Oct.13

electoral-vote.com

Dem 51

   

GOP 49

...While Trump Pokes Himself in the Eye

It is not a secret to anyone reading this site, or to anyone who follows U.S. politics, that Donald Trump is all about grievance and score-settling, often in response to the smallest of slights. After Israel was attacked this weekend, Joe Biden stepped to the plate and did what any U.S. president would do for one of the country's closest (and most politically important) allies. In exchange, Benjamin Netanyahu did what any Israeli PM would do and said some nice things about Biden.

Trump can't abide that, and so as we wrote yesterday, the former president went on the attack. He laid into Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. In addition, and we really should have mentioned this in our item, Trump praised the radical anti-Israel political party Hezbollah as "very smart." That is a very, very short distance from praising the Nazis as "very smart."

As a result of these remarks, Trump is being hammered... by Republicans. Virtually every one of the folks who thinks they are running for the Republican presidential nomination said yesterday that it was very wrong to pick right now to attack Netanyahu and/or to praise Hezbollah. For example, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) said:

Now is not the time to be doing like what Donald Trump did by attacking Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, attacking Israel's defense minister, saying somehow that Hezbollah were very smart. We need to all be on the same page. Now is not the time to air personal grievances about an Israeli prime minister. Now is the time to support their right to defend themselves to the hilt.

Nikki Haley said, "I don't want to hear how great Hezbollah is." Her fellow South Carolinian, Sen. Tim Scott, noted that Trump must not agree with Psalm 122:6, which instructs people of faith to pray for peace in Israel. That's just in case you forgot which presidential candidate actually reads the Bible, versus which one just uses it for photo-ops. There was only one GOP presidential candidate who backed Trump, and you can surely guess who it was. In case you need a hint, think "Ivekvay Amaswamyray." In addition to the presidential wannabes, there were plenty of Republican members of Congress, and members of the right-wing media, who were none too pleased by Trump's remarks.

We do not think for a minute that Trump damaged himself enough to put the Republican nomination in danger. The general election, by contrast? Maybe he's hurting himself a little here (and with his small margin for error, a little is effectively a lot). Here are the problems we see:

• Antisemites will be happy to hear Netanyahu slurred, but conservative Jews and evangelicals will not. Some of them might start thinking about giving the third-party candidates a look.
  
  
• Trump's response is a particularly clear reminder that, for him, diplomacy is transactional. True, diplomacy is pretty much always transactional. However, the transaction is normally "my country will do [X] for you, and your country will do [X] for us." In Trump's case it is "my country will do [X] for you, and your country will do [X] for ME."
  
  
• Trump's petulant and inappropriate response will stand in contrast to the statesmanlike response of Biden, who is handling things in the same way that all 43 of his pre-Trump predecessors would have. Well, except that louse Millard Fillmore, maybe.

Again, this is not going to be some sort of fatal error. But it was stupid and unforced, and is likely to hurt a bit. Presumably one of Trump's handlers will get to him and tell him to shut his yap. Unfortunately for him, the footage of the remarks is already out there, and we foresee it making a return right around, oh, this time next year. (Z)