At first, I thought it was just a really big mistake. The remains of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg lay \u201cin repose\u201d at the Supreme Court. In our COVID-19 era, the public is not allowed into the building. Instead, the casket, placed on the Lincoln Sarcophagus, was moved outside under the portico. The public gathered forty-four steps below to pay their respects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Someone at the White House thought it would be a \u201cgreat idea\u201d for the President and First Lady Melania to come out of the Court and stand behind the flag draped remains, \u201cIl Duce like\u201d, to \u201cpay their respects\u201d. This after Mr. Trump made it clear that he would nominate a legal and political opposite for the Court. And he’d do it even before the late Justice is interred in Arlington National Cemetery this week. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It doesn\u2019t take a Masters Degree in politics (I only have a Bachelors in the subject) to figure it out. It\u2019s likely the crowd wouldn\u2019t react well to the President\u2019s presence. Those civilians on the street who came to honor Ruth Bader Ginsburg are by definition not going to be MAGA supporters. In fact, they\u2019d be the exact opposite. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So it should have been no surprise that what started out as just general booing, turned into chants of \u201cVote Him Out\u201d. And while it\u2019s probably not the appropriate place or time, I\u2019m sure that most felt Justice Ginsburg smiling from above.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The President could have waited a day. He could have paid his respects at Statuary Hall in the Capitol building, where the remains were removed to be honored by the Congress.\u00a0\u00a0She is the first woman, and the first Jewish person, to be so recognized.\u00a0\u00a0While there\u2019s not much of a friendly audience for him there either, at least they wouldn\u2019t have booed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Was it a colossal error by the White House political staff?\u00a0\u00a0At first I thought as much.\u00a0\u00a0They haven\u2019t proven to be particularly deft at messaging over the three and a half years.\u00a0\u00a0Remember \u2013 it was that staff that created the term \u201calternate facts\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0And there were rumors of Trump blowing up when he returned from his excursion .\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But then I thought about his probable appointment to the Court, a fire-breathing conservative woman Judge Amy Coney Barrett. She\u2019s against Roe v Wade, against the Affordable Care Act, and is being called the \u201cfemale Scalia\u201d, as if he hadn\u2019t already appointed a \u201cmale Scalia\u201d in Justice Gorsuch. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s an election year. Most normal politicians (even those with degrees in Economics) know it\u2019s time to move towards the middle. The United States, even with the hyperpolarization of today\u2019s politics, is still a nation where elections are decided by the \u201cundecided\u201d. It\u2019s the eleven or ten (or maybe four or five this year) percent that haven\u2019t made up their minds already who will decide. So the \u201cstandard\u201d move would be for Trump to nominate a Justice that each side could find some value in. That way each side could get behind her candidacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But that\u2019s not the Trump 2020 strategy. His campaign team is determined to \u201cdouble-down\u201d on the Trump-wing of the Republican Party, believing that by simply getting every possible Trump voter to turn out at the polls, they will \u201cthread the needle\u201d of the Electoral College once again and secure the Presidency without winning the popular vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With that strategy, doing everything possible to mobilize the MAGA team is the only goal, even if it means giving away some of those \u201cmiddling undecided\u2019s\u201d to the Biden camp. And how to best mobilize your own \u201cteam\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let\u2019s nominate a Supreme Court Justice who will give them everything they want on every wedge issue: abortion, LGBTQ rights, Affordable Care Act, Second Amendment cases. Let\u2019s give them the greatest gift, longevity, and appoint a forty-eight year old who could serve in office, well, four decades (Ginsburg died at eighty-seven). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And let\u2019s give them some \u201cred meat\u201d. Give them the disrespect of the President and his poster-worthy wife as they pay \u201chonest\u201d respects to the deceased liberal Ginsburg. \u201cThose liberal, abortion loving, gun hating, Black Lives Matter folks don\u2019t even respect their own dead\u201d. That will be the campaign mantra. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anyone who really has respect for Justice Ginsburg knows from whence those \u201cboos\u201d came. And everyone at the White House knew it was going to happen. They expected it, and they wanted it. The \u201cboos\u201d fit right into their political narrative. It will drive more MAGA voters to the polls. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And if you are one of those who joined, at least in spirit, with the crowd at the foot of the stairs, don\u2019t feel bad. You haven\u2019t been played. The Trump 2020 campaign is desperate; so desperate that they have given up on expanding their voting base. The President has an approval rating of just forty-five percent. If he\u2019s depending on that number to win an election he\u2019s in bad shape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just make sure you get all of your \u201cbooing\u201d friends to the polls on Election Day. To overcome the natural Republican advantage in the Electoral College, Biden needs to win by five million. Hillary only won by three. There are more of us than there are of them \u2013 but we need to SHOW UP!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"