Maggie Haberman shares what Trump camp is more concerned about than his debate conspiracyhttps://t.co/l6GJ4eyFzY
— Raw Story (@RawStory) September 11, 2024
Or not. My reference (such as it is), is to this comment by Ms. Haberman:
Haberman said that those advisors are "more concerned, bluntly," that Trump failed to tie Harris to Biden and make her "own" the last 3 1/2 years in the White House.
The reason Trump failed to tie Harris to Biden, is that Harris wouldn't let him. Trump isn't really all that clever or "feral" or somehow "cunning." He just brings an ungentlemanly style to a game mostly played by rich men according to certain Marquis de Queensbury rules. But Trump doesn't follow those rules, so it's easy for him to set the narrative and force his opponents to respond to it. My crude but (I think!) effective metaphor is the Tar Baby from the B'rer Rabbit stories.
B'rer Fox fashions a tar baby, a kind of scarecrow made of tar, and B'rer Rabbit comes along and takes it for real, and tries to engage it in friendly conversation. The tar baby, of course, doesn't respond, breaking the "rules" of social engagement. B'rer Rabbit grows enraged and finally does what B'rer Fox intended: he punches the tar baby for its stoic insolence. And gets a paw irretrievably stuck. And then another paw, and then a foot, and then the other foot.
When Trump can set the terms of the discourse, such as requiring Harris to respond to his lies and nonsense about the Biden Administration (all Trump ever says is Biden is failure, and Trump was the Greatest President EVER!), he can get his opponent to punch the tar baby. From them on, he's in control. You simply can't fight nonsense and lies with facts and figures and rational responses, or even appeals to the record. You've already lost, because you're fighting on Trump's terms, and he doesn't care about facts and figures and the historical record. Trump only cares about what Trump declares, and before long you're arguing with the drunk at the end of the bar, or the troll in internet comments (or, these days, your Twitter feed).
As everyone knows who has argued with a troll, the only way to win is not to play. Trolls don't have an argument, they are just argumentative. All they care about is keeping you in the argument. That's how they "win." You can't defeat them with facts and figures and reasoning; they don't care about those things. They just want to keep you responding to them "BECAUSE SOMEBODY ON THE INTERNET IS WRONG!"
The only way to win, is to never punch the tar baby.
Harris understands this. She never responded to Trump's taunts and jibes. She talked about what she wanted to do, about connecting with people. The closest she got was outlining tax cuts and government programs she would champion. This is criticized as not being sufficiently fleshed out, but if she had done so in two-minutes bites she'd have been castigated for insufficiently explaining her plans. That, or the MEGO effect would make the audience stop listening almost immediately. Lose-lose, either way; especially because Trump would keep yelling his fantasies about what he did and Biden hasn't done (none of Trump's facts or figures were any more grounded in reality than Stephen Miller's to the reporters). The only way to win is not to play. And like any internet troll, Trump doesn't know what to do with that.
And then you win.
Which is why that's what Trump's campaign is worried about. How do they win, if Kamala won't come out and play?
No comments:
Post a Comment