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āOperation Destroy the GOPā, by Jonah Goldberg, National Review
This is what I've been saying since the convention. He hasn't really even been trying to reach out and build a coalition. He could still pull off a win somehow. Anything is possible. But his nomination has almost certainly guaranteed Hillary the presidency. And that's sad.
Obviously, I donāt know for certain that Donald Trump is really trying to lay the groundwork for a cable-TV network, though a lot of smart and informed people I know think thatās the case. If youāre looking for a theory to explain what Trump and Campaign CEO Steve Bannon ā the former head of Breitbart News ā are doing, it makes a hell of a lot more sense than this fanciful notion that heās trying to become president. Since the convention, only once did he make any serious effort to expand his losing coalition to a larger, winning coalition: His tone-deaf, ridiculous, and utterly fake appeals to black voters. āOur African-American communities are absolutely in the worst shape theyāve ever been in before,ā Trump said. āEver. Ever. Ever.ā
Put aside how utterly absurd this claim is (rent Roots if you donāt know what I mean) and how understandably offensive it is to a lot of black people, it was never intended to win black votes. The campaign had this idea that white suburban women would be swayed by Trumpās āconcernā for blacks. He failed ā which should have been obvious from the start.
And thatās it. For the rest of the campaign heās been whipping up his 38 percent of the electorate into a kind of frenzy. Some people think heās betting that he can dampen turnout generally, while spiking his base to win the election. Maybe. Or maybe thatās the rationalization they throw out there to distract from the more realistic goal: the launch of Nutter News Network. Read the transcript of Trumpās speech from Thursday railing about the globalist corporate-media conspiracy. It might as well be the mission statement for Bannonās new enterprise, a network that stands up to the global cabal siphoning off our vital bodily fluids (in between commercials for water deflouridizers and gas masks). Why has Trump done scores of interviews on Fox and virtually nowhere else the last two months? Because heās not interested in winning over undecideds, independents, or swing voters ā you know the sort of thing serious presidential candidates do. No, heās reselling the same product to people whoāve already bought it so he can take the customers with him after the election. Why is Trump constantly saying that if he loses it will be because the election was rigged?
Why is he wasting precious time attacking fellow Republicans, a move guaranteed to shrink his coalition even further? Because he wants the faithful to be permanently alienated from the rest of the political culture and utterly reliant on him. In fairness, itās also because he canāt tolerate the idea that people will reasonably conclude that heās a loser and choker so he has to lay the groundwork for the claim the other side cheated. But that narcissistic insecurity just makes him all the more susceptible to Bannonās manipulation. He was such a Bannon puppet yesterday you could almost see Bannonās fingers moving in the back of Trumpās mouth.
Read more at: āOperation Destroy the GOPā, by Jonah Goldberg, National Review
This is what I've been saying since the convention. He hasn't really even been trying to reach out and build a coalition. He could still pull off a win somehow. Anything is possible. But his nomination has almost certainly guaranteed Hillary the presidency. And that's sad.