Washington Merry-Go-Round

IMMEDIATE RELEASE 11 August 2024
WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND
Today’s Events in Historical Perspective
America’s Longest-Running Column Founded 1932
              Trump, his Mini Me, and their formula for failure
By Douglas Cohn and Eleanor Clift         
 
WASHINGTON – The idea that a campaign based upon mantras and meanness would continue to play well with the electorate is rapidly fading. The public is beginning to tire of such childishness and thirsting for policies instead of platitudes, truths instead of lies, dignity instead of obloquy, respect instead of disparagement, and the list goes on.
The Trump show, as extraordinary as it is, is getting tired, and the public is tiring of it. His crowds are down. He is not new on the scene. He is the oldest person in the race, struggling to hold back the generational change that the Democratic ticket and his own vice-presidential candidate represent.
              But that is all Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, brings to the table. He has the lowest approval rating of any vice-presidential pick since Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in a politically fatal move selected former Governor Sarah Palin, R-Alaska, as his running mate. As Trump’s Mini Me, Vance stalked Harris on an airport tarmac in Michigan, telling reporters he wanted to check out Air Force Two, the plane that would soon be his.
It was as tone-deaf as Trump wandering into Hillary Clinton’s space on the debate stage in 2016.
              It even appears that Trump selected Vance because he came closest to a mirror image of his famously narcissistic self, but it failed. Trump is not easily duplicated, and his Mini Me does not even come close.
              Trump has until now gotten away with outrageous behavior that has excited and encouraged MAGA devotees on the one hand while being overlooked by hard-core conservatives on the other hand. But it is not working for the Mini Me in part because he is not and never will be Trump and in part because it is no longer working all that well for Trump himself. They are jointly engaging in a diminishing strategy, a formula for failure.
Trump’s speeches at rallies are unhinged, and crowds are not liking it the way they once did. In Atlanta, Trump unloaded on popular Republican Governor Kemp, calling him a “very average governor” who was responsible for Republicans losing the state in the 2020 election.
We have never had a political leader like this who belittles the opposition to the extent that Trump does. Maybe crossing so many boundaries in his rhetoric gave his supporters a thrill, but in the closing stretch of a presidential election, voters want to hear more about their future under the next president, and less about why Trump is so grieved over losing the last election.
Trump topped off his visit to Atlanta with a stop at NABJ, the National Association of Black Journalists, where he made the absurd claim that Harris had only recently identified with her Black heritage.
              The upshot is that more and more voters are looking for the grownups in the race, and these voters are not limited to Democrats.
Republicans for Harris give Republicans a place to go, a place that values patriotism over party. They believe in the Constitution and the rule of law. Many well-known Republicans such as former Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska are among them. Even sitting Senator Susan Collins, R-Maine has announced she will not vote for Trump. They join with former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, who long ago denounced Trump as a danger to the nation.
         It is too early to tell if this building groundswell will prove to be significant at the ballot box, but the signs are there from poll numbers to media ads. America appears to finally be waking up.
 
          See Eleanor Clift’s latest book Selecting a President, and Douglas Cohn’s latest books The President’s First Year: The Only School for Presidents Is the Presidency and World War 4: Nine Scenarios (endorsed by seven flag officers).
          Twitter:  @douglas_cohn
          © 2024 U.S. News Syndicate, Inc.
          Distributed by U.S. News Syndicate, Inc.
END WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND