Mar.28

electoral-vote.com

Dem 51

   

GOP 49

How to Defeat Trump?

Politico's Jack Shafer usually has interesting things to say. And his latest is a piece headlined "Stormy Daniels and Karl Rove Know How to Beat Trump: A Real Strategy for Ron DeSantis." There are basically three arguments that Shafer makes:

• Attacking Trump's Character/Bad Behavior Is Useless: In essence, the voters willing to consider Trump have already accepted that he engages in all sorts of bad behavior, from petty personal squabbles to dodging taxes to cheating on his wife to lying constantly. They don't care. Or, at very least, they have decided that they are willing to accept his "cons" in exchange for his "pros." Thus far, DeSantis has focused most of his (limited) criticisms of Trump on the former president's personal shortcomings. Shafer thinks this is a big mistake.
  
  
• Attacking Trump on Policy Works: This is the lesson that Karl Rove brings to the discussion. Rove has apparently advised anti-Trump candidates in various races (not necessarily people facing Trump directly) to focus on the lack of substantive policy accomplishments. The wall was not built. The swamp was not drained. The dance with Kim Jong-Un produced no meaningful results. The COVID policy was flip-floppy, sometimes too mainstream (get your vaccinations!), sometimes too whackadoodle (inject bleach!). Shafer believes that DeSantis has begun to internalize this lesson, as indicated by his choice to run to the right of Trump on COVID and vaccinations.
  
  
• Make Trump the Punchline: This is the lesson that Stormy Daniels brings to the discussion. She has done a pretty good job of firing off bon mots at Trump's expense. Particularly at the expense of... Little Donald, shall we say. For example, she is on the record saying that having sex with Trump was the worst 90 seconds of her life. Trump does not deal well with this, as being insulted infuriates him, and he's not especially capable of responding in kind. That is to say, he can and will punch below the belt, but he doesn't really do snark very well.

We don't disagree with any of this advice, per se, though we will point out two things. The first is that following this playbook might allow DeSantis to wrest the Republican nomination away from Trump, particularly if Trump is indicted, but it's going to leave the Governor in a perilous place for the general election. The second is that DeSantis is even worse at snark than Trump is. Every time DeSantis tries to jab someone, the line lands with a thud. Maybe it's something about today's Republican politicians, because Ted Cruz is also just awful at this, as is Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL). We're a long ways away from the time when Ronald Reagan was king of the zingers and Walter Mondale wouldn't know a joke line if it bit him.

Undoubtedly, DeSantis is getting a lot of this sort of advice, not only from the media but also from people in his inner circle. We shall see what he does with it, probably sooner rather than later, as he's currently ceding ground to Trump in the polls. (Z)