Trump’s Brand Discipline

I was amazed at how closely Holman Jenkins’s assessment of Donald Trump in his Wall Street Journal column aligns with mine:

In 2016, asked whether he would accept the outcome of his first race, he quipped, “If I win.” Later, his attorney general would tell the Jan. 6 committee that Mr. Trump was “detached from reality if he really believes this stuff” about the 2020 race.

Exactly. Mr. Trump didn’t believe it or it didn’t matter if he did. He was attached to a different reality, 40 years of brand discipline: Mr. Trump doesn’t lose. Gold sprouts from his fingertips except when foiled by nefarious cheaters and corrupt incompetents.

Mr. Trump’s authentic anger was reserved for White House underlings who forgot their job was servicing the Trump brand. His legal theory, its own originator told him, was bound to lose 9-0 before the Supreme Court. When has Mr. Trump ever won any lawsuit he was involved in? When was that even the purpose?

I’ve found it hard to excuse Trump supporters who didn’t realize from day one “stop the steal” was a bucket-shop scam—had they understood nothing about the man they were so devoted to?

Ditto, I thought the media coverage after the election should be a good deal more eye-rolling. Trump was being Trump (and also was being Stacey Abrams and Hillary Clinton—he hardly invented the “I wuz robbed” shtick as a means to keep oneself the center of attention after Election Day).

Mr. Trump was the most known, understood, advertised personality ever to be elected president, a four-decade American prodigy of Barnumesque branding. The true wonderment was the Trump voter. Yes, some were ignoramuses, but many knew exactly what they were getting (and let me know they did).

That was obvious to me from before the point at which Mr. Trump announced his candidacy.

Something else that was obvious: Trump is a symptom of a larger problem as well as a contributing factor to it. Don’t expect that getting shed of Trump for good and all will solve the larger problem.

And it’s the same problem that Mr. Macron is seeing in France or at least a very closely related problem. It can only be resolved by genuine competence or upheaval.

Update

I’m afraid we’re about to learn whether the apothegm of the Abbe Correa still holds true.

19 comments… add one
  • bob sykes Link

    Trump’s first election and continuing popularity is really an indication of just how bad The Swamp is, and how desperate large numbers of Americans are to remove the Ruling Class that is destroying their lives and the futures of their children.

    The US, France, Germany, Britain, the whole West is in terminal decline. Its Elites are delusional and insane and are wrecking our economies and pursuing lunatic policies that will certainly bring on WW III.

  • jan Link

    There seem to be 3 distinct types of people who hold views of Trump:

    1). Those who are super devoted to him, seeing him as one of their own.

    2). Those who are able to separate the Trump personality from the man behind a string of successful policies.

    3). Those who see no salvage in Trump, no redemption in anything he says or does, whether or not he’s right, wrong or even politically prescient.

    Many of those attending his rallies are representative of #1.

    I feel a kinship to the second category, where I intensely disliked Trump during his 2016 campaign, only voting for him at the last minute as an anti-Hillary vote. But, was turned around by his governance, which seemed to especially help the working/middle classes. Consequently, I willingly voted for him in 2020.

    The 3rd grouping, people like Steve, and even Dave, are best suited to occupy. The Holman Jenkins piece is perfect in illustrating the immovable opinions hosted by anti-Trumpers. Even though his presidency was inundated with unjustified, lengthy investigations/impeachments, creating a 24/7 hostile environment, he was still able to skirt wars and foreign confrontations, lift people’s confidence/optimism up, keep inflation at bay, manage the border, increase household incomes, become energy independent, all producing a thriving economy – healthy cornerstones totally absent in the current democrat regime.

  • steve Link

    We cant find many examples of the supposedly successful policies. Look at your list.

    1) Skirt wars. OK, true but did he get us out of the one he claimed we should leave? No. That was political cowardice.

    2) Lift confidence. Not a policy and half of the country didnt get that lift, only his fans.

    3) Inflation at bay. Same as most other presidents.

    4) Manage border- He avoided, like every other POTUS, any long term solution. When external factors we had a surge of illegals just like every other POTUS.

    5) Increase incomes- About the same as everyone else. If you looked at specific subset it was a little better but he did have the advantage of inheriting a strong economy.

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2020/10/26/household-incomes-grew-more-slowly-most-states-under-trump/6009573002/

    6) Energy independent- Forbes had a nice article on this. We were still net exporters of oil in 2021, what was used to claim that Trump made us energy independent. Trump actually had little to do with this. Imports have dropped steadily since about 2007 except for a small plateau in 2015-2016 when oil prices had a big drop. Link at next post.

    So the PT Barnum part here is really important. Trump never admits to losing and he bragged incessantly about accomplishments that weren’t really true or mostly due to the efforts of others. While this is true of a to fo politicians Trump fans fall for it hook and sinker. As has been discussed here so many times he supposedly cut regulations but we didnt see the increase in business investments that should have followed if that was successful.

    Steve

  • steve Link
  • There seem to be 3 distinct types of people who hold views of Trump

    I don’t think I fit into any of those classifications. I think that Trump is a low character with one fatal flaw: arrogance. That flaw prevented him from learning about the job he’d managed to get voted into and is the reason he continues to insist that he won the 2020 election. I could give dozens of examples but you get the idea. And also please note: I actually lost friends by refusing to take the position that everything Trump did was categorically wrong.

    Despite all of that he managed to lurch into some of the correct policies, sometimes in the wrong ways and for the wrong reasons. So, for example, stemming the influx of illegal immigrants across our southern border was the right policy but a wall wasn’t the right strategy. Indeed, he rejected the right policy (rigorous workplace enforcement) on the grounds that it would hurt employers which, sadly, is probably correct.

    Getting rid of Chimerica was the right policy, too, but tariffs were inadequate to accomplishing it. Curbing travel from China to the United States when we first learned of community spread of COVID-19 was the right policy but he should have curtailed domestic travel at the same time.

    His best policy was probably Operation Warp Speed but even that had some notable flaws.

  • Drew Link

    steve is correct. Things are clearly better now under Biden. It shows by any objective measure, including his popularity. And he’s so arrogant he knows he’s doing great.

    Speaking of arrogance. Yes, Trump was arrogant, to his detriment. Who from the following list were not: Obama, W, Clinton……… And on it goes.

  • bob sykes Link

    Drew can’t be serious. His post must be satire. Compared to the Trump Presidency, things under Biden are infinitely worse.

    I voted for Trump twice, despite his flaws, because Hillary and Joe are monsters. If you don’t understand that, get off the drugs.

    I will not vote for him again, because he is too old and likely delusional. If Desantis is not the Republican nominee in 2024, I will stay home.

  • Andy Link

    I never thought Trump was fit for the office and nothing has changed. His stupid arrogance and desire to be surrounded by “yes men” had upsides but mostly was a downside.

    The idea that Trump cared or cares about anyone but himself and his family doesn’t have much evidence. The man doesn’t have any actual principles.

    Despite his numerous character flaws, he was able to tap into and exploit the dissatisfaction that many Americans have with the current system that is run by and favors educated elites whether it’s economics, politics, or culture. The fact that he lost to a quintessential establishment politician like Biden just shows how poorly he played his hand.

    Still, not everything he did was bad. He stumbled into some good policy:

    – Forcing the US to acknowledge and address China’s mercantilism. You’ll note that Biden has actually continued most of Trump’s effort here, albeit quietly.
    – Operation Warp Speed. This was an area where Trump’s natural strengths provide an advantage and his ability to get the federal government, regulators, and pharma moving quickly on a Covid vaccine is a real accomplishment. Of course, he doesn’t talk about it much because his base now hates vaccines and he’s too much the coward to stand up to them.
    – On foreign policy the dumb things he did canceled out the smart things he did. His one real accomplishment was the Abraham Accords. I would give him credit for not starting new wars of choice, but there he got lucky with the strikes in Syria and the assassination of Solemani which could have easily blown up in his face.

    If he runs again, I will not vote for him. And I don’t think he has the political acumen to succeed. DeSantis and others are much smarter than he is politically and aren’t hindered by his self-absorbed ego. DeSantis and others will position themselves as Trump without all of Trump’s flaws.

  • Grey Shambler Link

    Trump was a protest vote against the establishment by people who understood it would take someone strong, obstinate to bring change.
    The Mueller witch-hunt reinforced that, confirming that we are ruled by a permanent group of insiders.
    You don’t need to like Trump to vote for him, just realize every other candidate is as controlled as Biden is.

  • steve Link

    I guess he should get credit for OWS. As far as I can tell from my readings he had little direct involvement. He mostly just gave it the green light to go ahead and everyone else made it happen. However, that is just how it works for POTUS (and a lot of CEOs for that matter) so he gets credit. But, that is offset by his otherwise poor Covid management and his contributions to undercutting the vaccine and not making an effort tot support it. Why the hell was he making recommendations for specific meds or therapies that he did not know anything about? No other president has ever done that.

    Steve

  • steve Link

    “The Mueller witch-hunt reinforced that, confirming that we are ruled by a permanent group of insiders.”

    The Mueller witch hunt showed that Trump tried to do a lot of stuff that was impeachable but his staff didnt carry out his orders. Of course you dont comment upon the Dunham witch hunt which has gone on much longer with fewer results. So you are clearly a Trump fan just using the Mueller thing to justify your beliefs. Trump really didnt bring any change so you just got played, and Trump walked away with a lot of money.

    The economy was actually better in 2021 than it was in 2020. Obama’s last 4 years were better than Trump’s 4 years. (I can just hear the Trump fans whining about not fair.)

    Steve

  • Grey Shambler Link

    Not trying to sell you anything.
    Lisa Dunham?
    If you’ve still got the Jones for Obama maybe you could vote for his old lady, that’s fashionable lately.

  • Jan Link

    I find those who continue to have no doubts about Biden winning the 2020 election, fair and square, to be experiencing political tunnel vision syndrome.

    Starting with the ambivalence even key democrats initially feared, like Senators Amy Klobuchar & Liz Warner, about the integrity of dominion machines, followed by 9 security lapses noted on those machines, confirmed just recently by the CISA report (despite muttering that no evidence was found these security weaknesses effected the 2020 election), to the thousands of affidavits (that no one seems interested in), to the many historical abnormalities (key swing states suddenly stopped counting ballots when Trump was ahead, and once counting was resumed Biden was in the lead) – these are but a few of the many irregularities and deceptive angles/incidents related as to how this election was mishandled. The fact that there was no judicial review of the evidence only adds to the murkiness of it’s legitimacy, rather than justifies it (like many here assert) that no fraud was proven, beyond a reasonable doubt.

    As far as any “arrogance” Trump displayed, or his lack of “character,” which was offensive to many of you, the importance of conducting what is seen as a fair election is far more vital than trumpeting those feelings over how honestly-run our elections are seen by the people. Currently, though, almost half of voters think 2020 lacked safeguards and involved fraudulent means — republicans, democrats, minority groups and so on. That’s why congressional districts are turning over, and the oppositional party is seen as having the back of the working and middle classes. The democrats, in the meantime, are more and more depicted as being in league with big corporations, big pharma, wall-street and the 1 percenters. Considering how the gigantic Zuckerberg infusions of money targeted only democrat precincts during the last presidential election, people certainly have reason to be concerned about election abuses being swept under the democrat rug.

  • Jan Link

    ”The Mueller witch hunt showed that Trump tried to do a lot of stuff that was impeachable but his staff didnt carry out his orders. Of course you dont comment upon the Dunham witch hunt which has gone on much longer with fewer results. So you are clearly a Trump fan just using the Mueller thing to justify your beliefs. Trump really didnt bring any change so you just got played, and Trump walked away with a lot of money.”

    The Mueller team interviewed everyone they could get their hands on. They had 30 hours of testimony from the WH attorney, alone – a privilege granted by Trump which was unprecedented. The Mueller Report comcluded they could find no evidence of wrongdoing by anyone, including Trump.

    The Durham Report has had to unravel foreign and domestic entanglements, FISA Court abuses, lies, “insurance policy” innuendos spoken by disgraced Intelligent Dept officials – lots of damaging details revealed regarding the deception surrounding the Trump WH, but no real indictments. While many people no longer trust these government intelligent divisions, others, like Steve, sees the lack of throwing anyone in jail as some kind of exoneration.

    Lots of positive changes were made by Trump, both domestically and under his management of foreign policy. He donated his WH salary to charity, and, according to Forbes, had less wealth when he left the WH than he had when he entered it. Now if you look at the financial gains of both Obama and Clinton, post their WH stay, their wealth exploded, upwards (especially Obama who was in debt when he first became president).

  • steve Link

    “a privilege granted by Trump which was unprecedented. ”

    BS- Clinton was actually interviewed directly.

    The Mueller report resulted in about 30 indictments and 7 convictions or guilty pleases. The report specifically did not exonerate Trump but did not think they had the authority to indict. They documented specific instances where Trump tried to obstruct but his staff refused. Just a couple follow.

    “The Mueller Report states that if the Special Counsel’s Office felt they could clear the president of wrongdoing, they would have said so. Instead, the Report explicitly states that it “does not exonerate” the President[10] and explains that the Office of Special Counsel “accepted” the Department of Justice policy that a sitting President cannot be indicted.[11]
    The Mueller report details multiple episodes in which there is evidence that the President obstructed justice. The pattern of conduct and the manner in which the President sought to impede investigations—including through one-on-one meetings with senior officials—is damning to the President.

    In June 2017 President Trump directed White House Counsel Don McGahn to order the firing of the Special Counsel after press reports that Mueller was investigating the President for obstruction of justice;[12] months later Trump asked McGahn to falsely refute press accounts reporting this directive and create a false paper record on this issue – all of which McGahn refused to do.[13]

    After National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was fired in February 2017 for lying to FBI investigators about his contacts with Russian Ambassador Kislyak, Trump cleared his office for a one-on-one meeting with then-FBI Director James Comey and asked Comey to “let [Flynn] go;” he also asked then-Deputy National Security Advisor K.T. McFarland to draft an internal memo saying Trump did not direct Flynn to call Kislyak, which McFarland did not do because she did not know whether that was true.[14]”

    “sees the lack of throwing anyone in jail as some kind of exoneration.”

    I see the lack of finding evidence to be more important, and what I expected. The investigation has been ongoing about twice as long as the Mueller investigation. An investigation that is unending without any findings sounds a lot more like a witch hunt to me.

    “Lots of positive changes were made by Trump”

    You couldn’t name any policy improvements above. A billionaire donated his salary is the best you can do?

    Steve

  • jan Link

    The Durham Investigation has met delays of info and obstruction at every turn, making the inquiry torturous and lengthy. During the Mueller witch hunt, the Trump administration readily supplied millions of pages of docs, in a timely manner. Even Mueller begrudgingly remarked about their cooperation. The only refusal was having a sit-down interview because they didn’t trust Mueller to fairly interpret Trump’s responses, being how they trapped Flynn early in their game of getting rid of Trump.

    A short list of Trump’s accomplishments are:
    Emphasis on deregulation vs regulation spurring growth;
    Right to choose bill:
    VA reforms creating more responsive care for vets – signed the VA Mission Act;
    Lifting regulations on oil leases leading to energy independence:
    Abraham Accords;
    Tax reform helping the middle class more than the elites;
    Confronted China, left the one-sided Iran Agreement and Paris Climate Agreement;
    Initiated first- ever audit of DOD;
    ISIS lost 98% of it’s territory under his administration; two instrumental terrorists killed; and
    Black unemployment hit an all time low. Black business ownership jumped 400% in one year. 6.4 million jobs added including manufacturing jobs; 63.1% labor participation rate.
    Manufacturing confidence at an all time high;
    Food stamp usage declined.
    Created new, improved trade deals, replacing NAFTA with the USMCA and terminated TTP.
    Brought NATO contributions up;
    Household wealth reached a record $1,7 trillion, with median incomes climbing for the first time since 2007;
    Reduced the cost of prescription drugs;
    Secured the release of many overseas prisoners including Pastor Brunson, prisoners from N. Korea;
    Shrank government by 16,000 jobs
    Funded the military
    Created a new space division in the military;
    Signed a healthcare order expanding choice and access through associations:
    Decreased illegal border crossings thru agreements made with Mexico and Central American countries:
    $500 billion errors found during audit of Obama HUD.
    Expanded the national park programs.

    ………too many more to go on….however our economy and life in the US was far better managed under the last president than under the current one.

  • steve Link

    Most of that is nonsense or trivial, but you would think you would start with a position of strength. Deregulation spurred growth? What growth? It was about the same as Obama’s level of growth. Is there evidence that deregulation actually accomplished anything ie did business investment increase? Nope. Look at your subset claim that deregulating oil did anything. In the site I link to in the above post it charts our oil imports. It decreases pretty much steadily except for the 2014-2016 period when we had major oil price decreases. You willing to give Obama credit for the incredibly cheap oil we had back then? LOL Anyway, your claims arent supported by evidence.

    https://blogs.worldbank.org/developmenttalk/what-triggered-oil-price-plunge-2014-2016-and-why-it-failed-deliver-economic-impetus-eight-charts

    Steve

  • Jan Link

    Steve, please list some of Biden’s accomplishments in the last 18 months.

  • CuriousOnlooker Link

    After today; no matter what happens in the future; the argument is becoming stronger that Trump will be considered one of the most consequential single term Presidencies.

    That’s not even considering any future attempted prosecutions of Trump or a 2024 bid. I believe the 2024 Republican nomination is Trump’s if he wants it and he is healthy enough — that’s how meaningful today was for a big part of the Republican coalition.

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