All the polling indicates that what the Democratic electorate wants above all in its 2020 presidential nominee is the ability to go up against Donald Trump and defeat him in the November election.
And that’s only one reason why the best way for the 2020 would-be nominees to run is to run hard and directly at Donald Trump now. (“Prove that you can fight him effectively by doing it.”)
The other reason is that it’s a good way to start moving the electorate in the direction of electing Trump to a second term.
And I propose two major ways of going after Trump now:
I. Showing the Ugliness, Making the Contrast
If there’s one thing that Trump is generous with (and there are certainly not many), it is with providing illustrations of why we need a very different kind of president. Trump is a gushing fountain of doing and saying things that degrade America.
So if I were advising one of our 2020 candidates, this would be what I would advise:
“From among all the many ugly things that Trump is showing at any given time — and the supply is refreshed virtually daily — choose whatever you can best use to score at Trump’s expense.
Do it in a way that gets attention. Do it regularly, so that it becomes an ongoing event. Do it so that it gets under Trump’s skin, prompting him to punch back, and thus giving you the opportunity to demonstrate that you can go toe-to-toe, scoring points, and come out with him looking bad and you looking good.Such a strategy, if well executed, would do three things:
“1) Demonstrate to the Democratic electorate that you can take on Trump and come out ahead— thus making this anxious Democratic electorate turn to you to lead the fight.
“2) Keep the dark reality of this presidency alive in the minds of the American people generally.
“3) Present to the American people — a majority of whom deeply desire a more normal, more constructive era in American governance — an image of the kind of decent presidency you would offer would make your election seem like a most welcome refuge from our current troubled time.”
“(That is, conjure up a Presidency that feels so different, that works to solve problems for the American people, that moves the nation forward, that speaks honestly, that will make America’s role in the world a respectable on again.)
“In other words, it would be useful for winning the nomination with the support of an electorate that is desperately seeking someone who can beat Trump, and then for winning the General Election with the support of the larger electorate that will be voting in November.”
II. Pointing Out What Trump Is Showing about How Dangerous He’d Be If Re-elected
With the end of the Impeachment process, Trump has achieved something unprecedented in the history of the American republic: He has defeated the forces of “the rule of law.”
He survived the Mueller Report (with the help of his corrupt Attorney General), with its delineation of Trump’s “multiple felonies.” And now (with the help of craven Republican senators) Trump has survived the ultimate tool of the constitutional system for dealing with a President who would put himself “above the law”— impeachment by Congress.No President has ever been so free of legal/constitutional restraints. And no President has ever shown himself so eager to transgress against the order that has made presidential power safe for the nation.
Twice now, Trump has demonstrated just how ugly and dangerous he is when he regards himself as accountable to no one, when he thinks his power is unchecked.
First, as soon as he’d survived the Mueller Report as well as Robert Mueller’s strangely reluctant and weak testimony before Congress, Trump got on the phone to make that infamous phone call to the President of Ukraine. In other words, as soon as he thought his power was unchecked, Trump became more bold in his criminality.
That recklessness eventually compelled the reluctant Democrats to launch the impeachment process.
Now, when he has survived impeachment with the powers of the presidency still in his hands, he has once again revealed more nakedly his dangerous character.
His speech at the National Prayer breakfast showed him to be the very opposite of Christian, as he pretty much explicitly rejected the ethic of Jesus – promoted in the minister’s speech before the President’s – of “Love your enemies.” The more he sees himself as unconstrained, the more nakedly he displays his vindictive impulses-- punishing people like Col. Vindman, who put himself at risk because it was his patriotic duty to testify and tell the truth to which he’d been witness. And once again Trump showed how determined he is to intimidate anyone who could cross him when he went after Senator Romney – the only Republican Senator who took seriously his “oath to God” – and accused Romney of lying about what his faith (and his conscience) required of him.As many people understand, Trump punishes those who cross him to instill fear in all those others who might refuse to bend to his will.
Trump – having defeated the forces of “the rule of law,” with his “Acquittal” in the Senate “Trial” – has put his ugliness on display even more fully than before.
Yet one more potential form of “accountability” remains: those presidential powers can still be taken from him by the American people in the election of 2020. Imagine what he would be like if he successfully wins – or cheats his way to winning – a second term!
So it is of essential importance that this election – the last barrier to this President’s acting like a dictator – results in Trump’s defeat.
If I were advising a Democratic candidate for President, this is the second part of the “Run Against Trump Now!” strategy I’m recommending.
“Of the various forms of ugliness that you choose to highlight (in that first approach outlines above), there’s one that should be singled out for special attention: all those things that Trump does between now and November that demonstrate how dangerous it would be for Trump to be given four more years to wield what by then would be truly unchecked power.
“It should be made as clear as possible for the American people to see—for it is the central truth, and by far the biggest issue, in American politics today: that it would be a national disaster for Trump to be re-elected in view of
How Trump now regards himself accountable to no one, and if re-elected that would be even more emphatically true; How Trump has demonstrated that he quite easily puts his own interests ahead of the nation’s; How vindictive and narcissistic he is in the ways he uses his office.“(All of those to a degree unprecedented in American history.)
“It would be a mistake to run a campaign that doesn’t confront in whatever way is most effective and impactful that truth about our political circumstances that historians will readily declare was the most important political development of this moment.
“Run against Trump now, exposing him and besting him in ways that persuade the Democratic electorate that you’re the one to beat him, and persuade the American people that it is essential to rescue the nation from the man who has already shown us how he will act if his unprecedented status as President-above-the-law is ratified if he’s re-elected.”