-By Warner Todd Huston
He may not be smart enough to realize it yet, but Donald Trump has put himself in a tricky position as he prepares for his looming fight with Hillary Clinton in the coming general election campaign. No matter which way he goes — or if he tries a mixture of approaches — he has a problem.
Trump spent his entire primary campaign shooting from the lip, excoriating his opponents in vulgar terms, bald-faced lying about them, and acting the tough guy. Granted it seemed to work for him as his most ardent followers Obama-like didn’t seem much interested in a serious campaign. It was all about how he made them feeeeeel. But whether Trump likes it or not, the upcoming campaign will not be the same type of campaign he’s waged thus far. Unfortunately for him, no matter what he does he is bound to get in major trouble.
If Trump continues using the same substance free, personal attacks he used during the primary, but aims it instead at Hillary, the media will utterly slay him over it. Unlike how the media gave him a pass for his attacks on Republicans, they’ll do no such thing if he trots out this stuff on Hillary. Of course, the media’s excoriation will just be manna from heaven as far as his most solid supporters are concerned. They’ll point to that and cry that they’ve been right to support Trump all along because “they” are all out to get Trump.
So, in the case of a Trump general election campaign configured as am exact clone of his primary campaign, his followers won’t be the problem for him. It’ll be the uncommitted middle that will shy from such a campaign and that will be a problem for his election. If Trump goes on a major name calling binge against Hillary he will lose anyone who already finds politics disgusting and Trump desperately needs these voters to beat an increasingly bifurcated electoral map.
Naturally the media will fuel the middle’s drift toward Hillary with a constant drumbeat of how mean, rotten, and ignorant Trump is acting toward Hillary — who they will portray as the put upon, innocent, wide-eyed woman candidate. The media will make quite a bit out of how mean-spirited Trump is toward a poor, poor, downtrodden woman like Hillary, for sure. Again, as I noted this will keep Trump’s base as happy as pigs in slop, but it will be a major failure for convincing moderates to cross over and join him.
But here is the other problem… If Trump decides to get serious and become more like a “normal” candidate by actually creating policies and debating the issues — and if he consequently eschews the bellicosity to appeal to moderates — his most ardent supporters will sour on him pretty fast. After all, the whole reason they love him is because he isn’t a “normal” politician and is apt to “say it like it is.” If Trump starts acting in a more guarded fashion he’ll be betraying the whole reason his strongest fans assembled under his banner in the first place. Many will stick with him no matter what, granted, but he’ll lose the ardor of just enough to hurt him.
So, how will the real estate mogul carry on during the next phase? Will he try for a kinder, gentler, more serious Trump and risk softening his base of support, or will he dive head first into the muck and risk media excoriation and the loss of any possible centrist or moderate votes?
This is Trump’s dilemma and I personally don’t think it is one he can successfully navigate. I don’t want to make a prediction here, because I truly don’t know what will happen in November. But it seems to me Trump simply can’t beat Hillary and one of the reasons is that he put himself in an untenable position before the general election campaign even started.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing news, opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that wrote articles on U.S. history for several American history magazines. Huston is a featured writer for Andrew Breitbart’s Breitbart News, and he appears on such sites as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, Federalist Papers, and many, many others. Huston has also appeared on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, and many local TV shows as well as numerous talk radio shows throughout the country.
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