2024 US Presidential Election

[SGR]

Sure,  I agree that Trump is not really ideologically driven, so it's not impossible to imagine him with a different message, if that's what he thought the room wanted.  But the basic appeal of a business tycoon who isn't a political insider and understands the systemic rot and wants to drain the swamp, has an intrinsic sort of right wing orientation to it.  It would be next to impossible for the garish billionaire tycoon and reality TV star to gain any kind of traction as a left wing populist,  regardless of how he changed the contents of his speeches.

I completely understand where you're coming from with this, but your view somewhat rests on how the parties evolved in our reality which led up to Trump running as a Republican. Trump's emphasis on 'being a political outsider who wants to drain the swamp' was messaging aimed at Republicans of the time, with the knowledge of what the state of the two different parties were. I think his celebrity and popularity as a famous reality TV star and real estate mogul could've been leveraged as a Democrat to success, if he delivered the right messages ("we will go after greedy corporations, and we will go after them hard", "nobody knows corrupt corporations and businessmen better than me, because I've had to deal with them firsthand", "the fascist right wing party of George W. Bush and all their illegal foreign wars will be coming to an end", etc). Democrats being a party that values and praises democracy and 'the will of the people' would, in my opinion, be able to be sold on the idea of a political outsider - but to your point, in this hypothetical, Trump would absolutely need to change his messaging. In fact, the first president of the Democrat party (and yes, I understand the parties have changed a lot since then, but humor me) was Andrew Jackson, a populist who was considered to be somewhat of a political outsider who wasn't afraid to break social and political conventions. Andrew Jackson also happens to be Trump's favorite president (supposedly), and he had his portrait hanging prominently in the Oval Office. Whether Trump truly respects and admires Jackson, or whether it's just more posturing is up for debate I suppose.



But I think there's definitely an intersection betwen left wing populism and right wing populism. After all, over 1 in 10 Bernie primary voters ended up voting for Trump (and yes, this isn't a lot statistically, but it does hint that there's an intersection for that many Bernie supporters to dump the party of their candidate and vote for the other party), and Bernie's messaging before 2016 about the border (and "open borders being a Koch brothers conspiracy") used to be eerily similar to Trump's messaging about the border.

Both left wing and right wing populism rely on distrust and disdain for the political elite and the 'establishment', and the idea that power should be held in the hands of 'the people'. This is all totally hypothetical, so I could very well be wrong, and you could be right - and I suppose we'll never know. If the multiverse theory is correct, there could be a Donald Trump out there somewhere right now, running for his fifth term as 'Supreme Comrade' of the Democrat Party. 

I actually don't disagree with the point about his media training playing an important role in how he eventually did find a successful political niche, but I don't necessarily grant that he has the level of insight you seem to suggest.  I think that he comes from a different media ecosystem than Washington politics and as such responds to a slightly different set of incentive structures than a trained politician would.  He certainly has less inhibitions about saying wild shit. That wild shit then gets him a lot of negative press which he benefited from in 2015/16, but I'm not at all under the impression this was a calculated strategy on Trump's part.

Rather,  he just has a much more unfiltered style of speaking and this often leads to quotes that could get another politician in hot water.  But Trump's persona as the brash political outsider is a big part of what allowed him to power through that.  There's not a parallel world where say Ted Cruz 'discovers' the Trump strategy to media first and thus takes the nomination. He could not have pulled it off even if he spent a decade in a media boot camp doing drills. Not giving a fuck in the way Trump does is a character trait,  not something that can really be taught.

And to presume it was an intentional strategy,  we would have to presume that comments like McCain being a war hero " because he got caught" was some kind of premeditated political stunt and not just Trump being his usual petty self and then doubling down out of pride.  I think you can guess which one I think is more likely.

You could be right that I'm assigning too much intention to Trump in terms of how he played his 2016 run and his approach to media in general. There was an interesting Politico (no friends of Trump) article back in 2016 published shortly after the RNC that does lend some credibility to the idea (including the McCain "not a war hero" thing and his polls going up as a result), with a story of his divorce from his first wife in 1990 being an example that informed him of how the media operates, and how it could be used to his advantage - worth the read I think, given that it's short, but I'll include an excerpt below:

It's possible to see Trump's whole campaign as a structure built on colossal missteps, statements that would have torpedoed all other candidacies but have buoyed Trump's simply by keeping his name in the news. Trump launched his presidential candidacy last summer by descending the escalator at the tower that bears his name and uttering his infamous words about how Mexico is sending to America its criminals and rapists. Those remarks alienated an ally, trashed a major portion of an ethnic group Republicans had vowed to court and set the tenor for a bid that has willfully, almost gleefully defied every poll-tested tenet of modern politics.

Calling Senator John McCain "not a war hero" last July was another early signal that he would go out of his way to make trouble, and benefit from it: The disrespectful comment earned Trump widespread condemnation—and a surge in polls. Since then, from his mocking of a disabled reporter to his declaration that he could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and "wouldn't lose voters" to his grinning, thumbs-up Cinco de Mayo social media taco bowl blast—"I love Hispanics!"—to his suggestion that the judge in a Trump University class-action lawsuit couldn't be impartial due to his Mexican ancestry to his pigheadedness in the Star of David controversy, bad publicity hasn't torn him down. It consistently has kept him in the public eye, and kept his opponents scrambling for attention.

If that belief has seen its most high-stakes demonstration over the past 13 months, it has for Trump a much deeper, more personal history. And if it's possible to identify the moment when the tactic was first on full display, it was February of 1990—a month in which Trump's scandalous affair with the buxom actress Marla Maples destroyed his marriage with the former Ivana Trump, the mother of his first three children. In the mind of nearly every business and public relations expert in America, such an event was a damaging crisis to be buried posthaste; the frenzied coverage of his congenital intemperance and incorrigible megalomania, they thought, obviously would tarnish Trump's brand. In the mind of Trump, on the other hand—as he watched his name and photograph jump from the New York tabloids to the national news, day after day, week after week—the nonstop exposure was a tool to enhance his celebrity on a vast new scale. Trump was right. The experts were wrong. And the approach that came into focus more than a quarter-century ago hasn't changed.

"He is of the mindset that the more his name is dropped, the more a kind of hypnosis, for lack of a better word, there is to the American public," Jim Dowd, the CEO of Dowd Ink, who did public relations for Trump from 2004 to 2010, told me in a recent interview. "He thinks even a negative piece is a positive for him."

I agree though, it takes a certain personality to manage to successfully pull off this approach and Ted Cruz doesn't have that personality. I also would not contend that every malicious quip or spiteful remark that Trump made was part of some intentional strategy - plenty of it, as you suggest, I'm sure was simply reflexive defenses of his ego. But I think overall, his aggressive, dismissive, and controversial approach to media and the resulting soundbites was an intentional strategy - it doesn't mean that everything he said falls under that umbrella - and certainly some controversial things he said that were intentional were not successful politically and some of the things he said that weren't intentional (like, possibly the McCain "war hero" thing) were successful.

This is another decent example of intention: "You won't insult your way to the presidency Donald..." - Donald proceeds to insult Jeb on his way to the presidency:

This isn't to say that this kind of rhetoric will work this time either, the Democrats have had a lot of time to take the measure of Trump, to focus group test how to handle him, and to improve their strategies - I mentioned it before, but I think the Tim Walz labelling of Trump and Republicans as "weird" was excellent persuasion, specifically among women. It's much better persuasion than the tired and yet abstract Biden persuasion of "He's going to steal your democracy!"

Likewise,  with his constant lying,  I don't see any sense of strategy.  I think he's just a dishonest person, and that he lies so often and so shamelessly that it's impossible to even keep up with,  and so people become accustomed to him lying and pointing out said lies start to yield diminishing returns. Trump does benefit from this.  But once again,  just because he benefits from a particular dynamic doesn't mean it needs to be interpreted as an intentional strategy.  Personally, I think it's just yet another aspect of his unfiltered style.  He couldn't do any differently even if he wanted to.  I don't believe he has the internal discipline to do so.

Now that Biden is out, the spotlight of age is now on Trump. And I definitely don't think he has as quick of a wit as he did in 2016. There's no way, at this point, he could change his ways at his age. He did an Elon Musk interview yesterday evening and Musk was asking him about the European censorship issue and Trump starts talking about NATO not paying their fair share. Huh? Being dishonest I think was Trump's first qualification to be president (cynically). But you're right in that who we see now with Trump is who we'd get. He's too set in his ways to be anything other than who he is.

The comparison to Pat Buchanan, in my mind,  isn't to suggest their policies were the same,  because I haven't gone through in that much detail.  But rhetorically there are certainly some common themes: a self poised "political outsider" (although this isn't accurate for Buchanan he did try to style himself as such) who is opposed to the "globalist agenda" and wants to either "Make America First Again" or "Make America Great Again" by focusing on the hollowing out of our manufacturing sector and clamping down on the southern border.

Buchanan and the paleoconservative movement more broadly were also associated with a politics that pandered to racial grievances of working class whites.  This was the era when Pat Buchanan and David Duke were actually competing with one another to try to run as an insurgent far right alternative to Geroge HW Bush. 

Trump is famously actually ironically on record commenting on the state of this race,  saying in 1991 on Larry King that it was a dangerous thing that people like Duke were gaining traction.  He also rightly noted that Buchanan or Duke getting into the race could be a real problem for Bush.  So he was clearly aware not only of the kind of politics being employed by Duke and Buchanan,  but the threat they posed to the Republican political establishment at the time.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2020/10/16/1991-larry-king-interviews-donald-trump.cnn

He also denounced Buchanan in 1999 when they were part of the same third party, The Reform party. Trump was lightly toying with the idea of a presidential run even back then. He then later denied knowing who Duke was when he received his endorsement in 2016.

Yes, that's probably more accurate to say - not exactly the policies, but the messaging was similar. I've read about this stuff before, but it's been a long while. I appreciate the historical refresher! I'd honestly forgotten David Duke ever held office (forgive me, I was born in 94) - I've always compartmentalized him as that 'old racist KKK white dude'.

So all of this is to say I think his presidential ambitions were long in the making,  as was the political opportunity that was emerging on the right in this country.  Both of which can be traced back at least to the 90s.

Another thing that helped Trump was new was the modern media environment with social media and viral clips,  etc.  It's impossible to really imagine a Trump style campaign being successful back in the early 90s when the traditional cable news media had a much firmer grip on these things.

Yes, totally agreed.

Obama was the first presidential candidate to leverage social media, but Trump treated it like a blitzkrieg. Entire news segments would be run on Trump's tweets. Obama used it as a tool, while Trump used it as a weapon.

[SGR]

@SGR

Re: Kamala

You're right on all of those points actually.  I don't know why I thought it wasn't normal for Democrats to campaign on Fox News.  I think it's because when Bernie did it last time that was presented as something unusual.

I'm not opposed to her going on Fox News either,  but it's just not my expectation.  Just like I don't expect Trump to go do an interview on MSNBC. Would it be better if they did? It would certainly be better content. Strategy? That's up in the air.

And as for the debates,  I thought I had heard they already had multiple debates lined up.  Again I was just wrong. 

I think the idea that in an ideal world her immigration policy would fly on Fox News is just too fanciful for me to even entertain. 

With how fast this election has been moving in regards to events, happenings and information, it's like a fog of war.

Trump did do MSNBC interviews in 2016 though - at the time, he was (like Kamala now) an unproven candidate. You're probably right that he won't do an MSNBC interview this cycle, but like I said, he's done multiple other hostile interviews (of which I provided some examples), even very recently. Did you catch the CNN Town Hall he did last year with Kaitlan Collins?

And then of course, the NABJ a week or two ago:

I doubt Kamala will wade into similarly hostile media formats, regardless of whether or not it's Fox News. And I also think the majority of Democrats (perhaps even a majority of independents) won't hold that against her, so it might actually be the right play politically.

[Trollheart]

How did Trump get away with calling dead war veterans "Losers" and "Suckers"? If nothing else was going to torpedo his campaign, surely insulting the dead heroes of America should have done? And yet, it seemed to just fade out of the news??

Anyway, as you guys know, I can bring little to this thread, but I do recall that, on the post SGR made about Trump thinking no publicity is bad publicity, Carly Simon put it into music and lyrics about him. 

[Jwb]

I completely understand where you're coming from with this, but your view somewhat rests on how the parties evolved in our reality which led up to Trump running as a Republican. Trump's emphasis on 'being a political outsider who wants to drain the swamp' was messaging aimed at Republicans of the time, with the knowledge of what the state of the two different parties were. I think his celebrity and popularity as a famous reality TV star and real estate mogul could've been leveraged as a Democrat to success, if he delivered the right messages ("we will go after greedy corporations, and we will go after them hard", "nobody knows corrupt corporations and businessmen better than me, because I've had to deal with them firsthand", "the fascist right wing party of George W. Bush and all their illegal foreign wars will be coming to an end", etc). Democrats being a party that values and praises democracy and 'the will of the people' would, in my opinion, be able to be sold on the idea of a political outsider - but to your point, in this hypothetical, Trump would absolutely need to change his messaging. In fact, the first president of the Democrat party (and yes, I understand the parties have changed a lot since then, but humor me) was Andrew Jackson, a populist who was considered to be somewhat of a political outsider who wasn't afraid to break social and political conventions. Andrew Jackson also happens to be Trump's favorite president (supposedly), and he had his portrait hanging prominently in the Oval Office. Whether Trump truly respects and admires Jackson, or whether it's just more posturing is up for debate I suppose.



But I think there's definitely an intersection betwen left wing populism and right wing populism. After all, over 1 in 10 Bernie primary voters ended up voting for Trump (and yes, this isn't a lot statistically, but it does hint that there's an intersection for that many Bernie supporters to dump the party of their candidate and vote for the other party), and Bernie's messaging before 2016 about the border (and "open borders being a Koch brothers conspiracy") used to be eerily similar to Trump's messaging about the border.

Both left wing and right wing populism rely on distrust and disdain for the political elite and the 'establishment', and the idea that power should be held in the hands of 'the people'. This is all totally hypothetical, so I could very well be wrong, and you could be right - and I suppose we'll never know. If the multiverse theory is correct, there could be a Donald Trump out there somewhere right now, running for his fifth term as 'Supreme Comrade' of the Democrat Party. 

I don't disagree with you that there are overlaps in some of the issues and messaging between left wing and right wing populists, but in my mind Trump would have to be a completely different person in order to appeal to the left in a meaningful way,  not just modify his message. So we just disagree there.

I take your point that him wanting to drain the swamp was messaging designed for Republicans but part of the point I was trying to make there but maybe didn't articulate is that his persona as the businessman and political outsider just works so perfectly with that entire message. Take for contrast the left wing populist counterpart in Bernie Sanders who,  contrary to being a businessman, is a life long politician who is seen as a "political outsider" by his supporters merely based on his politically fringe views that he doesn't deviate from.

The left and right wing populists in this country both have a resentment of percieved centers of concentrated power, but they disagree about where that power is actually concentrated.  Hence why the right wing populist is a billionare tycoon and celebrity and the left wing populist has been a relatively obscure senator for longer than his people wandered through the desert.

So the messaging might have some similar surface level attributes but I would say the aesthetics of his basic persona, even absent any political beliefs, wouldn't work in the same way in the modern democratic party as it did for the Republicans. I also think that wing of the democratic party was just not nearly as strong as their counterparts in the Tea party etc.

You could be right that I'm assigning too much intention to Trump in terms of how he played his 2016 run and his approach to media in general. There was an interesting Politico (no friends of Trump) article back in 2016 published shortly after the RNC that does lend some credibility to the idea (including the McCain "not a war hero" thing and his polls going up as a result), with a story of his divorce from his first wife in 1990 being an example that informed him of how the media operates, and how it could be used to his advantage - worth the read I think, given that it's short, but I'll include an excerpt below:

I agree though, it takes a certain personality to manage to successfully pull off this approach and Ted Cruz doesn't have that personality. I also would not contend that every malicious quip or spiteful remark that Trump made was part of some intentional strategy - plenty of it, as you suggest, I'm sure was simply reflexive defenses of his ego. But I think overall, his aggressive, dismissive, and controversial approach to media and the resulting soundbites was an intentional strategy - it doesn't mean that everything he said falls under that umbrella - and certainly some controversial things he said that were intentional were not successful politically and some of the things he said that weren't intentional (like, possibly the McCain "war hero" thing) were successful.

An interesting read.  I can buy that Trump might espouse the generic philosophy that all press is good press etc but again I don't see this as being born out of some sort of strategic calculation.  For it to be so,  we have to presume that Trump has another mode he could theoretically access instead of that of endlessly showboating and antagonizing his rivals.  I don't believe that is the case.  He is basically a one trick pony who doesn't ever seem to deviate from said "strategy." Even behind closed doors his reputation is of somebody who basically can't keep their mouth shut to save their life.  So no.  I think that it's clearly documented that he's never had much of a disincentive to behave otherwise, so perhaps his disposition is somewhat understandable in that sense.  But I don't believe that even in 2016 he had the capacity to behave much differently.  I've not seen any indication that he can do so.  It happened to work in his favor,  which I haven't denied. But had it not done so there's no plan B there.  And keep in mind so far it only worked the one time. The novelty aspect of his campaign also presumably played a role in capitalizing off each new viral story.  That's an approach that is bound to yield diminishing returns.

This is another decent example of intention: "You won't insult your way to the presidency Donald..." - Donald proceeds to insult Jeb on his way to the presidency:

I couldn't disagree more.  Insult  comic Trump worked so well in 2016 because he wasn't remotely calculated.  He was completely off the cuff and that was part of what was so great about it.  That's like saying his "only Rosie ODonnell" response was calculated.  Trump didn't have it in him not to slide in an insult to his long time media rival in response to a  question about women being offended at him making fun of fat women.  And that's what made it such a classic response.

These days when he tries to pull off even the insulting nicknames it is almost like he is trying to be calculated about it and it doesn't hit like it used to.

Obama was the first presidential candidate to leverage social media, but Trump treated it like a blitzkrieg. Entire news segments would be run on Trump's tweets. Obama used it as a tool, while Trump used it as a weapon.

Supposedly Ivana Trump was the one who gave Trump the idea to use Twitter.

[SGR]

How did Trump get away with calling dead war veterans "Losers" and "Suckers"? If nothing else was going to torpedo his campaign, surely insulting the dead heroes of America should have done? And yet, it seemed to just fade out of the news??

The original story, published by The Atlantic, cites anonymous 'firsthand sources' for the claim. Trump and his team denied the claim. Later, Trump's former Chief of Staff and former Marine Corps General John Kelly confirmed that he heard Trump make the comments. Trump and his team still denied it. In essence, there was no video or audio proof, so it devolved into a bit of a he-said/she-said situation, and as you'd expect, Republicans and supporters of Trump didn't believe the claims while Democrats and opponents of Trump did believe the claims.

Keep in mind, as this thread has touched on before - there are many wild and untrue things Trump has actually said (like him implying his 2016 primary opponent Ted Cruz's father [Rafael Cruz] was an associate of Lee Harvey Oswald and had some involvement in JFK's assassination - no evidence was found for this), while there are other wild things that are claimed that Trump said that he actually didn't (like the commonly cited claim that Trump called Neo-Nazis "very fine people" with his comments after the Charlottesville car attack - he actually condemned the neo-nazis and white supremacists and was simply referring to the protestors who disagreed with the idea of taking down the local statues).

[Trollheart]

I see. Thanks for that. I didn't realise there was no evidence of the story. Still, you would think it would be an odd thing for anyone - especially the terminally-polite and never-too-quick-to-captialise-on-a-story Dems. In fact, to me (as an outsider) it sounds like something so unlikely for anyone (even Trump) to say, that the Dems wouldn't even try to push it as reality, or even go so far as to make it up/blow it out of proportion, so you have to wonder - well, I do - where it came from then? It's not the first thing you think of to sling at your opponent, is it? In reality, I imagine he did say it, probably thought nobody heard, hushed it up (though not enough to stop it being a news story for a short while) used Fox and Friends to discredit it, and likely breathed a sigh of relief that nobody believed it and they were able to (sorry for the inappropriate metaphor) bury it. Cause otherwise I feel certain it would have buried him, politically.

Wasn't there some other story (sorry not to do the research, but you guys probably have these things almost literally at your fingertips, or at least in your memories) where he insulted Gold Star Families or something? Families of veterans? Wasn't there a big thing about that? That got hushed up/shoved under the Oval Office carpet too?

[Shhon]

https://x.com/spectatorindex/status/1823503221975081243

[SGR]

I don't disagree with you that there are overlaps in some of the issues and messaging between left wing and right wing populists, but in my mind Trump would have to be a completely different person in order to appeal to the left in a meaningful way,  not just modify his message. So we just disagree there.

Yup, that's totally fair. And I admit you could be right. The original hypothetical was 'in an alternate reality' Trump could've run for president as a Democrat. It all comes down to how much the current reality would need to have shifted in the hypothetical 'alternate reality' for that to be feasible. Because, in an alternate reality, William Howard Taft could've been a communist, or Stalin a right-wing Christian theocrat, but you'd certainly need much of history and circumstance to change to get to that point.

I take your point that him wanting to drain the swamp was messaging designed for Republicans but part of the point I was trying to make there but maybe didn't articulate is that his persona as the businessman and political outsider just works so perfectly with that entire message. Take for contrast the left wing populist counterpart in Bernie Sanders who,  contrary to being a businessman, is a life long politician who is seen as a "political outsider" by his supporters merely based on his politically fringe views that he doesn't deviate from.

The left and right wing populists in this country both have a resentment of percieved centers of concentrated power, but they disagree about where that power is actually concentrated.  Hence why the right wing populist is a billionare tycoon and celebrity and the left wing populist has been a relatively obscure senator for longer than his people wandered through the desert.

I get where you're coming from - as a thought experiment, if I were to believe it were feasible that Trump could've run as a Democrat, and I think his message had a lot of intersection with Bernie's message, do I also think that Bernie could've run as a Republican (seeing as he is technically an independent)? I don't think he could've (at least with any real success), for a number of reasons, including ones you've pointed out. So that is, I think, a reinforcement of your point that history and circumstances would've needed to be much different for Trump to have successfully run as a Democrat.

An interesting read.  I can buy that Trump might espouse the generic philosophy that all press is good press etc but again I don't see this as being born out of some sort of strategic calculation.  For it to be so,  we have to presume that Trump has another mode he could theoretically access instead of that of endlessly showboating and antagonizing his rivals.  I don't believe that is the case.  He is basically a one trick pony who doesn't ever seem to deviate from said "strategy." Even behind closed doors his reputation is of somebody who basically can't keep their mouth shut to save their life.  So no.  I think that it's clearly documented that he's never had much of a disincentive to behave otherwise, so perhaps his disposition is somewhat understandable in that sense.  But I don't believe that even in 2016 he had the capacity to behave much differently.  I've not seen any indication that he can do so.  It happened to work in his favor,  which I haven't denied. But had it not done so there's no plan B there.  And keep in mind so far it only worked the one time. The novelty aspect of his campaign also presumably played a role in capitalizing off each new viral story.  That's an approach that is bound to yield diminishing returns.

I don't know if I completely buy this. If we look at, for example, Donald Trump's recent debate with Biden:

And we compare it to Trump's first debate with Biden (2020):

The obvious difference is that Biden was a different man cognitively - but another difference is that Trump appears to have tempered himself much more in the 2024 debate (which isn't to say he lies less, or he answers question more honestly or directly). In the 2020 debate, he was constantly interrupting Biden, antagonizing him, debating with the moderator, and generally coming off as a bully. You could fairly point out that the rules for the 2024 debate were different than the 2020 debate (no audience to play to, muted mics when it's not your turn, etc) and that explains the difference, and you might be right - but it does prove at the least that Trump can adapt when he needs to and, seemingly, he is at least somewhat coachable about these things, unless he decided to change his approach himself (I doubt it). He's also adapting his media strategy from his 2016 and 2020 runs and trying to do outreach via streamers/e-celebs - he recently went on Adin Ross's stream for an interview (apparently this young dude is popular among zoomers), before that, he went on Logan Paul's podcast, the Nelk Boys podcast, and just the other night, went on Elon Musk's Twitter Space for an interview that went on far too long (similar to Ron DeSantis, the first candidate who did a Twitter Space stream with Elon as far as I know, it had technical issues).

If we looked at Trump's 2016 run as a binary per this discussion, both explanations would seem somewhat incredulous:

A) Trump and his team either had no defined strategy, or had a defined strategy, but Trump went off the rails (in contradiction of any defined strategy, if it existed) at practically every turn, defied all conventions of current political wisdom, violated social norms and decorum, insulted over half the population, and won the presidency anyway

or

B) Trump and his team had a vaguely defined strategy for Trump to lean in to antagonism, demagoguery, mockery of opponents and institutions, and perpetual boasting and bravado to generate any and all press, negative or otherwise, to increase his name recognition, boost his ratings, and win the presidency

I couldn't disagree more.  Insult  comic Trump worked so well in 2016 because he wasn't remotely calculated.  He was completely off the cuff and that was part of what was so great about it.  That's like saying his "only Rosie ODonnell" response was calculated.  Trump didn't have it in him not to slide in an insult to his long time media rival in response to a  question about women being offended at him making fun of fat women.  And that's what made it such a classic response.

These days when he tries to pull off even the insulting nicknames it is almost like he is trying to be calculated about it and it doesn't hit like it used to.

I think it depends on how we define 'calculated'. If the campaign strategy in 2016 was, for example, "Let Trump be Trump (as it appears to have been), and it will all work out, and we'll get all the soundbites", then you could argue comments like these were calculated, or at least, organically created through a calculated overall campaign strategy. The gamble for Republicans and Trump's campaign at the time is that by 'letting Trump be Trump', voters would appreciate his perceived rawness and authenticity in contrast to his Democratic rival and be incentivized to vote for him. I know what you mean that obviously, Trump didn't know exactly what questions or accusations he'd be rebutting in any given debate or interview, and that his responses were often spur of the moment quick-witted rebukes and insults (and thus, not individually calculated ahead of time), but that doesn't mean they didn't come downstream from a calculated overall strategy.

I will agree with you that it does seem forced lately, and not natural and spontaneous like it did in 2016 - whether that's due to the act running out of steam or interest, or it's due to Trump losing his touch with his age (or maybe both), it doesn't seem to work for him like it once did - it's like he focus group tests his nicknames now - first it was 'Laffin Kamala', then it was 'Crazy Kamala', then he tried out 'Kamabla'...it's like...really? He needs new material, because these aren't sticking.

Supposedly Ivana Trump was the one who gave Trump the idea to use Twitter.

Really? Huh, I'd never heard that before, that's interesting.

[DJChameleon]

I see. Thanks for that. I didn't realise there was no evidence of the story. Still, you would think it would be an odd thing for anyone - especially the terminally-polite and never-too-quick-to-captialise-on-a-story Dems. In fact, to me (as an outsider) it sounds like something so unlikely for anyone (even Trump) to say, that the Dems wouldn't even try to push it as reality, or even go so far as to make it up/blow it out of proportion, so you have to wonder - well, I do - where it came from then? It's not the first thing you think of to sling at your opponent, is it? In reality, I imagine he did say it, probably thought nobody heard, hushed it up (though not enough to stop it being a news story for a short while) used Fox and Friends to discredit it, and likely breathed a sigh of relief that nobody believed it and they were able to (sorry for the inappropriate metaphor) bury it. Cause otherwise I feel certain it would have buried him, politically.

Wasn't there some other story (sorry not to do the research, but you guys probably have these things almost literally at your fingertips, or at least in your memories) where he insulted Gold Star Families or something? Families of veterans? Wasn't there a big thing about that? That got hushed up/shoved under the Oval Office carpet too?

Only us political nerds care about if he truly said it or not. If you don't like him you believe that he would say some scummy crap like that. If you swallow his balls on a daily basis you will stand up for him and present more context behind it.

It doesn't have to be proven imo because it sounds like something he would say. He's that inflammatory that he would say something like that to discredit veterans.

The lie is always more entertaining than the truth. This is such a popularity contest that people will believe whatever they want to believe. They don't vote based off policies they vote off of the entertaining clips from rallies and speeches.

[Trollheart]

It's funny (and true) because, in a reverse sort of idea - though I know neither of you read my Irish history journal (waahhh!) there was this simply amazing story - a real one, now - about some guy who hated Catholics and completely cooked up a plot that they were going to assassinate the King (James I). No evidence. Not a scrap. But people were arrested, held in the Tower of London, and a few were executed. Catholics were (of course) persecuted and suspected, mobs did what mobs do, and much of this was fuelled by the Great Fire of London only being 12 years earlier. We got blemt for that too, as we say here. Fascinating, scary stuff. The guy only ran out of steam when he rather unwisely accused the King himself in the plot, and that was the end of him. Just shows though, conspiracy theories and creating your own truth isn't that new, not at all. Once you have a scapegoat everyone wants to hate, the facts can go hang. People will believe what they want to believe. Shades, too, of the Salem witch trials. We ain't advanced much, people.

Four Green Fields, Chapter VIII: Under the English Heel Part II: The Return of the King (with reference to the Great Fire of London and how Catholics were blamed for a total accident)

Four Green Fields, as above: When the Lie Becomes the Truth: The Popish Plot

[Jwb]

I don't know if I completely buy this. If we look at, for example, Donald Trump's recent debate with Biden:

And we compare it to Trump's first debate with Biden (2020):

The obvious difference is that Biden was a different man cognitively - but another difference is that Trump appears to have tempered himself much more in the 2024 debate (which isn't to say he lies less, or he answers question more honestly or directly). In the 2020 debate, he was constantly interrupting Biden, antagonizing him, debating with the moderator, and generally coming off as a bully. You could fairly point out that the rules for the 2024 debate were different than the 2020 debate (no audience to play to, muted mics when it's not your turn, etc) and that explains the difference, and you might be right - but it does prove at the least that Trump can adapt when he needs to and, seemingly, he is at least somewhat coachable about these things, unless he decided to change his approach himself (I doubt it).

Eh. I don't see this as very convincing at all.  Trump has clearly aged and is less energetic than he used to be, but I don't find that he's really that different of a person beyond that.

He didn't go in on Biden that hard in the recent debate because what was there to be antagonized about,  from his pov? I'm sure he was thrilled even in the moment with the display Biden was putting on.  It doesn't exactly take much discipline to not get triggered and go for the throat in a moment like that.

And frankly the first (IIRC?) 2020 debate with Biden was seen as more confrontational than his debates with Hillary were. This wasn't because he was more disciplined with his rhetoric back in 2016, it's because the context was different and thus so was his psyche.

In the Hillary debates he was still the rising insurgent outsider who was probably still riding the high of how surreal it would be from his pov at that time, to be on the precipice of becoming president,  which as I've mentioned above is an ambition he nurtured semi publicly for decades. Contrast that with facing down a rival who is looking to unseat you after only one term, with the political momentum on their side and a global pandemic that is currently destroying your bid for reelection.

I think Trump was harsher with Biden in 2020 not out of strategy,  but out of instinct.  And that many of the other attributes you list as unique strategic insights are,  as I said,  character traits instead.  And that even the so called strategy you highlight below is just to allow Trump to lean in to these character traits.  But again,  that seems to me less of a premeditated strategy and more coming to terms with the pragmatic limitations (and strengths) of your candidate.  As I pointed out, he has little ability to do otherwise, and to the extent that he can make some attempt,  it only makes him less effective in my view.

Perfect example of this would be recently when they tried to roll out "Trump the uniter" in the aftermath of the shooting. How long did that last before he was on stage at the RNC openly telling the crowd that "they told me to be nice" but "if it's alright with you,  I'm not going to be nice. "

In that sense I do think he has the basic instinct of an entertainer. And he knows that even if his donors might want him to be nice right now based on their own strategic thinking, the crowd doesn't want him to be nice.  But also,  it's just not him.  So it does have to be a chore.

He's also adapting his media strategy from his 2016 and 2020 runs and trying to do outreach via streamers/e-celebs - he recently went on Adin Ross's stream for an interview (apparently this young dude is popular among zoomers), before that, he went on Logan Paul's podcast, the Nelk Boys podcast, and just the other night, went on Elon Musk's Twitter Space for an interview that went on far too long (similar to Ron DeSantis, the first candidate who did a Twitter Space stream with Elon as far as I know, it had technical issues).

I mean these are strategies in the sense of utilizing a certain platform. I have no doubt that the Trump team is privy to and employs basic media strategies.  Maybe even innovative ones,  like in the case of Twitter.  That's not the contention.

I'm saying that the endless controversies that he created with his speech were not born out of strategic thinking.  Just because his team were undoubtedly giving him some media training and pointers doesn't mean that they explain or even correlate with the instances we're talking about.

Many of these instances came from organic moments where Trump was somehow antagonized by a rival and prompted into making an off the cuff statement like  " war hero cause he got caught" or "only Rosie ODonnell." Then it causes a bunch of headlines and trump gets a bump in the polls and the after the fact rationalization is that Trump's brilliance lies in his understanding that the anticipated consequences from these statements won't touch him. 

But this is all ad hoc reasoning,  just like his "all press is good press" mantra in the aftermath of whatever the scandal was with his ex wife.  For this strategy to make sense,  the initial scandal would have to be intentional.  Instead,  it's just endless post hoc rationalizations for behavior that he can't help but engage with in the first place.

Which seems to me to fit his personality perfectly.  I'm guessing that any one tasked with coaching Trump who didn't find their way around to the "let Trump be Trump" strategy would soon enough be confronted with his famous catchphrase.

If we looked at Trump's 2016 run as a binary per this discussion, both explanations would seem somewhat incredulous:

A) Trump and his team either had no defined strategy, or had a defined strategy, but Trump went off the rails (in contradiction of any defined strategy, if it existed) at practically every turn, defied all conventions of current political wisdom, violated social norms and decorum, insulted over half the population, and won the presidency anyway

or

B) Trump and his team had a vaguely defined strategy for Trump to lean in to antagonism, demagoguery, mockery of opponents and institutions, and perpetual boasting and bravado to generate any and all press, negative or otherwise, to increase his name recognition, boost his ratings, and win the presidency

That binary is leading you astray. You are assuming strategy is the only relevant factor for getting one elected.  I'm framing the very same behaviors you are framing as being born out of a media strategy as actually just being character traits that Trump has that helped him get elected in the context on that one election.  I

t's my contention that his behavior is more consistent with this premise than with yours.  But even if you contest that,  there's absolutely nothing far fetched about a character trait helping you get elected or even being more important than strategy was.

I think it depends on how we define 'calculated'. If the campaign strategy in 2016 was, for example, "Let Trump be Trump (as it appears to have been), and it will all work out, and we'll get all the soundbites", then you could argue comments like these were calculated, or at least, organically created through a calculated overall campaign strategy. The gamble for Republicans and Trump's campaign at the time is that by 'letting Trump be Trump', voters would appreciate his perceived rawness and authenticity in contrast to his Democratic rival and be incentivized to vote for him. I know what you mean that obviously, Trump didn't know exactly what questions or accusations he'd be rebutting in any given debate or interview, and that his responses were often spur of the moment quick-witted rebukes and insults (and thus, not individually calculated ahead of time), but that doesn't mean they didn't come downstream from a calculated overall strategy.

Reading the article you cited,  note 2 things right off the bat. The date is in August 2016, and the subtext of the article is it's basically a fluff piece by his new campaign manager talking about how she doesn't want to cramp his style but wants to keep him on message and away from the pointless drama.  I guarantee the kinds of insults we're citing above were not on the list of things she'd like to see more of on the campaign trail.

So what this article tells us in a nutshell is that Trump's campaign was already well underway and the basic dynamic we are describing  was already well established. with the cycles of bad headlines that kept him in the news and helped his campaign gain traction. So Conway's brilliant innovation here was to allow what was already happening to continue to happen,  but "in a more disciplined way" which she never even clarifies what would be different about it.  I find all of this consistent with the idea that she's pragmatically coming to terms with the limitations and strengths of her candidate,  which had already been on full display for months. Or as Trump put it,  in the article you cited:

"I am who I am. It's me," he told a Wisconsin TV stationon Tuesday. "I don't wanna change. Everybody talks about, 'Oh well, you're gonna pivot, you're gonna' — I don't wanna pivot. I mean, you have to be you. If you start pivoting, you're not being honest with people."

I will agree with you that it does seem forced lately, and not natural and spontaneous like it did in 2016 - whether that's due to the act running out of steam or interest, or it's due to Trump losing his touch with his age (or maybe both), it doesn't seem to work for him like it once did - it's like he focus group tests his nicknames now - first it was 'Laffin Kamala', then it was 'Crazy Kamala', then he tried out 'Kamabla'...it's like...really? He needs new material, because these aren't sticking.

It's like I said before... you can't fake the energy he ran with in 2016. He's lost the juice.  That's all there is to it. The white house does that to you.

[degrassi.knoll]

Dude the Hillary debates still feel like a fever dream. I feel like it was one of those occasions when time stopped and I'll forever recall where I was when I saw the display live, much like how it felt to watch the second plane hit.

[SGR]

Eh. I don't see this as very convincing at all.  Trump has clearly aged and is less energetic than he used to be, but I don't find that he's really that different of a person beyond that.

He didn't go in on Biden that hard in the recent debate because what was there to be antagonized about,  from his pov? I'm sure he was thrilled even in the moment with the display Biden was putting on.  It doesn't exactly take much discipline to not get triggered and go for the throat in a moment like that.

And frankly the first (IIRC?) 2020 debate with Biden was seen as more confrontational than his debates with Hillary were. This wasn't because he was more disciplined with his rhetoric back in 2016, it's because the context was different and thus so was his psyche.

I get all that, and I agree Trump has obviously aged and is less energetic, but my response and argument there was mainly in response to the following that you said:

I can buy that Trump might espouse the generic philosophy that all press is good press etc but again I don't see this as being born out of some sort of strategic calculation.  For it to be so,  we have to presume that Trump has another mode he could theoretically access instead of that of endlessly showboating and antagonizing his rivals.  I don't believe that is the case.  He is basically a one trick pony who doesn't ever seem to deviate from said "strategy."

What was there to be antagonized about for Trump in the most recent debate? Well, if you take Trump at his word at all, even if not completely seriously, he seems to believe that Biden and his party stole the election from him in 2020, and have since been employing lawfare against him to hobble his financial resources and his time to damage his reputation and campaign. That seems like something that would, for Trump, typically deserve a bit of antagonism.

Regardless, I believe you argued that there wasn't any real strategic calculation with Trump's 2016 run (or at least with his approach to media appearances) because you didn't believe Trump had 'another mode he could theoretically access instead of endlessly showboating and antagnoizing his rivals'. But in your most recent post, you are pointing out, similar to how I did, that his approach and apparent 'strategy' to the varying debates (Clinton/2016, Biden/2020, Biden/2024) were all different. This to me, would seem to confirm that there is an underlying intention and strategy to Trump's different campaign cycles and media appearances, and that he does have multiple modes -  not all of which involve endlessly antagonizing and showboating, which is what I gathered was your belief. You make reference to his psyche and context being different as an explanation for his different approach, but that would seem to reinforce that he intentionally responds to differences in circumstances, and adjusts accordingly, i.e. strategy - unless you make the case that Trump is simply like a rock tumbling down a mountain, and his varying trajectories are completely a result of his environment around him and have nothing to do with his or his campaign's strategy. I would concede to you, and I don't think I've made a case in contradiction of this, that Trump isn't a different person than he was in 2016 (in terms of personality) - or that he's a different person than he was in 1990 - rather, my case or contention was that his approach to the media and publicity in 2016 wasn't something that simply happened out of the blue, but was born out of a specific underlying campaign strategy. And to add on to that, I think the reason he was so successful in that run, is that it didn't "feel" like it did come out of any kind of strategy or think tank like so many campaigns did before. That is why, probably, kids in 50 years will be studying why that campaign worked and why it was successful and what the underlying plans that drove its success were.

It's also possible, as does often happen with mutli-page discussions on forum posts, that we're simply speaking past each other and either I'm not quite understanding your point or you're not quite understanding mine (or maybe both).

In the Hillary debates he was still the rising insurgent outsider who was probably still riding the high of how surreal it would be from his pov at that time, to be on the precipice of becoming president,  which as I've mentioned above is an ambition he nurtured semi publicly for decades. Contrast that with facing down a rival who is looking to unseat you after only one term, with the political momentum on their side and a global pandemic that is currently destroying your bid for reelection.

I think Trump was harsher with Biden in 2020 not out of strategy,  but out of instinct.  And that many of the other attributes you list as unique strategic insights are,  as I said,  character traits instead.  And that even the so called strategy you highlight below is just to allow Trump to lean in to these character traits.  But again,  that seems to me less of a premeditated strategy and more coming to terms with the pragmatic limitations (and strengths) of your candidate.  As I pointed out, he has little ability to do otherwise, and to the extent that he can make some attempt,  it only makes him less effective in my view.

Instinct vs. Strategy, I gotcha. Your contention is that Trump's campaigns have relied more on his instincts than any kind of premeditated campaign strategy? I'm not saying it's impossible that's true, but I don't know if I'd completely buy it. I think I might be more settled on the opinion that Trump does listen to advice from campaign managers, but sometimes, he goes off the rails and defies most of the advice that they've given him. Again though, I don't think that discredits the idea that most of the time, he's following some kind of overarching campaign strategy. Though it's less discussed, Trump's second debate with Biden in 2020 was quite a bit less antagonistic than the first debate. That could be a sign that in the first debate, instinct won over strategy, and in the second, strategy won over instinct. It's an interesting discussion to say the least.

Perfect example of this would be recently when they tried to roll out "Trump the uniter" in the aftermath of the shooting. How long did that last before he was on stage at the RNC openly telling the crowd that "they told me to be nice" but "if it's alright with you,  I'm not going to be nice. "

Sure that was a short lived media narrative, but I'm not sure we have evidence that this was actually advice or strategy from his campaign. If you're aware of evidence of that, let me know.

In that sense I do think he has the basic instinct of an entertainer. And he knows that even if his donors might want him to be nice right now based on their own strategic thinking, the crowd doesn't want him to be nice.  But also,  it's just not him.  So it does have to be a chore.
I mean these are strategies in the sense of utilizing a certain platform. I have no doubt that the Trump team is privy to and employs basic media strategies.  Maybe even innovative ones,  like in the case of Twitter.  That's not the contention.

I'm saying that the endless controversies that he created with his speech were not born out of strategic thinking.  Just because his team were undoubtedly giving him some media training and pointers doesn't mean that they explain or even correlate with the instances we're talking about.

Many of these instances came from organic moments where Trump was somehow antagonized by a rival and prompted into making an off the cuff statement like  " war hero cause he got caught" or "only Rosie ODonnell." Then it causes a bunch of headlines and trump gets a bump in the polls and the after the fact rationalization is that Trump's brilliance lies in his understanding that the anticipated consequences from these statements won't touch him. 

I think I'm starting to understand your view on this a little better, but correct me if I'm wrong. It sounds like you're giving more credit purely to Trump's instincts, whereas I might be giving more credit to the collective of Trump and his team of advisors. Whereas I have so far contended that Trump's team have basically either encouraged or given a blessing to let Trump do his thing (at least in 2016) and antagonize opponents, you are contending instead that his team's role was simply polishing up his instinctual approach and giving him advice on how to deal with certain political situations he might not have the instincts for (like debates, for example?), with the implicit understanding that Trump was going to be Trump and their role was focus his line of fire? I think I could buy that, if that's the case. We might be getting too hung up on our own definitions, e.g. what constitutes a 'strategy' and 'premeditation'.

But this is all ad hoc reasoning,  just like his "all press is good press" mantra in the aftermath of whatever the scandal was with his ex wife.  For this strategy to make sense,  the initial scandal would have to be intentional.  Instead,  it's just endless post hoc rationalizations for behavior that he can't help but engage with in the first place.

I don't know that I read it in exactly the same way. I didn't quite see it as a post hoc rationlization for him cheating on his wife, but rather simply: "Oh wow, look at this, I cheated on my wife, all the tabloids and news channels are talking about it, and now I'm even more popular!". It wasn't a rationalization exactly of his poor behavior, but rather a lesson that his poor behavior in that instance resulted in a greater degree of celebrity and name recognition. Obviously, that behavior could only have that result if you were already rich and famous - the deadbeat down the street probably isn't even going to make the local paper if he cheats on his wife unless it's with the local mayor's wife. 

Which seems to me to fit his personality perfectly.  I'm guessing that any one tasked with coaching Trump who didn't find their way around to the "let Trump be Trump" strategy would soon enough be confronted with his famous catchphrase.
That binary is leading you astray. You are assuming strategy is the only relevant factor for getting one elected.  I'm framing the very same behaviors you are framing as being born out of a media strategy as actually just being character traits that Trump has that helped him get elected in the context on that one election.  It's my contention that his behavior is more consistent with this premise than with yours.  But even if you contest that,  there's absolutely nothing far fetched about a character trait helping you get elected or even being more important than strategy was.
Reading the article you cited,  note 2 things right off the bat. The date is in August 2016, and the subtext of the article is it's basically a fluff piece by his new campaign manager talking about how she doesn't want to cramp his style but wants to keep him on message and away from the pointless drama.  I guarantee the kinds of insults we're citing above were not on the list of things she'd like to see more of on the campaign trail.

So what this article tells us in a nutshell is that Trump's campaign was already well underway and the basic dynamic we are describing  was already well established. with the cycles of bad headlines that kept him in the news and helped his campaign gain traction. So Conway's brilliant innovation here was to allow what was already happening to continue to happen,  but "in a more disciplined way" which she never even clarifies what would be different about it.  I find all of this consistent with the idea that she's pragmatically coming to terms with the limitations and strengths of her candidate,  which had already been on full display for months. Or as Trump put it,  in the article you cited:

"I am who I am. It's me," he told a Wisconsin TV stationon Tuesday. "I don't wanna change. Everybody talks about, 'Oh well, you're gonna pivot, you're gonna' — I don't wanna pivot. I mean, you have to be you. If you start pivoting, you're not being honest with people."
It's like I said before... you can't fake the energy he ran with in 2016. He's lost the juice.  That's all there is to it. The white house does that to you.

The binary example was more of a simplistic explanation of what was my understanding of our different approaches to this discussion to try and expedite a point, but as you mention, it really comes down to a minor difference in how we frame and view these behaviors. You make mention that I assume that strategy is the only relevant factor for one getting elected, but I don't think that's true at all - as I noted earlier in our conversation, I believed if the same circumstances for Trump were applied to Ted Cruz, he wouldn't be successful in Trump's approach not for lack of the same strategy, but for lack of Trump's boisterous, bloviating and shameless personality. The strategy, assuming there is one, does not work without that.

I think perhaps I misread what you initially were pinning as 'strategy' and I thought you simply viewed Trump's 2016 campaign as a rolling event of happy (or unhappy) accidents, all at the behest of Trump's instincts, without any kind of directional purpose that brought Trump to the White House - and based on what your framing was of my assumption of the 'strategy', it sounds like you think I'm ignoring or discrediting the role of Trump's personality and instincts in the equation, which isn't true at all. Maybe even here, I'm mischaracterizing your position, so feel free to correct it, but I think we're mostly on the same page, perhaps just with differing weights being given to Trump's base instincts/personality vs. his campaign team/advisor direction.

[Psy-Fi]

"Hey hey, ho ho, Killer Kamala has got to go"...


Pro-Palestinian groups are mobilizing thousands to Chicago to demonstrate outside DNC

[Lisnaholic]

There's a lot of talk about inflation as being an issue in the upcoming election, but here's an argument that neither side seems to be making:

Inflation is an automatic consequence of engaging in international trade: you can't control the prices of the things you import and typically those prices are heading upwards. Here's a graph that shows how the US is just caught in the same circs as other countries:-



And here's an example of one (international) reason for price rises:-

I chose the shortest, least-biased video I could find on the topic although it rather skips over the massive cost implication of ships waiting to get through the canal: a lot of dollars per day per ship, a cost which gets passed on to the customer.
So what I don't understand is this: why doesn't the pre-election debate over inflation go like this:-

Trump campaign: High inflation under Harris + Biden !
Harris campaign: Yes, we couldn't make it rain in Panama - and you won't be able to either.