The Calculus of Losing<\/p>\n
President Trump is faced with a difficult calculation. If his \u201cbase\u201d of support drops below 30% or so, he will lose his hold on Congressional Republicans.<\/p>\n
Those Republicans are backing Trump, in part, out of fear of retribution from voters. Simply put: they can\u2019t win re-election without the Trump base. Montana\u2019s Congressional election helped strengthen that hand. Even when the candidate body-slams a reporter, as long as he clings to Trump, he wins.<\/p>\n
But, should the President\u2019s base of support begin to slide away, the door will open for Congressional Republicans to slide away as well. Many are highly uncomfortable with the President and his actions, and didn\u2019t much like Trump in the first place. They are looking for an excuse to get out from under him.<\/p>\n
Trump has always claimed to be a \u201cwinner.\u201d How can losing then be an effective strategy?<\/p>\n
Lets start with the immigration \u201crestrictions.\u201d For months, the Trump administration has gone out of its way to avoid the word \u201cban.\u201d \u201cBan\u201d echoes the campaign pledge to \u201c\u2026ban the immigration of Muslims until we figure out what the Hell is going on.\u201d That statement has huge 1st Amendment issues, as it calls for government actions against a particular religion. This week however, Trump is tweeting the word \u201cban\u201d over and over, even though the case has just been put to the US Supreme Court. But Trump continues to highlight the word. The message of his tweets isn\u2019t to the Court, it\u2019s to his base. Muslims attacked London, Muslims will come attack you \u2013 stick with me.<\/p>\n
Should the immigration ban lose in the Supreme Court, Trump still wins. He can then say that it\u2019s the Court\u2019s fault that he can\u2019t make America safe from Muslim attack. He has tried. The base stays with him, win or lose.<\/p>\n
The same is true with Trump\u2019s attack on the Mayor of London, Sadiq Kahn. Kahn, in talking about increased police presence and visibility in London, wanted to assure Londoners that more police didn\u2019t mean a greater threat. He told them to remain calm. Trump immediately jumped on that, saying after these attacks, people can’t be calm. But the undertone was: a Muslim Mayor of London doesn\u2019t take terrorist attacks seriously.<\/p>\n
Again, a win with his base, who have proven to be Islamophobic.<\/p>\n
And finally the Paris Climate Accord, where Trump was faced with a huge rift in his own advisors. Tillerson, Cohn, and Jared and Ivanka all reportedly urged to stay in the Accord. It was Bannon and Preibus, the political advisors, who encouraged Trump to use the Paris Accord withdrawal as a platform for his defense of \u201cthe American Worker.\u201d \u201cI\u2019m the President of Pittsburgh, not Paris\u201d harkens back to the Nationalist platform that got him elected.<\/p>\n
So if you feel like Trump is going back to the campaign of March and April of 2016, you\u2019re right. Trump has made his calculation: it is better to keep his base, than it is to govern. He can lose in the Supreme Court, and in the world court of opinion, as long as he can hold his base over the head of the Republicans in Congress. IF he loses that hammer; if Congressional Republicans feel that Trump is an electoral liability more than a strength, he will really feel what it\u2019s like to be a \u201closer.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"