Will the Democrats blow it? (Or: Remember The Taco Bowl)
“You get under [Trump’s] skin by mocking and emasculating him, not by feeding the myth of his power and strength.”
alex pareene is up at Gawker with a new piece that channels some of my feelings of pessimism about the Democrats’ ability to take down Trump in the general. Go read it:
It's Trump versus Clinton. It's a well-funded mainstream Democrat against a widely reviled demagogue who will struggle…gawker.com
To summarize some of the highlights, Pareene acknowledges (correctly) that while it’s still very unlikely that Trump will win in the fall, it isn’t necessarily impossible. Most of the piece is devoted to describing some ways that the Democrats could attack Trump that would almost certainly fail — and then, subsequently, to revealing that these attacks are exactly the ones the Democrats are delivering:
[To lose to Trump,] Democrats could, for example, take their famously thin-skinned opponent, who is easily provoked into absurd and unpresidential tantrums when his insecurities are mocked, and they could bestow upon him a nickname that instead serves to reinforce his own (imagined) toughness.
They could call him, I don’t know, “Dangerous Donald.”
“Dangerous Donald.” Democrats are going with “Dangerous Donald.” Did they try testing “Sexy Donald” first? “Leather Jacket Donald”? Jared Leto lived in an abandoned insane asylum for a month to get into character as “Dangerous Donald.”
He lists a couple more attacks Democrats have been leveling, and then summarizes:
“Dangerous Donald,” the “loose cannon,” hated by loser Republicans, capable of doing anything. This is all straight out of the orange idiot’s dream journal.
And it is apparently the line the Democrats have decided to take. They’re going to build Trump up as a reckless and virile force of nature — and a true outsider — rather than expose him as a pitiful clown and an obvious fraud. This is completely backwards. As any writer who’s ever received an angry personal response from Trump can tell you, you get under his skin by mocking and emasculating him, not by feeding the myth of his power and strength, the precise qualities his authoritarian followers adore.
So, look: I’m not saying the Democrats are definitely going to blow it. But they’re more than capable of blowing it.
Trump is a clown. (Remember: Taco Bowl.) The way to take him down is to reveal him as such—not to inflate his delusions of grandeur.
