Dear Media: He's Not a Serious Person
In a sea of stupid media takes, this one is a lighthouse. Apparently Donald Trump is running a well-oiled campaign. He’s learned from his mistakes in 2020. He’s a much better candidate now than he was then.
Which means…What, exactly?
Can’t say, because none of the bright light journalists falling for this nonsense offer any explanations. They’re just there to let us know that Trump is doing well. Just look how badly Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley are doing.
Take Chris Cillizza, for example. Formerly of the Washington Post, Cillizza now plies his trade on Substack (hey, just like The Duck!).
“With 6 months to go before the first votes of the 2024 Republican race are cast —January 15 in Iowa — there’s something that must be said: Donald Trump is running a highly effective campaign for president,” Cillizza tells us. “He is ahead of his nearest rival by 30 points in national polling. Although polling in early states like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina has been scarce, Trump is ahead there as well. And he is using his significant financial resources to build real ground games in those early states too.”
See what he did there? There’s six months to go before the first vote is cast, but Trump is ahead in the polling. Which means he’s running a “highly effective” campaign, even though there is precious little polling in the “all important” early states.
Cillizza makes two major mistakes here. One: It’s too early to tell anything about the campaign at this point. The primaries don’t start for six months and the general election is still 17 months away. That’s a lifetime in politics. And Two: Cillizza is relying on polling, which as I’ve said here and here, are basically worthless, particularly at this point in the campaign.
Then there are the geniuses over at Semaphor, who had this take on Trump’s campaign back in May.
“Trump hasn’t become any more traditional or moderate in his rhetoric or positions since then, they note. “The CNN town hall his campaign celebrated last week included him mocking a sexual assault accusation, promising to pardon January 6th rioters, and delivering a lengthy defense of his ‘Access Hollywood’ tape, all of which Democrats couldn’t wait to clip and save for future attacks. But six months after his campaign bottomed out, Trump appears to be presiding over something new to his career in politics: A low-drama, high-functioning organization.”
Semaphor’s take is that Trump’s campaign is much more organized this time around, compared to when he first ran in 2016. They seem to forget that he also ran in 2020. Presumably his campaign then was organized too? Yet he still got his ass handed to him. So I’m not sure where they’re going with this organization theme.
Both Cillizza and Semaphor make note of the fact that Trump has Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles running his campaign this year. They apparently at the “grownups” in the room. LaCivita was behind the “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” campaign that smeared John Kerry in 2004 and Wiles has been implicated in Trump’s classified documents case. So, Trump’s keeping classy as usual.
Without knowing it, Semaphor has hit on the reason for Trump’s success.
“The campaign and its outside allies have stuck to a plan to paint DeSantis as too far right on issues like Social Security and Medicare and too personally unnerving to win over swing voters, both of which have gained traction in the press,” it noted.
You see, that’s the problem. Most of the press thinks Trump’s an astute politician, rather than a grifting, criminal, creep. They cover him like he’s a serious person. Like he’s in the same league with President Joe Biden.
Nothing can be farther from the truth.
It’s not a foregone conclusion that Trump will be the Republican nominee (except, maybe in the press). It has not been pre-ordained that he will win anything (except maybe a criminal conviction or two).
The real problem is that there are no good alternatives. None of the current candidates are better than Trump. You can’t point to any one of them and say, “Well, at least they’re not as bad as Trump.” Because they are just as bad as Trump.
Some of them are worse, if that’s even possible.
It’s going to be a long 17 months until the general election. It’s hard to see how the press coverage can get even stupider.
But there’s plenty of time left. I’m sure the media will find a way.