In order to defeat Donald Trump in November the Democratic nominee must aim for and hit his Achilles Heel: his inflated ego. Said another way, an issues-based opposition while necessary may not be enough. Personalize the contest pitting the unliked, unadmired DJT with his opponent’s personal qualities and the former president will unravel himself, for all to see.
Three components of Trump’s ego-infused heel offer a rich reward from the slings of his political assailant.
First, brand him a failure in business because he is a cheater. There is evidence aplenty, his bankruptcies, the judgements against him and payouts when sued, the fact that banks won’t lend him money. How his business errors have hurt the average person can make this case personal and real. Like red meat luring a hungry animal, Trump will immediately over-react, putting on display his unstable, defensive self.
Second, brand him as an abuser of women. The lawsuits are there. So is the Hollywood Access Tape. Enriching these facts is his on-camera bragging for having sponsored the move to limit women’s choices regarding their reproductive health. Validate this with a video clip of his chosen running mate’s call for national ban on all abortions. Accompany this with a video of a Texas woman telling her story of being denied treatment by her doctor there.
Third, brand him as unpatriotic and unAmerican for sucking up to Vladimir Putin and other dictators. Characterize this a weakness, even cowardly when failing to advance America’s peace initiatives in the world. Cite the thousands of Gold Star mothers whose sons and daughters gave their lives to find the peace that led to the formation of NATO. Honor the citizens who have served in the Peace Corps around the world to instill American values in freedom-loving peoples.
There is rich material for this attack on Trump’s ego. We know it will work politically because the one value Trump holds most dear is his self-centered belief in himself. His owns words confirm this.
Vice President Kamala Harris, if she is the Democratic nominee, would be an effective
messenger for this assault. But it must be hard, blunt, and laced with powerful, street-talk (but clean) language, and delivered with a solid punch-in-the nose thrust. A mid-September date in a red state, say Indiana, Kentucky, maybe Ohio, would be the best strategic launch venue.
This punch should be delivered by the presidential candidate only once, because it would give permission for all Democratic surrogates to echo and embellish the attack. The media campaign that precedes this attack should present the post-Biden candidate in friendly red-white-and-blue terms. If it is Vice President Harris, that a woman would deliver such an in-your-face series of hits on the national bully would serve to show she is capable of smacking a bully where he deserves it.
Predictably, there will be voices opposed to such an “unpresidential” tactic that goes for the personal jugular. Some in the ruling class will sniff that personalizing the contest will not “unify” the country. These folks and these reactions, I submit, do not fully understand Donald Trump.
Put in the simplest of terms, Trump is a school-yard bully. But he’s a smart and crafty one. As such, he is vulnerable to being confronted on his own terms. He even has told us, day-in-and-day out, what those terms are. He believes he is a successful business tycoon, a desirable male attractive to women, and a super patriot.
He is none of those. It’s time he is called out in those terms. Doing so in unmistakably strong school-yard terms is the best way in the closing months of the campaign to prevent him from winning a second term as president.
Great piece, Sam. Thanks. Tony
I never thought I’d see the day when I agreed with Sam Sperry, but he has hit a home run with the bases loaded here. This is exactly the personalized campaign that needs to be run — not only against Trump personally, but against all his bully-boy supporters and surrogates, the amoral rich tycoons who back them, and their I-got-mine-and-screw-you motivation for doing so. This is no time for high-blown abstractions. It’s time for the campaign to bring home the personal stakes for everyone if Trump is elected. Thanks Sam.
Great strategy, Sam! Thank you. Andrea
Agreed.
Trump is a bully and that could be a major element in the attack.
But be careful — Trump LIKES being a bully and his acolytes LOVE that his is a bully. For Trump and his people, his being a bully is not a bug but THE feature.
So attacking Trump that he is a bully could easily prompt him to claim it’s a virtue and say something like
“Sure I can act like a bully. It’s a tough world out there. Look at Putin and China… I’m a tough guy and wimps like you think that means I’m a bully. But it means is I’m a tough boss and I’m a tough POTUS.”
I fear, at this point, that Trumpism has become much larger than Trump himself. After twelve years, including one Presidency, it seems fairly obvious that it has dawned on most Americans that Trump is, as Sam passionately details, a gross, grotesque character who appeals to our worser angels. Yet, according to polling, most of us have cast their lot with this clown. Why is that?
Biden’s campaign, such as it was, seemed to solely focus on the abhorrent character of Trump himself, overlooking the issues and the social anxieties which drive of his many followers. Biden’s efforts to shore up party progressives, information elites, and the readers of the national print media alternately ignores his moderate accomplishments and hacks off many middle of the road voters. I will bet that for every person who has had their student loan forgiven, the move has angered folks without student loans times two.
The inconvenient truth is that the Biden has deported more undocumented migrants than the Trump administration, counter to the complaints of the open borders lobby. The US is now the leading producer of oil and the price of gasoline is at a three-year low. Don’t mention this for fear of riling environmental activists. In the past year real wages have outpaced inflation for the first time in, like, forever. Democrats apparently don’t do math.
These are issues that are on the minds of everyday voters but are contrary to the cant of progressive activists. And remember, Kamala Harris doesn’t need to convince all of Trump supporters to win. She needs to just chip off enough moderate voters in key working-class states.
You could have stopped at “I fear.” The rest is just an embellishment of that.
Republican pollster and image maker Frank Luntz said recently his research indicates that a majority of Trump voters do not like Trump as a person. So that nail has been hammered flat.
Instead they fear four years of a liberal Biden administration.
He also said his polling says moderate voters are tired of the negativity surrounding politics.
“…It must be hard, blunt, and laced with powerful, street-talk (but clean) language, and delivered with a solid punch-in-the nose thrust.”
My problem with that scenario: Americans love it when MEN speak that way, when they politic toughly. But women, especially women of color?
The old double standard applies. A woman who speaks out forcefully about people or policies is branded as ” a sneering, resentful person” with “character deficiencies on display.” (Direct quotes from emails I’ve received from Joel Connelly and other Post Alley columnists I’ve disagreed with.)
Who can forget the hate directed at blameless Michelle Obama, or Hillary Clinton? Kamala Harris will have to blaze a new path forward.
Yup.
I guess Harris will lose.
Didn’t say that, did I? I think she’ll win.
I don’t buy it. The same thing could happen to a man. It’s a question of style, and maybe it’s unfair that someone could deliver forceful, valid criticisms and be discounted because his or her style rubs people the wrong way, but so it has been since the first politician. The hope is that since this is more or less her professional background, Harris will nail this particular event. If she doesn’t pull it off out of the gate, there should probably be some more thought about another candidate.
You probably didn’t consider Sara Palin a very compelling voice, eh? There will be guaranteed critics, but they don’t count if they weren’t reachable anyway.
Donn Cave,
I heard Harris talk today and I think she’ll win.
She was funny and pointed (i.e. ridiculed Trump) but not mean.
She was subtle and didn’t have to overplay her hand.
She was good.
While (as an OWG who worked for both men and women) I agree that women are often held to an unfairly higher standard, your suggestion that HRC was somehow treated unfairly is simply ridiculous. Her treatment over the years resulted from her involvement in various sundry scandals such as Whitewater and the Steele dossier – where her campaign cash (laundered adroitly by everyone’s favorite sleazeball law firm aka Perkins Coie) funded the effort – resulting in the DNC being fined by the FEC for breaking federal election laws. So save the the pedestal for someone else; there are plenty of good candidates to choose from.
I agree with this strategy completely. I liked, as well, an analogy that likened the Democrats as bringing their Olympic caliber athletes to the fight (and meeting that opponent, tRump). Sam listed the weaknesses, Democrats have to use those weaknesses to force errors!