Donald Trump Defeated Himself
By the blog author
By the blog author
He lied about self-funding his campaign for $1 billion and
not needing donations. He has actually
spent between $35 and $60 million of his own funds. He does not have a “ground game’ capable of
an effective get out the vote drive.
This has cost him Virginia and will
probably cost him Florida
He can’t take direction.
He would not spend the money to hire an experienced campaign manager,
image consultant, internal pollster or master focus group facilitator. Part of this was because he never meant to
spend the money required for a successful campaign, but the rest centers on his
arrogance at television expertise because of his long-running reality game show
on television. Trump couldn’t stop being
a reality star, as Matt Taibbi of Rolling
Stone properly wrote. In Hollywood lingo, Trump “isn’t real tinsel.” He can’t and won’t “hit the tape” and “stay
on message” while he “stays in character.”
He insulted Mexican-Americans specifically and Latinos in
general at length in his speech declaring his candidacy. He should have become fluent in Spanish
before he declared himself a candidate if he were serious about becoming
President.
He uses pacing and leading to make a sale and to present an
issue to the public. With pacing and
leading, the speaker takes an outrageous, extreme position and then moderates
his position as he goes along the path of negotiation. This is good one-on-one salesmanship. But in public speaking from a podium with
video cameras rolling it is identical to serial lying and, thus, is
spectacularly ineffective. It builds a
reputation for being tricky, lying, deceptive and untrustworthy. In one day during the 2016 campaign, for
example, Trump’s position on immigration changed at least three times. Which interest group is that sort of waffling
going to satisfy?
He supports universal health care in a position that is
nearly identical to Bernie Sanders.
Automatically, this alienates a large block of Republicans, who never
have come back to back a nominee adamant about a health care federal “mandate.”
Trump’s list of potential Supreme Court nominees is almost
certainly another opening negotiating position rather than an actual list he is
committed to throughout the confirmation process. He isn’t – and shouldn’t be – trusted to go
through with it. And Constitutional
conservatives remain properly suspicious of him on this issue.
Trump isn’t a conservative.
He was a Democrat most of his life.
There is no evidence that he ever read the Constitution. He doesn’t seem to understand separation of
powers or even the mechanics of how a bill becomes law. He openly and unreservedly supports the use
of eminent domain.
Trump was a donor to the Clinton Foundation. Need I say more?
Trump is a seventy year old nominee. He’s older than any other major party
nominee, ever. Yes, Ronald Reagan was 69
and weeks from age 70 at the time of his inauguration, but Reagan was a lifelong
daily lap swimmer who lived into his 90s. Trump is barely capable of handling
the stress and duress of the Presidency.
Trump doesn’t read books or study issues. He flies off extemporaneously with no concern
over whether he knows the subject or not.
This approach will not do for a closely watched world leader like the
American president.
Trump is exactly the intolerant authoritarian leader that
the Republican party was warned about in 2006 in the John Dean book Conservatives without Conscience. The GoP – and the press – were warned ten
years ago about this self-centered dogmatism but didn’t do their homework.
Trump is a narcissist, at least as extreme as Barack Obama
himself. He thinks only of himself and
his status. He is enraged that the
highest social elite in New York City
He was a child with a violent temper. His father recognized this and sent young
Donald to a military preparatory boarding school. Young Donald learned and used the special
cookbook that is taught in such institutions for survival and success. The central rule that Donald Trump uses was
summarized effectively by the ghost writer who actually penned The Art of the Deal. It’s simple: Life is permanent warfare.
All the time. Against
everyone. And that cookbook has gotten
him a long way. But, today, the American
public is going to have the last words: “You’re fired.”
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[See tomorrow's post-election day post about Trump's victory]
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[See tomorrow's post-election day post about Trump's victory]
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