wallet, as all conservative (leaning libertarian at the time) relatively high-income earners are wont to do.
I wish I could say that I’m a better person now, but in fact I limit the tax bite by selectively lowering my standard of living (and income as possible) so that I can stay in the lower brackets. After my move, my income from substitute teaching will disappear, but because I used that income for travel and off-budget expenses, I won’t miss it much and will be pleasantly surprised that my taxes are lower next year (I hope).
@Just nutha ignint cracker: Mondale popped in mind with respect to @Matt Bernius’s comment about how either side will vote for their respective candidates, no matter how awful of people they are, but comparing Mondale unfavorably to Stalin and Hitler was just funnier.
Sure, it was 40 years ago, but I don’t think Democrats have changed that much in terms of blindly supporting whatever the party puts forward. Mondale wasn’t even awful, just boring.
Voting against the current crop of Republicans, sure. But that just shows that even Democrats have limits.
@MarkedMan:
It was not my intention to suggest that it is particularly unique to our system.
And, based on what I’ve come to learn from the writings here and elsewhere, there are aspects of our system–the fact we structurally can only support two national parties, the construction of the electoral college, single-seat districts, etc. that exacerbate the issue in ways that are uniquely American (at least from what understand from a comparative political studies perspective).
@Andy:
I’m seeing the “Will Biden swap out Harris?” articles begin to pop up, along with the “How a brokered convention could happen” so, I’m pretty sure the media is just bored.
I think Biden really needs to do something catchy but innocuous just to keep them on their toes, so they have something to write other than “he’s old!”. He should adopt a pot-bellied pig, or some other novelty animal (making sure to get something that won’t bite secret service agents). Maybe a sheep or a cow.
We’re in the silly season, so he needs to generate silly content. Wade into Star Wars vs Star Trek controversies. Take a trip to the national zoo to feed giraffes. Give the reporters a little fun treat to write about, and build up some good will.
Do giraffes eat ice cream? I can see Biden on a cherry picker crane thing (keep the old man off ladders!) holding out an ice cream cone to a giraffe. Maybe even sharing it.
I wish I was joking more than I am.
Cults of personality find fertile soil in faith communities, not amongst religious skeptics.
Two words: Barack Obama.
Not enough? Three more letters: JFK.
Suggesting Democrats or the Left are immune to cults of personality is legitimately one of the dumbest things anyone has ever said in all of Human history.
Link to latest polls for anyone interested in getting outside their own info bubble:
https://www.realclearpolling.com/latest-polls/president/general-election
@TheRyGuy: I’m pretty far to the left from your perspective, and I very seldom even think of Obama, and I’m far from alone with that. He showed up, did a job and left.
(I also don’t think the plumber very often)
The last time I thought of him unprompted by a right winger bringing him up was when signing up for health insurance on the exchange, and even that comes from the Republicans calling the ACA ObamaCare so often. And my thought was that he was too much of a squishy moderate.
I think the cult of personality surrounding him is on the right. And it’s scary. I hope the dude has decent security.
I never really understood the love of the Kennedys, but the one good thing RFKJr is doing is shitting all over that.
@Matt Bernius:
Via Betty Cracker atBalloon Juice, Politico Playbook said,
Betty Cracker objects that,
“Populist”, like “conservative”, isn’t a very useful word. Dr. Taylor once commented that in poli sci “populist” is regarded more as a style of politics. I’d agree Brown and Fetterman have a different style of politicking, but is that really what defines “populism”? Isn’t there a difference in substance between Brown, who supports unions, the minimum wage, taxing the wealthy, LGBT rights, and so on; and Trump, who does not? Brown is pushing for policies that will help his constituents. Isn’t that what a pol in a democracy supposed to do? Trump, and other GOPs are pandering to, and amplifying, their constituents worst instincts and prejudices to con them into voting for people who will support the interests of wealthy funders.
In the Sherrod Brown sense, I would argue the Democratic Party largely IS populist, although current common usage would not so describe them. And Trump etc. are faux populist.
@TheRyGuy:
One person said that. I have no doubt that some people agree with Michael, and I know there are some who do not. You see, there was a long-running debate on several front page posts as well as open threads about whether it is accurate to describe Trump supporters as a cult.
Eventually, Kingdaddy wrote a post called, “About That Cult Thing…” with the subheading, “Cults of personality are not the same as cults” as a response to a conversation that filled the comment section over the course of days.
The point being that if you think that everyone here, or on the broader Left, is in lockstep, maybe you should get out of your bubble and read to understand rather than read to respond.
JFK? The cult of personality was largely built on a foundation, not on his actions while alive, but on how he died.
Obama? I’m not surprised in the least that you would claim this, but it’s simply not true. Plenty of us who are to the left of Obama were and continue to be critical of some of his policy choices.
Did we vote for him? Yes. Do I, and I suspect many others with similar ideological leanings to mine, respect him as an honorable man? Yes. Do we believe every word he has ever said? No. Nor do we agree with all of his views.
And you should understand something else. This notion Obama was some radical leftist is far dumber than anything I’ve seen Michael write here.* There is a whole book about it.
But you know why your examples consist of a President assassinated half a century ago and one that doesn’t fit the bill any more than the typical American politician with national profile? Maybe you should try to pierce the bubble in your own head before you tell others they need to step out of their own.
Speaking of bubbles. Remember when Fox News called the race for Biden? Who got mad? Many of their viewers! Why? Because they were angry at their chosen network for piercing the bubble that network had spent years blowing.
One more:
DJT, rally in Rome, GA, 03/11/2024
Judging polls by the result rather than sound methodology is the hallmark of living in a bubble.
*It would not be hard to verify my bona fides with regard to my opinion of some of Michael’s views–just look through some comment threads over the last few years. Hell, there was one within the last week.
@TheRyGuy:
Speaking of info bubbles …
RCP polling is now well-known as a having a conservative/Republican bias to their results. Be that as it may, basically we’re 7 months out and the newscycle changes rapidly these days.
We’ll see if half the country wants to take anther swim in the Trump cesspool.
Trump’s dad was confirmed to have pretty bad dementia before he died.
Dementia is hereditary.
It’s not Wild Interwebz Speculation to say both that Trump is more likely to already have dementia than Biden…. because biology…. and that Trump appears to be further along the dementia progression than Biden.. because insanity.
@Gustopher: Yeah. Mondale coulda been a lot worse. Ferraro as his running mate was kind of a heartache looking for a place to happen, but I don’t think anyone knew that until too late.
@Kurtz: @TheRyGuy: Back in the Obama era I used to see a lot of references to Obama the Messiah or Obama the Savior. There must have been someone in the left saying some such, but every such reference I saw was by a conservative describing what he projected onto Dems.
If there is a cult of personality of anyone remotely related to the Democratic Party, it would be Taylor Swift.
@gVOR10:
I totally agree with this call-in. Populist was a poor word choice for what I was trying to convey. I think the challenge is that Trump is so sui generis that he defies categorization.
I will continue to hold that while the historical forces that have led us to this point are unique, I don’t necessarily think a political party acting like a political party, under those circumstances, is unheard of.
Further, I don’t think there is anything unique about the makeup or governing rules of the Democratic party that would prevent something similar from happening on our side. The circumstances leading up to said hypothetical might be very different, but the results would rhyme.
Finally, on this point, I think that believing the opposite–that the Democratic Party is somehow special and would never allow this type of thing to happen–is EXACTLY the type of dangerous groupthink that allows the rise of true demagogues (and that’s the word I should have used instead of populist!).
On that note:
100% this. I listened to a lot of talk radio during those times and that was a common theme on Right Wing Radio. And most of the accusations made about that, such as there can be no argument against Obama and that he can do no wrong, are now being explicitly made by Trump’s most ardent supporters about Trump himself (i.e. that he will save us and that Republicans are either for him or they are not true Republicans).
@TheRyGuy:
Of the last twelve national polls, including those released today and yesterday:
Biden leads in six polls — Economist, Ipsos, Civiqs, Emerson, Quinnipiac and NBC/PBS/Marist.
Trump leads in six polls — Selzer, CBS News, NYT/Siena, FOX News, Marquette and CNN.
Of course, to be aware of all those polls, one would have have to get out of the rightwing info bubble instead of running to any one cherry-picked aggregator looking for confirmation bias.
@Matt Bernius: @gVOR10:
I’m trying to figure out how best to put this. My impression is that something like Obama is the Messiah follows a pattern that can be generalized.
Cite an example of over-the-top performance of affection for Obama –> “The only place you see that sort of devotion is in a church service” –> “the Left treats Obama like he’s the Messiah! The Savior!”
The next day, another example from a different person. Repeat. Eventually, it becomes a shorthand description of Dems.
The key is that it’s built on a foundation that was already poured in the preceding years.
My guess is that if one wanted to spend a lot of time looking at transcripts and following the spread of particular phrases and concepts, they would find ones that didn’t stick as well. But the ones that do stick become the general view as they spread from one talk radio host to another to a partisan outlet to op-eds in papers of record.
Note that this is simplified, as part of the reason the Messiah shorthand worked is, in part, because of the long-running rhetoric prior to Obama that liberals are against religion, but replaced God with government.
It requires an audience already primed with a general belief about opposing partisans.
The sticky phrase applies the generic, long-held belief to a specific target, and specificity is usually more persuasive to weaker partisans and those less engaged with politics on a daily basis.
A similar process played out following 2020 with regard to alleged irregularities in election returns. Rather than language, it was specific instances of statistical or video or audio ‘proof’ of alleged misconduct among poll workers or to feed the extreme partisans–some conspiracy involving Chinese paper manufacturers, Hugo Chavez, and Dominion.
But again, the belief that the left can only win at the ballot box via malfeasance and complicit mainstream media has been a staple of right-wing publications for decades.
—
My fear is that this can easily sound like it’s paranoid conspiracism. But it’s not. It doesn’t require some small group of mustache-twirlers directing messaging, because it works by individuals with mutual beliefs and identical or adjacent professions repeating what works for one of their peers. It’s in their self-interest both professionally and politically.
Of course, there are instances of ratfucking between media personalities and politicians, but that isn’t necessarily SOP.
Finally, on this point, I think that believing the opposite–that the Democratic Party is somehow special and would never allow this type of thing to happen–is EXACTLY the type of dangerous groupthink that allows the rise of true demagogues (and that’s the word I should have used instead of populist!).
Look, there’s nothing dangerous about taking a look at Trump and finding it hard to imagine falling for that bullshit. We’ve had 8 years of this guy and his trash party and the reaction to the MAGA and the GOP has been Joe Biden. There’s a theoretical argument in 2017 that any survivor of sexual assault has the right to the cut the throat of a Trump supporter. I mean, why shouldn’t they have that right? And right now, why shouldn’t Elon Musk or Clarence Thomas or whatever random corrupt Nazi lunatic be labelled terrorists by Biden with promises of being dealt with after the election? But nobody did this and nobody really did anything except protest in the street in 2020 after the cops showed who they really are and nobody in power is saying anything like that in 2024.
If there’s an insane leftist regime focused on degrowth and Year Zero politics, it’s not on the radar. Anyone who thinks otherwise is just pretending.
@Matt Bernius: Yup.
@Matt Bernius: Also yup.
We are actually unique in our institutional recipe. No one has primaries and the EC and few have single-seat districts with plurality winners.
The structural forces (and those are just the main ones) that drive competition into only two parties is truly American exceptionalism.
@TheRyGuy:
Yeah, that’s not really a thing, only something that Republicans made up to distract from all their bullshyt. Chiefly, the craven abdication of Congressional power, responsibility, and accountability practiced by the Republicans in January 2011. Which continues to this day.
P.S.: I know the above remark is structurally goofy, but that’s how it occurred in my head.
@Gustopher:
Indeed.
@gVOR10:
Indeed. Remember “Barack, The Magic Negro?” Remember who came up with that one? None other than Rush racistmisogynistshytbag Limbaugh.
@DeD: Troll cites JFK & Barrack. First Catholic. First Black. Both younger that the mean for the office. That’s all he’s got, that they were really popular with certain people all of them D’s.
He thinks he’s smart.
Honestly, you feed the troll and end up with this sad little character. So just stop it, y’all.
@DeD:
Trump and Limbaugh had a lot in common: Two old fat rich white guys with multiple ex-wives who lived in Florida and played a lot of golf.
@JohnMc:
It’s not for the troll. The troll is eating table scraps. It’s for the lurkers and the people who happen upon an article and read the comments.
Is this another RW troll who thinks saying the word “Barack” is some kind of point he’s scoring?
I think the PBD podcast is more his speed. The dulcet tones of a MLM scammer combine with the fun backdrop of a bank vault and the intellectual depth of Cat Fancy magazine.
@Andy:
“It’s only March, and 2016 is repeating. It’s like the media and pundits learned nothing.”
They did:
They were fine and nobody they cared about was harmed.
Trump was great for business.
They are the elites, and will not be oppressed.
The Dems will come in and fix things, while the press throws sh*t on them.
What I fear is that the second time, they will be wrong.
@Gavin:
That’s goalpost moving there son. Traditionally the marker of point scoring was the “Hussien” part of the name. Regardless of my thoughts on the content of his post, I don’t think @TheRyGuy was attempting that maneuver.
@Gustopher:
What’s even more ironic about that selection was I just checked and Mondale got “40.6%” of the national popular vote. While I don’t think he’s comparable to Trump, there might have been something to the 35-year-old Big Mac comparison:
@Matt Bernius:
@Gustopher: As a PR person, this advice is exactly what would likely be offered to a CEO going through “personality rehab.” Timing far enough away from whatever crisis got him/her into hot water, but not quite at the “this is a normal person” level yet.
Your suggestions are pretty spot-on, but I’d recommend staying away from the pot-bellied pig because there are too many “government pork” memes that could arise from that particular choice. A pygmy horse, maybe?