Posted on 12/19/2018 9:19:53 PM PST by Signalman
Remember the old saw about the salesman who loses money on every sale but thinks he can make up the shortfall by selling in volume?
That's what comes to mind every time I hear people say that President Trump is being shrewd by pandering to his base.
Consider last week's remarkable Oval Office meeting between Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Trump. (There is photo evidence, but no audio, to suggest that Vice President Mike Pence was also in the room.) What was supposed to be a brief photo-op turned into a dramatic confrontation when the president invited television cameras to stay for the conversation.
As always happens after one of these political reality-show spectacles, the chattering classes set out to score the bout. According to conventional rules, Pelosi and Schumer came out the winners. They got Trump to admit that if there's a government shutdown over border wall funding, it will be all his doing. (Just before the meeting, congressional Republicans were pre-spinning a "Schumer shutdown.") Pelosi solidified her claim to the House leadership while Trump made future bipartisan deals with the Democrats -- something he reportedly wants -- less likely.
According to The Los Angeles Times' Eli Stokols, even Trump realized he was taken when it was over: He "stormed out" of the meeting and threw a folder of briefing papers across the room.
Yet there was a loud contrarian analysis that said Trump came out a winner. Why? Because his base loves this stuff.
"If you are a supporter of the president's policies," wrote the Daily Beast's Matt Lewis (no Trump booster himself), "this was an especially welcome display -- a rare example of a president publicly fighting for his policy goal: a border wall."
Across Fox News opinion shows and right-wing talk radio, the view that Trump won was nearly unanimous.
Even Yahoo News' Matt Bai, a decidedly left-leaning observer, excoriated liberals for not understanding that "Trump knows that every time he flouts the staid convention of the office, every time he does the thing that seems inappropriate among the political set, he's winning with the chunk of the electorate he still has."
Sure. The problem is that chunk is not a majority.
Bai's larger observation -- that Trump is so embattled he can't afford to lose his hard-core supporters -- is a good one in the context of gaming out how Trump can survive impeachment. When looking at what advances this administration's agenda or is good for the Republican Party, however, "his base loves it" doesn't score any points.
Worse, it's self-fulfilling prophecy. As he sheds the mostly suburban voters who gave him his margin of victory in 2016, of course he clings more tightly to those who celebrate the behaviors that are bleeding the GOP of support. They're the only ones left. Proclaiming that "his base loves it" may be an explanation, but it's no excuse. And it misses the point if you care about the GOP's long-term viability or even Trump's re-election prospects. He's going to need more voters than his amen chorus
These stupid Republican never-Trumpers don’t realize that if they succeed in helping to take down Trump, they never win another election. Do they really think Trumps 60 million voters will give a crap about voting after what they did to our President?
This goes to the heart of why the GOP establishment hates the Trump Presidency. It isn't about Trump per se. It's about their resentment over the fact that we, not they, picked the GOP nominee this time. There they were, ready to shove another scion of the Bush family (or if that failed, tanned Bush clone Marco Rubio) down our throats yet again, but we had other ideas and voted for a candidate of our choice instead.
Jonah, your establishment slip is showing. . . .
Trump’s party stands apart. They’re scared sh#tless.
Like I said on another thread, people are fickle when it comes to politics. They'll turn on a dime if they don't get what they want immediately. The guy hasn't even been in office for two years, and the usual pearl clutchers, and whiners on FR are already claiming the guy is a loser. They're playing right into the hands of the Dems, and anti-Trumpers. Yes, I voted for him because he promised to build the wall, and in a perfect world, it would already be constructed, but this isn't a perfect world, and there is no such thing as a perfect Republican-controlled Congress, at least not for President Trump there wasn't. It's not as if the guy hasn't tried to do anything about the flow of immigrants into this country, but the courts have done everything they can to stop him from implementing his policies. They've done everything they can to weaken this President's hand.
Full disclosure. Jonah Goldberg is a staunch never Trumper.
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