Trump’s White House is once again in crisis. The Whistleblower report that surfaced this week charges among other things that the President of the United States abused the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election. Since that Whistleblower pulled back the curtain on yet another of Trump’s misdeeds, this time self dealing in Ukraine, Donald J. Trump has found himself in the fight of his life.
Donald Trump seems to relish his time in the ring, because he knows how to fight. While NY Times editorialist Charles M. Blow www.nytimes.com/...has pointed out that Trump can’t take a punch
at his weakest when he’s in this mood — erratic and angry, consumed by striking back at his political opponents.
I think that editorial assessment misses the mark a bit. This isn’t going to be a refereed 15 round boxing match and Trump won’t be playing by the Marquess of Queensberry rules en.wikipedia.org/...
"you must not fight simply to win; no holds barred is not the way; you must win by the rules"
This will be more like the craziest of all Big Time WWE tag team wrestling matches with no time clock and no rules. It will unleash Trump, allowing him to get his full Roy Cohn on. This crisis gives Trump an opportunity to fight all out, No Holds Barred, using all the tools and tactics he learned from Cohn. It will be disgraceful and ugly beyond words — here are some of the tactics to watch for.
The 10 + Trump tactics — Trump’s 10 D’s (in no special order).
1. DENY — in this case Trump isn’t denying what he said to Zelensky — the ‘favor’ he solicited (manufactured dirt on the Biden’s) in exchange for releasing US military aid — he’s just arguing there was absolutely nothing wrong with it — ‘It was a perfect conversation’ Somehow we misunderstood — up is down, black is white, it was opposition research — everybody does it. This is Trump channeling Richard Nixon trying to tell us ‘I am not a crook’ — when of course, he is.
2. DISCREDIT — Trump has already begun this process. Its Fake News every day all the time in Trump world — if they said anything unflattering — its Fake News folks. The information in the Whistleblower’s account is second hand hearsay — they don’t really know, it’s just gossip. The Whistleblower’s attorney’s have defended Democrats (can you imagine anyone doing that) so the Whistleblower must be politically biased and therefore all their claims are politically motivated, baseless, and untrue.
Trump has also unleashed his followers to root out the Whistleblower — when that person’s identity is revealed — they will be unmercifully dragged through the mud to destroy their credibility. There will be a heavy price to pay for doing the right thing.
3. DISCOUNT — it was a nothing — a nothing burger, that call to Zelensky. What? they want to impeach me for that ! (thinking — I’ve done way worst things before breakfast most days). They will argue that there is nothing there. The notion that Trump is still a novice in his dealings with world leaders and is prone to use the diplomatically unorthodox language of a crime boss when conducting foreign policy in these one on one calls — it’s just his personal style and way of doing business — he is just misunderstood.
4. DEFLECT- putting the blame elsewhere- scapegoating someone — the leakers on the White House staff to start with, the deep state the are a part of.
Mulvaney is in the hot seat cause he didn’t have a crisis plan ready for this. Pence will be dragged under the bus, (If you Impeach me I’ll drag Mike down with me then you’ll get Pelosi!), Kurt Volker is perhaps most vulnerable — his conflict of interest in Ukraine is stunning www.politico.eu/....
Trump might even tell us the truth, that Putin tricked him into doing it, which is probably true but not a very good excuse.
About this time Trump will wish he had a White House dog to blamed.
5. DELAY — There will be endless delays by exerting executive privilege over documents and testimony. The Trump packed Supreme Court may or may not rule in his favor. We are doomed as a Republic if they do. The election is looming. Delay until then will be part Trump’s strategy — and who knows we may lose interest in this scandal — because we’re on to the next (more on that under Distract — just use your imagination)
6. DECEIVE — by releasing a carefully selected partial summary of the Zelensky call — which covering just 11 minutes of that 30 minute conversation, and getting people to call it a ‘transcript’ Trump has masterfully played this openness card. He appears to be openly and honestly sharing primary information related to the Whistleblower complaint - when in fact he has held back 2/3rds of the call and sequestered it in a top secret code word protected server to prevent access and forestall leaks. Deception is a clear sign of consciousness of guilt. Trump knows that the the most effective lies always contain a kernel of truth.
7. DIVIDE — Trump will attempt to divide the jury of public opinion — with claims of Presidential Harassment and Fake News and political motivation and yada yada. You might think that he will try to hold the members of his party tight during this struggle, but that seems unlikely. The better tactic early on for Trump may be to encourage one or two defectors (Romney and Sasse perhaps) and then unleash on them full fury so that the cost of getting out of line becomes clear to the rest of the Republican heard.
8. DULCIFY — watch for Trump to do something uncharacteristically magnanimous — He needs to do something sweet and good and kind to give his supporters something to make him appear to be human and not the monster he actually is. When this happens, you’ll know. It will be clumsy and painfully awkward and totally out of character — unbelievable— and rest assured that at the last minute, Trump will somehow bend it back to be all about him and whine and bitch and complain about how he never gets credit for the good he does. sad
9. DISTRACT — oh is Trump good at this. There will be endless distractions. A full on magic show of sleight of hand and misdirection — shiny things to make us look.
The president’s power to take the nation to war is the ultimate distraction — the one we should fear the most. Don’t think Trump won’t start shooting somewhere — and argue then that we shouldn’t impeach him because we’re at war and the leadership shouldn’t be questioned at a perilous time like that. It would be so unpatriotic.
10. DENIGRATE — don’t like the message — denigrate the messinger and anyone who listens to them. Democrats are now ‘savages’ — a word Trump previously reserved for members of MS-13.
I don’t know where the rhetoric goes from there. How deep in the mud and slime he can get without having to actually consult a thesaurus.
As we saw in the 2016 primaries — all the characters in this drama will get a fractured moniker borrowed from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs —
The pResident might be heard muttering something like this
‘That Little Sleepy Crooked Do Nothing Savage in the House — why they tried to impeach me …….can you believe it! Who do they think they are’
Well. Mr. President, we’re Americans. Who the hell are you?
In the end Trump will need to either Destroy or Deal — his final dilema.