Trump’s Strategy

7 Aug 2016

Vincent J. Curtis

When Donald Trump refused last week to endorse Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan in his primary battle, and Senators John McCain and Kelly Ayotte in their races for re-election to the US Senate, that fact made headlines everywhere.  It dominated the news cycle for several days.  Then, when he apparently relented and endorsed all three at the end of the week, that announcement was published on the media equivalent of page 3.

The lesson is that when Trump does the conventional, the routine, and the expected, he fails to stir the news cycle.  When he does something outrageous, it dominates the news, sometimes for days.  Hence, if Trump is going to base his re-election campaign upon the free advertising of media coverage, he is going to have to be consistently outrageous.  The more predictable he becomes, the more routine and conventional his speeches become, the less media interest he will generate.

Trump’s fundamental appeal to the American electorate is the he is a mould-breaker.  He is going to break the ossified channels of thought and policy in Washington, D.C.  If you think Washington is broken, and needs a baseball bat taken to it, then Trump ought to be your man.  Unsurprisingly, the many criticisms of Trump boil down to that he gores somebody’s sacred cow.

If you want, essentially, to preserve the status quo, then you could vote for Hillary Clinton, unless you don’t want to validate the fetid corruption she represents.

Republicans in Washington, no less than Democrats are greatly distressed at the prospect of a Trump presidency.  Republicans, no less than Democrats, have preferred policy options that they want preserved, and are more or less content with the status quo they would maintain under Hillary Clinton, though, of course, they would like to have more of their way.  Both parties have an interest in not settling differences in many areas because keeping certain issues alive keeps a base voting and contributors contributing.

These Republicans matured in a public forum in which they were harshly punished for stepping too far outside the pale of progressivism.  When they look at Trump and see what appears to be his reckless indiscipline and not paying a price for it, they resent Trump the way the biblical good son resented the return of the prodigal son.  They are like beaten children consumed with the injustice of seeing a boy getting away with what they would be beaten for doing.

Trump, therefore, gets it from both sides: Democrats and jealous Republicans.

Trump may be convinced to channel his outrageousness into four or so policy areas: the economy, immigration, terrorism, national security, law & order, and the danger of validating Hillary’s fetid corruption.  By limiting his field, Trump is going to have to get more creative in the ways he speaks of those issues day after day.  He will lose the attention of the press if he gets predictable and stale.  It is the outrageousness of his expression as much as what he talks about that confirms the reality of his mould-breaking prospect.

Pollster Doug Schoen has repeatedly forecasted that Hillary’s campaign is going to deliver $2 billion in advertising aimed at destroying Trump.  Personally, I think, given her history of profligacy with campaign contributions, Hillary is going to waste a lot of it on flowers.  She will raise and spend a lot, but it will not move the needle for her.

Trump, on the other hand, does not have a large pool of deep-pocketed Wall Street donors as Hillary has.  Trump could impoverish himself funding his campaign himself, but he is a smart enough businessman to know that he can likely get the press to give him a lot of free coverage.  Hillary dare not seek headlining press coverage herself because the first question that would be asked of her would require her to lie again, and her lying yet again would be the gist of the headline.  Hillary is much better off as an ideal image than a flesh-and-blood reality.  She can’t do anything to help herself.

As the campaign moves into September and October, look for Trump expressing creatively and entertainingly his policies and why we should be afraid of a Hillary presidency.  Julian Assange of WikiLeaks promises an October surprise, and I expect that Hillary’s corrupt enrichment of herself through the Clinton Foundation when she was Secretary of State will be confirmed by this leak.  A lot will ride on the presidential debates, and the entity arranging them has favored Hillary by scheduling them at times when most people would be disinclined to watch.

Trump’s strategy relies upon his continued domination of the news cycle.  He needs to be scoring points against his presidential rival.

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