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Trump Has Lost Control Of His Central Message
At least temporarily. And really, it’s his only message.
And that is: The people out to get him aren’t just out to get him, they are out to get America. And the more calculated that anti-Trump effort looks, the better it is for him.
One of the reasons this has worked so well for him for so long, is it’s so easy to express in extremely simple terms: love Trump = love America, hate Trump (or even oppose him and his policies a little) = hate America.
When the President is effective at delivering this message (really, it’s a simple math equation), then any Democrat running for any office is not trying to win an election. No, they are attacking America. They are trying to do a coup. Against Trump yes, but really against America. So in order for this to work for him he needs to equate any attempt to compete against him as an attack on America itself.
And his big promise? His only promise? He will be there to protect the people he purports to protect against that attack.
But there’s a fine line between protector and dictator. And when Trump starts running around screaming “LAW AND ORDER!” and deliriously boasting about throwing people in federal prison for 10 years “no exceptions!” if “these hoodlums” who “hate America” act up too much in the park across the street from the White House, and expecting hundreds of thousands of disciples to show up in Tulsa in an enclosed arena with no masks in the middle of a pandemic, he starts looking a lot less like he’s trying to protect his version of America, and more like he’s trying to protect only himself.
Yes, “law and order” worked for Nixon. But Nixon knew when to shout and when to whisper. Trump doesn’t. That’s why we always think it’s funny when the media write about Trump doing a “dog whistle”. Because there is no such things as a dog whistle with Trump. It’s a megaphone. Always.
And he’s been very good at delivering his central message until a short time…
