Stopping Trump

The outlines of Donald Trump’s campaign came into pretty clear focus with his acceptance speech to the Republican National Convention last week.  He will clearly be running on a law and order theme, curtailing immigration, especially of Muslims, fighting for working Americans by renegotiating or scrapping trade deals, and spending less money on the military by either shrinking our defense posture or somehow getting our allies to pay for more of it. In addition, he will offer a few more liberal proposals like re-instating Glass-Steagall that will combine with his trade stance to try to peel off some Bernie Sander’s supporters. Regardless of how we may feel about the feasibility or wisdom of these measures, they are bound to appeal to a broad swath of the American electorate. In fact, the most recent post-convention poll shows that Trump got a significant bounce coming out of the convention and now holds a 3 point lead nationally in one poll. That is to be expected, of course, and the first meaningful poll about the election will actually come early next week after the Democratic convention. But, despite the clear flaws with Trump himself, we should not kid ourselves about the popularity of those four themes he presented.

We may consider Trump to be a laughable buffoon but in his race for the presidency he is a dangerous demagogue and it will take a concerted effort to make sure he is defeated. It is not enough to highlight his constant lies, daily flip-flopping, and outrageous, unconstitutional ideas. It is not enough to point out that his “facts” are not true, that illegal immigration is a trickle, that crime is down sharply, that trade deals actually make us richer, and that our withdrawal from the world will make us less safe. Denying these issues will not help defeat Trump and only empowers his faithful into believing that he is the only one who sees the problem. No, these issues have to be acknowledged and addressed head on with a degree of understanding an a great deal of passion.

For Democrats, that means admitting these issues of concern for Trump voters are valid and empathizing with their feeling while not giving into their bigotry. It means expressing passion in response to their anger and highlighting specific policies that will actually improve their situation. For Hillary, this will be quite difficult as it appears that she has decided to run on expanding her base of minority voters and trying to peel off as many moderate Republicans who find Trump abhorrent as possible. This will make it hard to fight Trump on the immigration issue. But she could hammer away at the GOP’s refusal to consider immigration reform which would have stepped up border enforcement as part of the deal. She is also in a tough spot on the trade issue but she can possible fight that battle by admitting the fruits of these trade deals have gone to the CEOs and shareholders of major companies rather than to the American worker and vow to rectify that. This can solidify her support with Sander’s voters and at least show Trump supporters she recognizes the problem. On the military issue, Clinton will have plenty of support from the neocons in the Republican party. And she can highlight all the wasteful military programs that Congress keep on funding, even over the objections of the services themselves, simply as an employment program.  She cannot treat Trump with kid gloves either, treating him as a respected opponent. She must attack hard. Not only will that show her passion but it will also get under Trump’s skin and cause him to overreact as he always does, highlighting his lack of temperament. None of this will be easy for Hillary as her positions are so thoroughly known but it is important for her to at least acknowledge the concerns that Trump voters have with empathy and passion. As I say, this will not be easy but that, of course, is why demagogues are so hard to defeat.

The press also has its own responsibilities. They have been huge enablers of Trump throughout the primary season and continually let him get away with actions that they would not stand for with any other candidate. They must continually press him to release his taxes. The must confront him on every single lie and flip-flop. They must pin him down on the specifics of his various policy proposals. They cannot continue to treat him as a popular but fringe candidate. If Trump bans them from his campaign, they must go after him even harder for trying to muzzle the press. It is nice to see that a paper like the Washington Post has already come out strongly against Trump, properly identifying the reasons he is unfit to be President. But one editorial or one newspaper will not be enough. The press needs to pound these points home to the electorate day after day and hold Trump truly accountable for his words and his actions.

Lastly, Republicans actually have a job to do to save this country from Trump, as Trump is largely of their own making.  The wasteful war in Iraq sucked trillions of dollars out of our economy and, at the same time, spawned even more terrorist threats. An immigration reform deal was there for the taking but GOP presidential politics prevented that from happening. Sequestration instead of stimulus cost America untold thousands of jobs and slowed our recovery from the Great Recession drastically. The continued GOP obstruction to virtually every Obama proposal led to the gridlock that created even more frustration. The empty promises, like repealing Obamacare, and accusing him of using the executive orders like a dictator further fanned the flames. On virtually every one of Trump’s issues, there was a deal to be had if the Republicans had only been willing. And having made those deals, they could point to policies that had addressed those concerns and Trump would not have become the factor he is today. It is good to see people like Ben Sasse, Senator from Nebraska, refusing to support Trump. And having Michael Bloomberg actually endorse Hillary Clinton will also help tremendously. But there need to be many more like them, a few courageous politicians who will actually stand up to their party and say no to Trump. It is understandable that GOP leaders like McConnell and Ryan are in a difficult position, but their stand of “I don’t agree with everything but I still support Trump” is just not tolerable. They are kidding themselves if they think they could control Trump if he wins. The Bushes and Romney need to come out and clearly state that Trump is not acceptable and they need to not do it just once and fade away but fight against him all the way to November. And for those Republicans who just can’t pull the lever for Hillary, go and vote for Gary Johnson and the Libertarian Party. But, if the Republican party wants to survive beyond this election, its own leaders are going to have to fight for its survival by forcefully and continually saying Trump is not acceptable as their standard bearer and as President.