When a sitting president is averaging a 42.4% approval rating in all of the recent polls verses a 52.8% disapproval rating, it would seem that his chances for being reelected are extremely slim. However, Trump, whose instincts did not fail him in his last election, has a plan. Actually it is a three pronged plan.
It has been evident since he took office that one key aspect Trump’s plan is to ensure the continued support of his rabid base. He works diligently on a continuing basis on keeping them totally aligned with tweets, speeches, and even executive orders so outrageous that he attracts instant and continuous media attention. He may turn off many American voters, but his enthusiastic supporters idolize him. This tactic of concentrating only on a segment of the voting population isn’t as political stupid as it seems. It keeps a large segment of the electorate highly motivated to vote for him and assures the support of establishment Republicans who are deathly afraid of his supporters.
It has also become clear of late that Trump wants to frame our most radical progressive elements as the face of the Democratic party and hopes to extend that image to the eventual Democratic nominee, regardless of who wins the nomination. Trump knows that the majority of American voters, including the moderates who decide just about every presidential election, are extremely leery of socialists and their companions on the far left.
Sadly this appears to be a good political strategy. A recent Pew Research Center poll affirms what other recent polls have all shown, that 55% of American voters view socialism negatively or very negatively. Included in that number are the vast majority of all Republicans and many swing voters.
There are two benefits of this strategy for Trump. First, it helps him to keep the more moderate Republicans like suburban women who voted for Democrats in the mid-term house races in line with the “you may think I’m bad, but the other guy/gal is far worse” tactic. It also provides another pretext for moderate swing voters in key electoral states to shy away from the Democratic nominee possibly setting up another situation where the Trump loses the popular vote, but wins in the electoral college.
Obviously to make best use of this strategy Trump would rather that one of the far left candidates with the most aggressive socialist plans wins the Democratic nomination. However, for now he is content to have radicals such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her “Squad” get all of the attention possible. Then he can accuse even a moderate Democratic nominee of being a representative of the far left.
Calling attention to AOC antics with his own outrageous rhetoric serves Trump in several ways. First, it continues to endear him to his base. It also helps him to frame AOC and her associates as the new face of the Democratic Party. (The media is providing him with a lot of help in that endeavor with its intense coverage of every outrageous remark AOC utters.) In addition, to counter Trump’s attacks, moderate Democrats are motivated to rally around one of their own intensifying the illusion that all Democrats have similar belief systems.
Trump is also counting on Democrats’ well documented precedency to “eat their own”. Animosity between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton spread to and was amplified ten fold by their supporters in 2016 with disastrous results. Perhaps with this memory fresh in their minds, thus far the Democratic candidates have been pretty muted in their attacks on one another. The Harris attack on Biden being the only notable exception. However, they have not yet experienced crunch time when several of them feel that it absolutely necessary to do well in the next primary election or lose any chance of winning the nomination. That’s when it is most likely that the knives will come out.
Meanwhile we already have AOC and her staff attacking the moderate Democrats who made it possible for us to take control of the House of Representatives with their victories over Republicans in purple districts. The tweet of her chief of staff essentially calling many of AOC’s Democratic colleagues segregationists and AOC’s refusal comply with Nancy Pelosi efforts to reign her in serve to keep the pot well stirred for now. Evidently some of our young firebrands are not yet politically astute enough to understand that we can’t maintain a majority in the House through the 2020 elections without those moderates and that they cannot win in their purple districts by adopting far left positions. Of course without control of the House we can do nothing worthwhile.
I wish that I could guarantee you that because Trump is in such a hole favorability wise that there is absolutely no way that he can win with the strategies he has adopted. There is still a year and half before the election and that is a political eternity. No doubt Trump will continue to do everything necessary to keep his base squarely behind him. He has plenty of time to paint his election rival as the representative of a bunch of wacko radicals determined to turn America into as socialist state or even a communist country. There is also plenty of time for the candidates for the Democratic nomination and their supporters to tear each other apart.
The only question is how much we and our fellow Democrats help Trump in this endeavor.
Cajun 7/15/2019