Trump's Taunts
I was having a conversation with some friends and the subject of Trump's attacks on Elizabeth Warren came up. As it happens I think those attacks tell us a lot about Trump, whose fondness for tagging opponents with unflattering nicknames is a signature move (to the point that people actually mocked him when his nickname for Nancy Pelosi turned out to be... "Nancy").
One of the earliest examples was "low energy" Jeb Bush. In all likelihood Bush was doomed to fail no matter what, but "low energy" seems to have been very effective. I think this was for a few related reasons.
First, it is basically true. Bush's campaign was boring and his manner on the debate stage was bumbling and ineffectual. (Bush fans can argue, rightly I think, that he actually has a good sense of humor and a fair amount of sharpness. The same is apparently true about Gore. In neither case did it matter much.) Bush was also running a campaign straight out of the GOP's "post mortem" on the 2012 election—upbeat, welcoming to immigrants, kumbayah. Trump sensed a much darker mood in the Republican Party's base and found a way to establish a sharp contrast.
Second, "low energy" is vague and impossible to refute. What does it mean? Nothing exactly. It connotes a lot without referring to any specific thing.
Third, relatedly, to confront it directly is to invite more mockery. "Don't call me low energy!" What a low energy response that would have been. A friend asserted, convincingly, that if Bush had walked across the debate stage and punched Trump in the face, he may have salvaged his candidacy (or at least ended Trump's). The likeliest outcome—Trump running away—would have drawn scorn from precisely the right quarters. If Trump didn't run away, Bush actually landed a solid blow (this part is key), and Trump didn't hit back effectively (also key), it would be almost as good. (The move would have drawn condemnation of Bush, but mostly from people irrelevant to the Republican primaries.)
Anything verbal response, though, would simply demean Bush, as Marco "Trump has a small penis" Rubio learned. Trying to shift between dignity and Trump-esque vulgarity is a recipe for disaster.
Fourth, again relatedly, there is a strong psycho-sexual element to the taunt. It's not just that Bush isn't a good public speaker. It's that he's unmanly. (Again, to repeat my second point, this lack of virility is hinted at but not stated outright.) Trump's specialty is serving up provocative sexual and racial innuendo without quite being specific enough for anyone to pin it to him. (He famously said that an Apprentice contestant would "look good on her knees" or something like that... on her knees because she was begging to be allowed back on the show, of course! How dare you suggest any other meaning?)
You see the same dynamic with Trump's "spill the beans" tweet about Heidi Cruz, except that there's no sign of truth in that case.
I want to emphasize that this only works with a particular audience, and it alienates a different (probably larger) audience of reasonable people. But thanks to luck or cunning, the tactic was well-suited to bring a lot of Republican primary voters and less-educated white general-election voters into Trump's camp while alienating a lot of Democratic voters who were never going to vote for him anyway.
Now consider Elizabeth Warren. Trump seems to have gotten the idea of calling her "Pocahantas" in 2014 (note that Trump's style of retweeting is simply to copy-paste the text into his own tweet):
This attack has it all—it has an element of truth (more on that in a minute), it's vague, it's almost impossible to refute without losing dignity (as we've seen), and it has a strong element of racial antagonism.
Now the dilemma here is simple. Warren's behavior was problematic from the viewpoints of at least two constituencies (members of Native American tribes and whites who are resentful of affirmative action), both involving strong feelings related to racial identity. In other words, the attack is aimed at a true political vulnerability (unlike, say, "Cryin' Chuck Schumer" or "Sneaky Dianne Feinstein," Trump coinages that don't touch on anything of political significance). So in other words, it was a potent attack even if she maintained a dignified silence about it.
Moreover the attack benefited from strategic ambiguity. Was Trump mocking her for having Native Aemrican blood or for not having it? Was he claiming that she lied about her ancestry or that she used her (genuine) ancestry for illegitimate purposes?
I'll pause here to note that once again different audiences would see these attacks in different ways. Plenty of people were horrified at this attack, either because they assumed the worst (mocking her for having Native American blood) or they thought it was a disgusting tactic in any case. It's a classic example of Trump maximizing his appeal to racially resentful white voters, a tactic that worked brilliantly in 2016 but has unclear prospects for 2020.
In any case, Warren apparently decided to address her response to the most plausible interpretation of Trump's remarks, counting on a sort of "gotcha!" dynamic. And in fact, before Warren's response, if you had forced Trump supporters to write down the substance of Trump's charge and the circumstances that would vindicate Warren, a lot of them would probably have written something like: "She said she had Cherokee blood but she doesn't, and only DNA proof to the contrary would vindicate her."
But, and I can't emphasize this enough, no one was forced to write anything down. Trump and his followers ruthlessly exploited the strategic ambiguity that he had always maintained, with devastating effect. Warren's "gotcha" blow didn't get even close to landing, and she took fire from pretty much everyone and was forced to retreat in humiliating fashion. (As a side note, it's a classic issue where getting into the weeds is both (A) necessary if you want to clear things up and (B) devastating from a political messaging perspective. It's very much like Clinton's emails in this regard. Just an absolute political meat grinder.)
I have no idea how to deal with this on the level of political tactics (e.g. in thinking about our Democratic primary choices). I'm inclined to say that Clinton's emails were a bigger problem because Trump got institutional support from the FBI and the mainstream media that likely wouldn't be forthcoming from anyone this time around (seemingly Warren has made peace with the Cherokee tribe, and the mainstream media hates the nickname). But I don't know! I also don't know how effective it is to think about particular weaknesses of the Democratic hopefuls when surely Trump will latch onto something with the help of his media enablers. (To be clear, though, "Cryin' Chuck Schumer" shows how weak Trump's attacks can be when he doesn't have any obvious angles of attack.)
I'll conclude by observing that Trump has made no real innovations in policy, and it's a massive category error to speak of, say, a "Trumpist" foreign policy except in the the most basic of senses. But he did introduce true tactical innovations to Republican politics, and I believe this was an under-appreciated source of his popularity with Republican voters. They wanted a leader who fights dirty, and they got one. It shouldn't have worked. Voters shouldn't have been vulnerable. But they were, and here we are.
One of the earliest examples was "low energy" Jeb Bush. In all likelihood Bush was doomed to fail no matter what, but "low energy" seems to have been very effective. I think this was for a few related reasons.
First, it is basically true. Bush's campaign was boring and his manner on the debate stage was bumbling and ineffectual. (Bush fans can argue, rightly I think, that he actually has a good sense of humor and a fair amount of sharpness. The same is apparently true about Gore. In neither case did it matter much.) Bush was also running a campaign straight out of the GOP's "post mortem" on the 2012 election—upbeat, welcoming to immigrants, kumbayah. Trump sensed a much darker mood in the Republican Party's base and found a way to establish a sharp contrast.
Second, "low energy" is vague and impossible to refute. What does it mean? Nothing exactly. It connotes a lot without referring to any specific thing.
Third, relatedly, to confront it directly is to invite more mockery. "Don't call me low energy!" What a low energy response that would have been. A friend asserted, convincingly, that if Bush had walked across the debate stage and punched Trump in the face, he may have salvaged his candidacy (or at least ended Trump's). The likeliest outcome—Trump running away—would have drawn scorn from precisely the right quarters. If Trump didn't run away, Bush actually landed a solid blow (this part is key), and Trump didn't hit back effectively (also key), it would be almost as good. (The move would have drawn condemnation of Bush, but mostly from people irrelevant to the Republican primaries.)
Anything verbal response, though, would simply demean Bush, as Marco "Trump has a small penis" Rubio learned. Trying to shift between dignity and Trump-esque vulgarity is a recipe for disaster.
Fourth, again relatedly, there is a strong psycho-sexual element to the taunt. It's not just that Bush isn't a good public speaker. It's that he's unmanly. (Again, to repeat my second point, this lack of virility is hinted at but not stated outright.) Trump's specialty is serving up provocative sexual and racial innuendo without quite being specific enough for anyone to pin it to him. (He famously said that an Apprentice contestant would "look good on her knees" or something like that... on her knees because she was begging to be allowed back on the show, of course! How dare you suggest any other meaning?)
You see the same dynamic with Trump's "spill the beans" tweet about Heidi Cruz, except that there's no sign of truth in that case.
I want to emphasize that this only works with a particular audience, and it alienates a different (probably larger) audience of reasonable people. But thanks to luck or cunning, the tactic was well-suited to bring a lot of Republican primary voters and less-educated white general-election voters into Trump's camp while alienating a lot of Democratic voters who were never going to vote for him anyway.
Now consider Elizabeth Warren. Trump seems to have gotten the idea of calling her "Pocahantas" in 2014 (note that Trump's style of retweeting is simply to copy-paste the text into his own tweet):
He returned to the term in 2016 (he may have been using it before then, but there's no sign of that on his Twitter account):"@TheAme19: @realDonaldTrump @RedNationRising And the answer ISN'T Hillary or Pocahontas Warren for $300..."— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 11, 2014
@elizabethforma Goofy Elizabeth Warren, sometimes referred to as Pocahontas because she faked the fact she is native American, is a lowlife!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 25, 2016
This attack has it all—it has an element of truth (more on that in a minute), it's vague, it's almost impossible to refute without losing dignity (as we've seen), and it has a strong element of racial antagonism.
Now the dilemma here is simple. Warren's behavior was problematic from the viewpoints of at least two constituencies (members of Native American tribes and whites who are resentful of affirmative action), both involving strong feelings related to racial identity. In other words, the attack is aimed at a true political vulnerability (unlike, say, "Cryin' Chuck Schumer" or "Sneaky Dianne Feinstein," Trump coinages that don't touch on anything of political significance). So in other words, it was a potent attack even if she maintained a dignified silence about it.
Moreover the attack benefited from strategic ambiguity. Was Trump mocking her for having Native Aemrican blood or for not having it? Was he claiming that she lied about her ancestry or that she used her (genuine) ancestry for illegitimate purposes?
I'll pause here to note that once again different audiences would see these attacks in different ways. Plenty of people were horrified at this attack, either because they assumed the worst (mocking her for having Native American blood) or they thought it was a disgusting tactic in any case. It's a classic example of Trump maximizing his appeal to racially resentful white voters, a tactic that worked brilliantly in 2016 but has unclear prospects for 2020.
In any case, Warren apparently decided to address her response to the most plausible interpretation of Trump's remarks, counting on a sort of "gotcha!" dynamic. And in fact, before Warren's response, if you had forced Trump supporters to write down the substance of Trump's charge and the circumstances that would vindicate Warren, a lot of them would probably have written something like: "She said she had Cherokee blood but she doesn't, and only DNA proof to the contrary would vindicate her."
But, and I can't emphasize this enough, no one was forced to write anything down. Trump and his followers ruthlessly exploited the strategic ambiguity that he had always maintained, with devastating effect. Warren's "gotcha" blow didn't get even close to landing, and she took fire from pretty much everyone and was forced to retreat in humiliating fashion. (As a side note, it's a classic issue where getting into the weeds is both (A) necessary if you want to clear things up and (B) devastating from a political messaging perspective. It's very much like Clinton's emails in this regard. Just an absolute political meat grinder.)
I have no idea how to deal with this on the level of political tactics (e.g. in thinking about our Democratic primary choices). I'm inclined to say that Clinton's emails were a bigger problem because Trump got institutional support from the FBI and the mainstream media that likely wouldn't be forthcoming from anyone this time around (seemingly Warren has made peace with the Cherokee tribe, and the mainstream media hates the nickname). But I don't know! I also don't know how effective it is to think about particular weaknesses of the Democratic hopefuls when surely Trump will latch onto something with the help of his media enablers. (To be clear, though, "Cryin' Chuck Schumer" shows how weak Trump's attacks can be when he doesn't have any obvious angles of attack.)
I'll conclude by observing that Trump has made no real innovations in policy, and it's a massive category error to speak of, say, a "Trumpist" foreign policy except in the the most basic of senses. But he did introduce true tactical innovations to Republican politics, and I believe this was an under-appreciated source of his popularity with Republican voters. They wanted a leader who fights dirty, and they got one. It shouldn't have worked. Voters shouldn't have been vulnerable. But they were, and here we are.
posted by James | 12:44 PM
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