From the Thursday edition of the Morning Jolt:
It’s Early August. There’s Time to Turn This Around, Right? Right?It’s Early August. There’s Time to Turn This Around, Right? Right?
Ross Douthat observed that Donald Trump’s post-convention bump came after not only the GOP convention, but the Dallas shootings, the Baton Rouge shooting, the terrorist truck attack in Nice. In other words, events beyond the convention halls seemed to be affirming the argument that the Obama administration was helpless in the face of ISIS advances, and that the Black Lives Matter movement had enabled a toxic, murderous rage against police officers. The status quo looked like decay; rolling the dice on Trump looked palatable; at least he was angry about these problems.
Since the Democratic convention, there haven’t been any ambushes of police officers – or if there has, there hasn’t been any major national coverage. It’s been nine days since the last major ISIS attack, when they sliced the throat of the elderly priest in Normandy.
Meanwhile, since the Democratic convention ended, Trump entered an extended war of words with Khizr Khan and chose to not endorse Paul Ryan in his primary. Yesterday he felt the need to re-argue controversies about Megyn Kelly and a disabled reporter.
Yes, a lot the coverage of Trump now wildly over-hypes even his more mundane exchanges about a crying baby or receiving a veteran’s Purple Heart medal into major controversies. But the Republican nominee is reinforcing Hillary Clinton’s argument from her convention speech: he’s easily baited into fights. He seems to think that now is the time to stick it to Ryan, not caring that this will dominate the news until Ryan’s primary next week. He can’t let any perceived slight go, even if fighting it is against his long-term interests.
Ace of Spades and I have had some major disagreements during this primary season, but I see his generally compelling point: if the electorate signs off on Hillary Clinton’s bad behavior, it will ratify every dishonest, radical, anti-Constitutional and vindictive thing President Obama has ever done. The ballot box is the only way to hold the progressive aristocracy accountable or check their power, and thus opposing the Republican nominee hinders that make-us-or-break-us test of whether we’re still a country with a rule of law.
The problem is that Trump seems to grasp none of this, has no interest in strengthening our arguments and at times seems to take a gleeful pleasure in undermining them, as Ace observes:
Here’s the thing: A presidential candidate shouldn’t need supporters to constantly work hard to bail him out of trouble. He should, as many anti-Trumpers point out, sort of try to keep out of trouble.
He should be working for us — not vice versa…
Trump is immune from social pressure. He grew up a rich kid that routinely skated from trouble due to his wealth; he simply never had to learn, as most of us learned and internalized at an early age, that bad behavior, and upsetting conventional (even if dumb) social wisdom, has consequences and should be avoided.
Note my point from earlier in the week that “normal” center-right Republican Senate candidates are running stronger than Trump is… This morning we find that in Pennsylvania, Pat Toomey is down by one point, while Trump is down by 11 points. In New Hampshire, Kelly Ayotte is down 10 points, while Trump is down 15 points (17 without the third-party candidates).
But it’s not all disastrous news for the Trump campaign:
Trump and the RNC raised $64 million through a joint digital and mail effort in July, according to his campaign, the bulk of it from small donations. All told, Mr. Trump and his party brought in $82 million last month, only slightly behind Clinton’s $90 million, and ended with $74 million on hand, suggesting he might now have the resources to compete with Mrs. Clinton in the closing stretch of the campaign.