Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump participates in the first Republican presidential debate at the Quicken Loans Arena Thursday, Aug. 6, 2015, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
Donald Trump is a problem that will solve itself
Donald Trump now says he is booting all publicity-seekers from his campaign. Wags can be forgiven for asking if that means he's applying his trademark catchphrase — "You're fired!" — to himself.
Since Thursday night's debate, Trump has unloaded on Twitter, attacked Fox News host Megyn Kelly on television, been disinvited from the RedState Gathering and has now separated from Roger Stone, his most experienced political consultant, who made the final call in the dispute. (Trump says Stone was fired, but Stone has told multiple reporters he resigned.)
Trump's conservative critics have found his presidential campaign frustrating. He says and does things that would have destroyed almost any other Republican presidential candidate yet builds his lead in the polls. He looks out of his depth in the debate and some still declare him the winner. Whether you invite him to your event or disinvite him, he dominates the headlines.
Conservative Trump supporters seem impervious to arguments about his past and present policy positions, to the extent that they can be discerned, which are sometimes to the left of the past policy positions that made Mitt Romney unacceptable to many of the same people. They brush off his long history of donations to Democrats, including Hillary Clinton and Harry Reid, as well as his cronyist justifications for the same. And the Bill Clinton phone call?
Some are even using rhetoric about figures like Kelly that they would never tolerate coming from the Left. Trump supporters portray criticism of Trump as essentially left-wing. "What are you, a feminist fighting the war on women? A cuckservative?"
MSNBC political reporter Benjy Sarlin tweeted, "RedState script just weirdly flipped from 'Trump supporters are responding to legitimate issues' to 'Trump supporters are racist loons.'" I suspect that a lot this has to do with which Trump supporters they were hearing from before and after the speech cancellation.
But how long can Trump attack popular conservative figures, some of whom have considerable media platforms themselves, without triggering at least some backlash? So far, Trump has benefited from two things. His name identification is higher than any of the other candidates, with the possible exception of Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush, and a large percentage of voters aren't fully engaged yet.
Consider that Trump's biggest pre-Kelly gaffes, when he said he never asked God for forgiveness and appeared to suggest that getting captured in Vietnam detracted from John McCain's war record, occurred on a summer weekend. People who follow politics for a living were aware of what he said, but many voters weren't paying attention and the story was already starting to die down by the time Monday rolled around.
Such incidents may have convinced both Trump and many of his detractors that he is invincible. He is not. Although he has now switched to Erick Erickson, who is somewhat better known among insiders than the rank and file (though quite familiar to plugged in activists), his vendetta against Kelly has gone on for days. The first Republican debate got decent ratings, no doubt largely because of Trump's presence on the stage, attracting a much larger audience than the billionaire's Twitter account, the usual audience for his rants.
It's not uncommon for candidates to turn perceived unfair treatment to their advantage and Republicans perennially run against the media. Even Hillary Clinton has gotten into the act. But Trump has demonstrated an inability to take criticism from anyone. That won't wear well as people begin to tune to the Trump show for the first time.
Even on the issue of immigration, there are other candidates running who are trying to speak to the same concerns as Trump but with more substance and policy details. And that's just counting the candidates from a more restrictionist perspective.
Scott Walker has talked to Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., and Rick Santorum has outlined concrete plans for addressing high immigration numbers. Neither Sessions nor Santorum are counting on Mexico to pay for their immigration policies.
Inevitably, one of two things will happen. Trump's outbursts will end his current momentum as the electorate becomes more engaged, much like a three-year-old throwing a temper tantrum over naptime eventually tires himself out. Or, far less likely but not impossible, the ever-competitive Trump gets serious and gains some self-control so he doesn't end up losing to those he thinks of as "losers."
There is a larger problem with a subset of conservatives who are willing to support anyone who fights and disregards liberal opinion, regardless of to what end. Many of the same people who realize that conservatives have been played by people and institutions uninterested in addressing their legitimate concerns, including but not limited to the GOP establishment, have been the first to get played by a celebrity with an attitude.
But the problem of Trump can be solved by the same level of exposure that has made him the Republican front-runner.
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