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What I don't understand is, what in the world is the Trump campaign doing? I feel like Trump supporters have been on the back foot for a whole month now without being able to effectively counterpunch. This includes the Trump supporters on social media, both the genuine believers and the astroturf accounts. They have been spending too much energy on things like transgenders in sports, which I think mainly the highly online care about. I'm not convinced that the average swing state voter sees that as a big issue.
Meanwhile Trump himself has been spending too much time talking about minor ideas like getting rid of taxes on tips or the right to try. And I think that the right to try is a great thing, but is it really going to shift the needle much as far as the campaign goes? There's also the whole matter of the seemingly pretty large resources the Trump campaign has put into trying to swing black voters. But how much difference will it make to shift 13% of the US population a few percentage points pro-Trump? I just don't understand what they are doing.
I think that Trump's big problem is simply that Harris seems really young compared to him, and the average voter knows almost nothing about her, so it is easy for the Harris campaign to effectively present her as a young, dynamic force for hope and change similar to Obama in 2008, when his campaign attracted an essentially religious fervor mostly because of the symbolism of electing a young handsome eloquent black man to replace the architect of the Iraq War, rather than because of any policy ideas. Trump is old, quite visibly old at this point, and he has been so prominent in American political discussion for the last nine years that I think many people are simply bored of him at this point.
Trump is no longer the fiery, fun maverick of 2016. He is still entertaining and charismatic, but he has noticeably slowed down and he can no longer present himself as a dynamic outsider who is capable of changing everything if elected. I think that needs to emphasize crime, the economy, immigration, and the positive aspects of his first term as president. Real, substantial issues. Whereas Harris is largely running a fluff campaign based on youthfulness, momentum, and Democrats' joy at having a fresh face to vote for, meaning for the top seat this time and not just for the VP position, which almost nobody really cares much about.
But even though I think that Trump would benefit from hammering hard on his core issues, I do not think that is enough. Trump also needs a new emotional, symbolic narrative of some sort to counter the ceaseless waves of the highly energized and quite effectively organized Harris narrative. Obviously much of the Harris support is organic, but the astroturfing I have seen online so far is also quite skillful and persistent. What is the new Trump narrative? It would be hard to make it about him being an outsider this time around simply because at this point he is much more familiar to the public than Harris is.
I am confronted with Kamala or Walz's face every other time I open a YouTube video. In contrast, the only Trump ads I see is garbage like this, hyping stuff like the "no tax on tips" policy.
I feel kind of insulted. First of all, tipping is dumb. I tip decently because I have sufficient disposible income that I can pay a little extra, but these sorts of illegible culturally-mediated costs are bad and unfair. Why on Earth would I want to incentivize more tipping by exempting tipped income from taxes? Has anyone gamed out the equilibrium here? (Is this some sort of 4D chess to get black people de-facto excluded from middle-class economic areas? Think about it.)
Secondly, why does this feel like a Hooters ad? Obviously you don't want ugly people in your marketing, but this is borderline offensive. This woman is way too hot for me to believe she was selected for any reason besides her looks.
On the other hand, JD Vance is quite relatable, in the sense that his campaign feels like what would happen to me if I were to run for office.
That made me laugh way more than it should have. Nice link/funny caption!
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He talks about these at literally every rally he gives. It's the center of his campaign. I question where you're getting your ideas about the Trump campaign from.
He literally just dodged a bullet on stage and stood up and told his supporters to keep fighting. The largest independent candidate since Ross Perot just endorsed him. Kamala Harris has yet to give a press interview. Trump is doing fine.
The actual Trump campaign does not matter. The reporting on the Trump campaign is what matters.
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Trump is visibly breaking down seemingly day by day. His mental state appears to be deteriorating noticeably to the point where even his followers in Twitter are starting to comment on it. Biden dropping out and Harris getting good poll results has apparently broken something inside him
What on earth? Trump is not breaking down and is continuing to give rallies and interviews, sometimes at personal risk. Not a single person I know is talking about what you describe (?).
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You know the media's successfully pigeonholed reality when no one is mentioning that Trump was shot at and very nearly killed at a rally. Don't you think that would negatively damage ones ability to rally?
Apparently not so much, since while he had a "bulletproof" barrier in front of him at a recent rally, he got out from behind it to call for assistance for a rallygoer in distress. This was of course reported as Donald Trump Suddenly Stops Rally and Asks for 'a Doctor, Please!'
Sigh. We really don't hate journalists enough, do we?
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I would absolutely agree that might be a contributor or even the main cause but optically from a winning the election POV he needs to write the ship.
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I would not be surprised if the near-assassination was a contributing factor. Events like that can cause some non-trivial psychological trauma.
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One of the most striking features of this election cycle is that we had years of polling data where people kept saying that they were concerned about the age of the candidates, especially concerned about Biden's age, and partisans just kept shrugging that off as though people giving that answer didn't really mean it and were just using it as an excuse. Currently, it seems like people that basically said, "I like Democrats, but Biden's too old" were just telling the absolute truth about what their perspective was.
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