The frustration and indiscipline of Donald Trump invites the question whether Trump has misread the times – he has uniquely united the Democratic Party, has fallen into the trap of chronic personal abuse and seems incapable of deconstructing Kamala Harris’s deeply flawed policies.
Trump has time to recover and the contest remains tight. But can he recover? It is nearly eight years since Trump had a major electoral win, beating Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential contest. He is the old man in the 2024 contest, looking out of sorts, lamenting the loss of Joe Biden – whom Trump had effectively beaten – obsessing about himself and now denigrated by the Democrats as the symbol of a past not worth revisiting.
The frustration of Trump and his media backers is everywhere. They are enraged that Harris has reinvented herself. Even worse, she looked presidential at the Chicago convention. They choke on their indignation – she’s running on a vibe, pretending she had nothing to do with Biden policies, won’t hold a press conference, is a policy-free zone and has recruited patriotism to her cause. It’s so terribly unfair.
No, it’s politics. The Democrats have enjoyed a golden run in the 38 days since Biden withdrew as the candidate. They have outsmarted and out-campaigned Trump at every stage. Trump has looked inept, resentful and lost in his chaotic titling against Harris.
The Trump camp miscalculated. Trump has been reeling from a trio of once inconceivable blows – instead of a post-Biden brawl the Democratic Party quickly endorsed Harris; it then closed ranks in an orchestrated unity motivated by a ruthless determination to beat Trump at all costs; and finally Harris has begun her reinvention from a progressive left-winger to a patriot-loving and optimistic centrist with a panache that almost defies believability.
Even more outrageous for the Trump camp, Harris runs as a candidate of change and renewal. With Biden detained in political solitary confinement, Harris casts Trump, the former president, as the discredited incumbent who wants a second run for his busted “make America great again” concoction. Trump makes a pitch we’ve all heard before. It’s a re-run littered with the usual abuse, narcissism and rambling now worse than ever.
Here is Trump’s problem – eight years later he wants another go. He assumes most Americans are nostalgic for the Trump years, so disenchanted with Biden, the Democrats, their woke antics and inflation-tolerating big government that Trump still looks the saviour from American carnage. The Trump legions are loyal as ever. But there’re not enough.
Do independent voters in the swing states want to re-run and relitigate Trump’s agenda yet again?
That must be doubted. The Democrats have got a smart slogan: “We’re not going back.” In short, Harris is the hopeful future and Trump is the tarnished past. Many Americans are disillusioned with the Biden era but giving Trump a second chance is a fraught step.
As Peggy Noonan said in The Wall Street Journal: “Donald Trump is famously off his game. He’s having trouble making a stinging critique of Democratic policy because he’s insulted everything over the years and when he says something’s bad now it just seems part of his act and doesn’t land. You can see him at the podium mentally ruffling around in his toolbox, looking for the right wrench or hammer. Will he find it? His fortunes may depend on the answer.”
The Democrats have refined their attack on Trump, learning from Clinton’s mistakes. They belittle Trump, calling him “weird” and “unserious”. The message: he’s diminished but dangerous. A version, perhaps, of a crazy uncle. Harris said: “Just imagine, Donald Trump with no guardrails.” From Bill Clinton to Harris the message is that Trump is about “me” and “I” and only ever had one client – “himself”.
It’s a campaign of character assassination and it has been invited by Trump himself. Harris conducts this campaign with far more impact than Biden ever could. By contrast, Trump’s personal assaults on her are counter-productive and border on the lunatic.
He brands Harris a “communist”, calling her “Comrade Kamala”, accusing her of changing her racial identity by deciding to “turn black” a number of years ago and calls the Democrat convention “a war zone that’s worse than Afghanistan”.
The Democrats are baiting Trump and it works, turning his narcissism against him with Trump complaining how they spoke “so viciously and violently about me”, almost depicting himself as a victim. “I didn’t have to do this,” he pleaded while admitting his advisers wanted him to focus on issues, not personal insults.
Trump, it seems, can’t help himself, can’t stick to a script and hates having to read a speech. He is a nightmare candidate for political advisers. He always thinks he knows best. Even his supporters know his narcissism is counting against him. He recently told reporters that “I have to do it my way”. Mark that.
But there is a far deeper problem in the Trump campaign – that Trump himself seems incapable of deconstructing the Harris agenda. This is no longer about attacking the Washington establishment circa 2016 when fighting Hillary Clinton. The need is for an orthodox, forensic, sharp, policy-focused, calculated candidate to pull to pieces Harris over the litany of Biden-Harris policy blunders over the past four years. A professional could do the job. But Trump, so far, hasn’t done the job. Can he do it? Frankly, it seems beyond him.
The failures at the border are a given. They’re easy pickings and they’re vital. But Harris needs to be tied to the economic failures, cost-of-living hardship, huge spending, massive debts and weak living standards performance of the Biden administration. At the same time she needs to be pursued over her once proud fracking ban, criticism of the police, support for identity politics and decriminalising border crossings.
But as Gerard Baker said in the Journal, “this is the same old Mr Trump but this time he is up against something the American people are being sold as new”. Trump does shock and entertainment – but that gig won’t secure his 2024 victory. Moreover, his record as a vote winner is weak: he lost the presidency in 2020, lost the House of Representatives in 2018 and lost the Georgia run-off in 2021.
Hoover Institution senior fellow Thomas Sowell said if the Republicans lose the election it’s because “they will deserve to lose”. Sowell said Ronald Reagan was able to win two elections in landslides by talking to people “in plain English” but the Republicans who get this aren’t running the 2024 campaign. Does anybody think Trump bears the slightest comparison as a campaigner with Reagan? The idea is a joke. But Reagan represented the old Republican Party that Trump has trashed.
More recently, Trump has reinforced his team with some former advisers. He needs a reset and a new script. Presumably Trump will lift his performance and Harris will stumble at some point. There are many twists and turns ahead. The contest remains open. But the idea that Harris would fall apart and was never up to the job looks unlikely.
The Wall Street Journal editorialised on August 23 that Harris was “eminently beatable” on policy grounds but warned that Trump’s 2016 identity won’t do the job. Exactly. Trump has under 70 days to snatch a victory.
At stake is one of the greatest political gambles of the past century – the idea of Trump as the conservative saviour able to redeem the plight of honest working Americans – backed by a conga line of intimidated Republicans, deal-makers, sycophants and true believers who have convinced themselves that only Trump can salvage their country.
A loss will put a progressive woman into the White House in a political recovery almost unparalleled in US history and, at the same time, constitute one of the worst debacles for the American conservative movement.
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