“For the life of me, I don’t understand why Trump did that. There’s no upside to it. No Bernie Bro is going to read Trump’s tweets and say “By golly. Trump is right. Bernie is crazy. But plenty of them will be turned off, and maybe drift back to the traditional Democratic party.”
Using that logic Trump should never have called any of his opponents names. Little Marco, Low Energy JEB, Lyin’ Ted, Crooked Hillary.
All of his primary opponents had strong supporters who might be offended by the name calling and less likely to vote for Trump in the general. Even Clinton supporters “on the fence” might be less likely to cross over due to name calling.
I’m sure the name calling backfired in some cases. But any such negative effect was likely far outweighed by a positive effect with voters who saw the name-calling as an indication that Trump was a “tell it like it is” truth teller who calls it like he sees it. People are tired of that fake BS where politicians in congress call people they hate “my good friend from Massachusetts, the honerable Ted Kennedy”. It’s refreshing to hear a politician tell the truth.
We’ll never know what would have happened if Trump had run a different campaign, but he won - and you know the old saying: “don’t fix what ain’t broke”.
Another thing to note: The severity of Trump’s name branding was proportional to how much of a threat the opponent posed. It is not that earth shattering of an insult to be called “little”, “low energy” or even “crazy” in politics. Prole get called a lot worse. Being called “Lyin’ Ted” or “Crooked Hillary” - now that leaves a mark (especially when it’s true).
I bet a lot of the GOP never Trumpers were once Cruz supporters who can’t forgive Trump for branding Cruz as a liar. Trump had to hit Cruz hard because Cruz was real competition. I bet a lot of the hatred behind the left’s resist Trump movement is due to pissed off Clinton supporters who will never forgive Trump for branding her “crooked Hillary”. Trump has chosen to make the entire MSM his enemy by calling them dishonest, fake and disgusting every chance he gets. Most politicians try to suck up to the press believing they are too powerful to challenge. Trump chose a different path and may actually wind up taking them down a notch. We’ll see.
Oh well, you have to defeat your opponent in order to win, and you have to break some eggs to make an omelet.
Interesting post, yours. And yes, I will agree that sometimes you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet. That is particularly true in the primaries.
I suppose I judge all GOP politicians (Trump included) by comparing them with Reagan. Reagan was a master of sly humor and clever story-telling. He rarely insulted anyone.
I know, Trump is not Reagan. Two very different personalities. But Trump could learn a thing or two from the Gipper.