It seems obvious, but then Hillary Clinton did the obvious and it didn’t work. I think that Trumps faults are all just so obvious and out in the open that they are already baked into the cake. I don’t think there’s anything an opponent can use against him that most people don’t already know about.
So does that mean a positive, upbeat campaign is best? Or is that hopelessly naive? Perhaps a strategy similar to Clinton’s but with smarter resource allocation and a more likeable candidate? It’s not like you have to move a lot of votes to beat Trump.
It’s like every day brings a new outrage with this guy, but what can anyone say that isn’t already being said? It’s not like the media isn’t covering his every awful move.
I wonder if it might be better to run against Congress? While Trump is making the headlines, the Republicans in Congress are actually trying to pass terrible laws that will do far more harm than Trump could ever do if he tried short of launching nukes at people. I wonder if Trump taking so much flack actually gives them a little bit of cover?
It might still not be possible to convince his core supporters the next time around, but one of the ways he got through what by conventional wisdom should have been a disastrous campaign was by people projecting their desires onto his many vague promises.
“He promised great healthcare, he delivered chaos. Here’s our plan, and we promise, if you should also elect a congress that won’t help us do this, we won’t burn everything to the ground in spite.”
“He promised to fix infrastructure, and then he just couldn’t be bothered. What was that about?”
“He promised to drain the swamp and berated his opponent for Wall Street ties, and then filled his cabinet with Goldman-Sachs executives who flew private jets all over the place. I guess some people wouldn’t disbelieve him if he promised a gold toilet in every home, but you’re not that gullible, are you?”
I think you don’t campaign against Trump. He’s probably the most WYSIWYG candidate in American political history. What can be said about him that isn’t self evident?
The Dems need to run an upbeat, unironically positive campaign with the sole purpose of energizing their base and getting people to the polls.
I don’t think Clinton’s basic campaign plan was faulty. What was faulty was her cluelessness about how her behavior looked to the median voter, rendered her strategy irrelevant. The only other problem she had aside from her baggage was a message. Which admittedly is a big problem, but one I wouldn’t expect a Biden or a Sanders to have issues with. The younger candidates might not be able to work that out. “I’m young! I’m different! I’m really smart! And I’m definitely better than each and every one of you! Wait, don’t take that out of context now…”
Clinton was running against what Trump represented, whoever runs in 2020 will run against what Trump did. I think their job will be a lot easier after four years of no accomplishments.
I wonder how naked contempt would work as a basic attitude. No scolding, no moralizing, no “think of the children” stuff — just sadly shaking your head at what a dumbass your opponent is. I can visualize Obama doing this well.
Trump is very good at drawing people into his little dramas. I think maybe it’s like wrestling a pig, or thermonuclear war — the only winning move is not to play.
If the economy is good and we’re not in any new wars, it’ll take more than running against Donald Trump’s tweets and dishonesty. Plus there’s status quo bias, while it’s very hard for a candidate to succeed a President of his own party, it’s very easy for even bad incumbents to get elected. Much harder than beating them the first time. A lot of the anti-Trump vote in 2016 was “he’s scary and dangerous”. But if all that has happened by 2020 is that he’s offended everybody and made an ass of himself, and this Democrat comes along promising to take away your health insurance and sign you up for a snazzy even better than the awesome ACA government plan, plus let as many immigrants come in as they want, and make sure that every trans person can use whatever facility they want and compete in any sport they want, and hamstring the police, and raise taxes… Well, it’s easy to see how keeping the status quo might be attractive.
Of course, this assumes that things in 2020 look a lot like they do now, which I believe is about 60% likely.
I’d also mention that as much as I think Donald Trump is the worst President of my lifetime, casting a reelect vote is a lot more plausible for me if the country is doing well than electing him the first time. A bad Democratic candidate means a vote for Trump on my part or abstentation. Now my bar is pretty low, all I ask at this point is a) a record of accomplishment as an executive, either in the private sector, military, or government, doesn’t even have to be long, and b) not entering the race with major scandals already around the candidate’s neck.
Joe Biden, Cory Booker, maybe Bernie Sanders, Martin O’Malley, and Jerry Brown(yes, he might actually run!) all easily exceed that bar. Kamala Harris, gotta see. Gillibrand, no way in hell.
Clinton did that in one of the debates. Shook her had and said (paraphrasing) “can you believe the crazy shit this guy believes?”
I don’t think you win on convincing people Trump is bad/stupid/lazy/whatever. People know that and already either love or hate him for it. He has extremely high approval ratings among republicans. What you need to do is get people to actually get up and vote. Clinton didn’t, either because her lack of charisma, or because people bought into the narrative of her being just as bad.
How to get people to the booths? Not sure. Obama was good at it with his “we’re putting this Bush era mess behind us and changing things for the better” attitude. I think we are now and will continue to be more cynical than that though.
The old Reagan line “are you better off today than you were four years ago?”
If the ACA gets repealed and replaced with crap, run on improving health care. If taxes get slashed for the elite, run on fairness.
Run a montage of Dumb Donald saying things in the campaign which he either failed to deliver on, were stupid in the first place, or that he flip flopped on.
What you can’t do is appeal to his base. They are a personality cult. Forget them. The only cure for his base is the slow attrition of death.
Obama’s identity made a difference too. His youth, his race, and his newness brought out a lot of new voters. So Cory Booker and Kamala Harris would already start out a leg up with both young voters and minority voters. Biden probably wins a lot of loyalty from minority Obama voters plus he’s got good cred with white working class voters. Sanders would have problems with minorities, but young voters would be there for him. Any other white male candidate would have to prove themselves able to excite people.
Pulling off that level of bullshitting requires a great candidate and a great campaign team. We won’t know if any of the young Democratic prospects have that until the primary campaign starts. It wasn’t really even clear the Obama campaign was that good until well into the voting. We knew Obama himself was a good candidate, but the brilliance of Axelrod and Plouffe wasn’t evident until his delegate strategy and messaging had been tested against Clinton.
I’ve looked. Hillary got close enough in enough states that reducing even one of Trump’s points by just agreeing could’ve sufficed. Imagine a world where she says he’s actually got a point when it comes to illegals – heck, one might say that you could put half of them in a basket of deplorables, amirite? – but, for bonus points, maybe it’s not Hillary saying it, but a strongly pro-Second-Amendment democrat.
I think that the loss in 2016 will be the biggest motivator. I think that in the end Clinton’s inevitability in the polls may have doomed her in the end. I think there were a number of people who realized that Clinton would make a much better president than Trump, but who also agreed that the Washington establishment which Clinton represented needed a wake up call. If Clinton is going to win anyway than it is perfectly safe to lodge your protest by staying home or by even casting a protest vote for Trump. In 2020 the dems will realize that they can’t take things for granted, and that even if Trump is behind in the polls they still need to show up to put the nail in the coffin.
As to strategy, I agree with naita, that the Dems should concentrate on his unfulfilled promises. Transform him from the game changer who is going to Make (white) America Great Again, to just another untrustworthy politician who only pays lip service to caring about Middle America.
Clinton might have pulled that move in a debate (I’m reminded of the SNL sketch where Dukakis is debating GHW Bush, turns to the camera, and says “can you believe I’m losing to this guy?”), but she did so much more of the scolding and warning that I said would be a bad idea.
As you say, a positive message is key; but I also think an aloof negativity, where you treat Trump as unworthy of engagement, is necessary, because he’s going to try to engage you and drag you into the mud.