Be careful what you wish for. Trump’s collapsing numbers are wonderful and we are all salivating about him dropping even further. But beware: if that happens before the convention and the ballots are printed, it could be a disaster.
See, there is, in my opinion, a pretty decent chance that Trump will NOT be the GOP nominee. Think that’s absurd? Well, GOP shills are already talking about it. And I take it seriously.
How would it happen? No, these cowards aren’t ready to decapitate him publicly. But, if Trump begins to realize he will lose, he WILL pull out. Guaranteed.
“But he’s a narcissist!” He is indeed. And people have for nearly 4 years misunderstood the logic of that mindset. Trump CANNOT LOSE. Which means that, if he senses looming defeat, HE WILL PULL OUT OF THE GAME! It’s what he has always done: abandon lost causes and claim success.
You know how thrilled we have been lately when we hear him setting up the loss? That’s a tell-tail. Trump doesn’t give a crap about anything but his survival. But he has survived this long by having a shrewd sense for when he needs to jump ship and find another gravy train. There WILL come a time when he sense he is playing a losing hand. And he will quit when he does.
Which is great, right? Not so fast. Look—I want Trump gone 4 years ago. But I know that the life-or-death struggle we face right now isn’t us against Trump. It is us against THE CORPORATE GOP! Trump is merely their useful idiot. Never, ever forget that. We desperately need to win the White House and the Senate this time. And if Trump is gone, that COULD become really hard.
Let’s be honest. Joe Biden is not a strong candidate. He was selected by the Democratic Party including millions of shrewd ordinary folks who recognized that he was the guy to allay fears and give independents, Wall Street and even some GOPers a safe alternative to Trump. Biden is flying because he is facing Trump.
Now imagine for a moment that Trump flees and is replaced by Mitt Romney. Do you think Biden can beat Mitt Romney? I don’t.
Ever since Trump was elected, Romney has been positioning himself as the reasonable GOP Thug who kept himself out of the Trump sewer. Until, say, January, I am sure that Romney was making plans for ’24.
But now COVID and the social justice movement have changed the game. Suddenly, an incumbent who looked to be on shaky ground has fallen off a freaking cliff. And I promise you that Romney is thinking, “Hey, I may not need to wait until ’24.”
Which brings us to the Lincoln Project. Two weeks ago, I wrote generally about the Never Trumpers (link). Since then, my alarm at this bunch is becoming acute. Oh, I believe they want Trump gone. But they want a helluva lot more than that.
You know all those anti-Trump ads? Think of them this way. These very sophisticated marketers are hammering Trump to trigger his narcissistic compulsion to run away. Like Romney, they get that they may not need to lose the White House this year. If they can get him to quit, they can go back to supporting competent Republicans. Like Romney. Do you suppose that, if the GOP nominated Romney the Lincoln Project would still be advising Republicans to vote for Biden? I didn’t think so.
And of course the GOP has one crucial must-have: the Senate. A cratering Trump will cost them Senate seats. Limiting the Senate losses has got to be their top priority. With Romney atop the ticket, we could kiss our White House and Senate hopes goodbye.
So am I in despair? Well, no. The one thing that MIGHT keep Trump from quitting is his fear of prosecution. If his numbers stay down, he will have a tough choice between his narcissist’s need to abandon a losing game and a sense of self-preservation in the face of prosecutions. Not sure where the breaking point is on that one.
The other thing is the crazies. My wife, Meg, and I agree that, in a weird way, our future may ride on the continuing insanity of the Deplorables. If the GOP drives Trump out, will the Bat-shitters get pissed and punish their party? That could happen, though that party breeds obedient loyalists. I think we can safely assume that this is the calculation the GOP is fretting over right now. Which is worse: losing their more moderate base or alienating the crazies? They can’t win without both.
It is pretty late in the game to switch horses. Maybe they can’t pull off the swap and have to ride out ’20 to get to ’24. In any case, beware the freaking Lincoln Project!
Please understand that the whole goal of that PR campaign is to re-brand the GOP to push the crazies back under their rocks. They need to expunge the Trump damage and in general suppress the overt glee of their racist core supporters. Just as importantly, they need to recover the mantle of competence that they used to wield—wholly falsely—against Democrats. They are reaching back into the party’s past to invoke figures and images of leadership (however false) to reinvent their identity as grownups who can govern (even though they have repeatedly proven they can’t do that).
There is a great deal of money and influence behind that movement, and if you think they care about workers or POC or gender issues I have a bridge to sell you. As I said last time, I believe they are re-building a political party. They MIGHT be able to do it under the GOP label or they might become the Lincoln Party. (I mean, it’s just sitting there, steeped in horrific historical ironies.) But they want their retirees, suburbanites and soccer moms back.
Right now, they are not just attacking Trump. They are giving people a recovered way to see Republicans, and they hope at least to save some Senate seats. If they can drive Trump out, they’ll accomplish far more than that. And just think of the avalanche of worshipful MSM coverage the GOP would get if Trump were gone!
This is a scary time not just because of Trump. Our democracy is on the ventilator, and Barr has set precedents that a skilled GOP would use to destroy it finally. I am thankful every day that Trump is so incompetent. Put Romney in the White House in January and the game might be over.
Well, hang in there and keep working. But think past Trump and beware the flaming Lincoln Project. Stop fawning over their ads and realize that they are coming for us not only later but right now!