Donald Trump's 2016 General Election Campaign

[running_coach]

Trump is blatantly two-faced/a hypocrite and flat-out says so.

“I don’t care,” Trump said on 60 Minutes when journalist Lesley Stahl asked him about Pence’s support of the war.

“But you’ve used that vote of Hillary’s that was the same as Governor Pence, as the example of her bad judgment,” Stahl pressed.

“Many people have, and frankly, I’m one of the few that was right on Iraq… **He’s entitled to make a mistake every once in a while,” Trump said.

“But she’s not?” Stahl asked, referencing Clinton. “No,” Trump responded. “She’s not.”**

And I’ll bet not one supporter sees it.

[Lok]

@running_coach

Trump is blatantly two-faced/a hypocrite and flat-out says so.

And I’ll bet not one supporter sees it.

They see it just fine. They just don’t care because it’s Trump saying it about Hillary. They love him and hate her, so it’s okay.

[Boyo_Jim]

None of the polls have any importance yet. Neither convention has even happened.

However, each day that passes and every action of Trump or his campaign take gives me more confidence that the entire Republican party is going to be steamrolled out of national power in the Presidency and both houses of Congress.

[Gyrate]

@Sherrerd

I agree completely. Still, given the number of people who say things like ‘I don’t really like the things Trump says but I like that he’s a successful businessman’----if the Dems would make some good pithy ads documenting Trump’s actual lack of talent as an entrepreneur, it could chip away at that particular rationalization. It might not destroy it, but it would keep people from saying “But I like that he’s a successful businessman” in that tone that implies “we all agree that this is true.”

Those people would have to find another rationalization. Could they? Probably. But the job of the Democrats is to make that harder to do.

I don’t pretend to know the origin of every dollar of whatever assets Trump has, but my impression is that most of it was made by cheating and defrauding and avoiding taxes and getting out before his various bankruptcies. And yes, selling his name. (That particular business may not be as lucrative in future.)

I can see the ad: First a sentence each from six or eight of the business partners Trump has stiffed. Then the voice of an announcer: "Can Donald Trump actually manage a business? Here’s the pie chart showing the origins of his revenues–and none are from successfully making a product or service that sell on an ongoing basis. It’s a record of scams and rackets and failing to pay contractors.

“Can Donald Trump actually manage…anything?”

Better: a sentence each from the small business owner contractors he’s driven out of business by refusing to pay them. Stiffing a rich partner is one thing - who cares about those guys? Screwing “decent, hardworking Americans” by not paying your bills even though you’re filthy rich is another thing entirely.

And never mind the pie charts - it’s people’s stories that change minds.

[jsc1953]

@Gyrate

Better: a sentence each from the small business owner contractors he’s driven out of business by refusing to pay them. Stiffing a rich partner is one thing - who cares about those guys? Screwing “decent, hardworking Americans” by not paying your bills even though you’re filthy rich is another thing entirely.

And never mind the pie charts - it’s people’s stories that change minds.

Absolutely. The Democrats need to roll out their version of Willie Horton and Swiftboats…with the benefit that the stories are actually true.

[Smapti]

The ghostwriter behind “The Art of the Deal” is speaking out about Trump, and to call his descriptions of the man unflattering would be putting it lightly;

Trump didn’t fit any model of human being I’d ever met. He was obsessed with publicity, and he didn’t care what you wrote. Trump only takes two positions. Either you’re a scummy loser, liar, whatever, or you’re the greatest. I became the greatest. He wanted to be seen as a tough guy, and he loved being on the cover.

He has no attention span… it’s impossible to keep him focused on any topic, other than his own self-aggrandizement, for more than a few minutes, and even then… That’s why he so prefers TV as his first news source—information comes in easily digestible sound bites. I seriously doubt that Trump has ever read a book straight through in his adult life.

Lying is second nature to him. More than anyone else I have ever met, Trump has the ability to convince himself that whatever he is saying at any given moment is true, or sort of true, or at least ought to be true.

And here’s the money quote;

I genuinely believe that if Trump wins and gets the nuclear codes there is an excellent possibility it will lead to the end of civilization.

[elucidator]

An “excellent” possibility? What was wrong with “very goodest”?

[Sherrerd]

@Gyrate

Better: a sentence each from the small business owner contractors he’s driven out of business by refusing to pay them. Stiffing a rich partner is one thing - who cares about those guys? Screwing “decent, hardworking Americans” by not paying your bills even though you’re filthy rich is another thing entirely.
And never mind the pie charts - it’s people’s stories that change minds.

A pie chart is in the “something for everybody” category–you flash it at the end after the testimonials from contractors Trump has stiffed, with the website at which the pie chart and videos reside.

With deeply-entrenched lies that people want to believe–such as that “Trump is a successful businessman”–the only method of countering the lie is to chip away at it. Some true believers will tune out all facts… but people they talk to on a daily basis (family members, even) may be less faithful to the credo, and may be subject to the beginnings of doubt about that credo.

Ideally, the true believers find fewer and fewer people who refuse to question the lie, as time goes on and more evidence (including commercials featuring people Trump has cheated or defrauded) accumulates. As the true believers become more isolated, even they may begin to doubt.

But there’s no one fact that will accomplish this. It has to be a slow drip of facts–which has to potential to effect incremental change in that rock-solid certainty that Trump is The Savior.

[Elendil_s_Heir]

@Gyrate

Better: a sentence each from the small business owner contractors he’s driven out of business by refusing to pay them. Stiffing a rich partner is one thing - who cares about those guys? Screwing “decent, hardworking Americans” by not paying your bills even though you’re filthy rich is another thing entirely.

And never mind the pie charts - it’s people’s stories that change minds.

Absolutely. Attack his (misperceived) strengths. Worked on Romney; it can work on Trump.

[Buck_Godot]

This morning there was a Washington post storythat claims, no surprise, that Trump actually doesn’t care about any issues other than himself and would prefer to wing it, rather than actually research an issue.

Trump’s desk is piled high with magazines, nearly all of them with himself on their covers, and each morning, he reviews a pile of printouts of news articles about himself that his secretary delivers to his desk. But there are no shelves of books in his office, no computer on his desk.

He said in a series of interviews that he does not need to read extensively because he reaches the right decisions “with very little knowledge other than the knowledge I [already] had, plus the words ‘common sense,’ because I have a lot of common sense and I have a lot of business ability.” Trump said he is skeptical of experts because “they can’t see the forest for the trees.” He believes that when he makes decisions, people see that he instinctively knows the right thing to do: “A lot of people said, ‘Man, he was more accurate than guys who have studied it all the time.’ ”

All ego and nothing but ego.

[Defensive_Indifference]

@Gyrate

Better: a sentence each from the small business owner contractors he’s driven out of business by refusing to pay them. Stiffing a rich partner is one thing - who cares about those guys? Screwing “decent, hardworking Americans” by not paying your bills even though you’re filthy rich is another thing entirely.

And never mind the pie charts - it’s people’s stories that change minds.

I agree that the Clinton campaign should run a ton of ads like this. A lot of Trump’s support comes from blue collar men. Showing how Trump stiffed the electricians and plumbers who built his properties would be really damaging, I think. One of my friends was leaning Trump. He owns a small remodeling business. Someone circulated an article on Facebook about a small business that went under after Trump screwed them. I’m not sure if my friend has abandoned Trump, but that article definitely made an impression on him.

[Elendil_s_Heir]

A surprising number of blue-collar Ohioans are going for Trump: http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/18/politics/cleveland-youngstown-ohio-democrats-republicans-political-anthropology/index.html

[Fear_Itself]

@Elendil_s_Heir

A surprising number of blue-collar Ohioans are going for Trump: http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/18/politics/cleveland-youngstown-ohio-democrats-republicans-political-anthropology/index.html

And very diverse too! I saw blue eyes, and brown eyes too!

[Rick_Kitchen]

Trump’s campaign has hired a new PR flak to help to spin media comments. His previous job? He was the spokesman for Ultimate Fighting.

TV News: Truth Squad or Trump Infomercial? - The New York Times?

[Corry_El]

Recent posts a bunch of ‘easy’ advice to Democratic campaign to undermine Trump especially by ads. But advertising in swing states has been almost entirely one sided so far, and there is no apparent trend of Clinton’s lead widening.

I doubt trying to put yourself in the shoes of somebody with almost no overlap in life situation or worldview with yours (as I suspect would be the case with a lot of posters here v. Trump supporters) and trying to determine if ‘he stiffed electricians’ (some ad says) would make a difference. I’m not saying I feel the pulse of Trumpists either, but my impression is that not only does he have a very committed following from some, who will not believe negative stuff liberal media (in their view) or paid opposition ads say about him. Moreover I think much of a larger group of Trump voters already know he’s a jerk, and a phony in various respects, as well as very much a non-expert*. They still think the status quo stinks more, and Clinton tends to represent it to them, like Trump’s GOP rivals did.

Maybe there’s some more focused attack on Trump’s business success. ‘Heartless capitalist’ hasn’t and won’t IMO work to the same extent as against Romney because Trump is so much more comfortable in the role of rich guy. That wasn’t really going against a strength of Romney, but attacking his own apparent ambivalence at his great success. Saying how Trump isn’t really that successful…but Clinton and friendly media haven’t managed to make this a strong theme so far IMO, outside of people who’d never vote for Trump anyway.

*thinking here of ad on cable in the NY area (not sure why Clinton is spending money here but anyway) showing Trump telling Chuck Todd his source of foreign policy knowledge is ‘the shows’, then the ad goes on to detail a list of major claimed foreign policy accomplishments by Clinton ‘while Trump was watching TV’. The ad basically says ‘Trump is a know nothing slob, Clinton a well accepted member of the elites, renowned by the experts for the wonderful situation in which the country now finds itself’. That line of attack on Trump may not backfire as badly as it did in the GOP primaries, but I doubt it’s very positively effective either.

[Fear_Itself]

Trump is fascinated with President Obama’s body language:

“You know, I watch the president, and sometimes the words are okay but you just look at the body language and there’s something going on. Look, there’s something going on, and the words are not often okay, by the way,” he said. “There’s just bad feeling and a lot of bad feeling about him. I see it too. There’s a lot of bad feeling about him. We have a country that has not been like this since I can remember it.”

[Rick_Kitchen]

God, if Trump didn’t repeat himself in every sentence, he would only say half of the things he says.

[elucidator]

Clearly, there is something going on. He’s totally right on the score. If there wasn’t, then there wouldn’t be anything going on, and we all know that isn’t true.

[adaher]

So, um, two states have walked out of the convention and say they aren’t returning. Any chance we can get 50 to walk out?

[elucidator]

Betting that the RNC is stalling, buying time to count noses. If they find out that they will clearly win any votes in the convention, and Trump would sail, they will “cave” to the demands. A vote like that, if they really got it, would seal all the deals…

Never mind, the Duck Dynasty guys is on!