A lot of folks worry Trump will go down ugly in November, swinging at bugbears like ACORN and, I don’t know, the Jews or something. I bet this here five internet bucks that the opposite happens. Trump may not know a single damn thing about nuclear policy but he knows a bit about image. When you go down flailing in desperation it just underlines how much you failed.
Tell me if this sounds like a fighter to you.
On CNBC on Thursday, Trump twice mused on what his future might hold. Both times he seemed totally fine with the idea of losing.
“If at the end of 90 days I fall in short,” Trump said, “it’s OK. I go back to a very good way of life. It’s not what I’m looking to do. I think we’re going to have a victory, but we’ll see.”
Later, asked what he might do to turn around his crashing poll numbers, Trump basically said he wouldn’t change a thing. “Just keep doing the same thing I’m doing right now. At the end it’s either going to, you know, work or I’m going to have a very, very nice long vacation.”
This is a great time to bring back a favorite tale from back in ’07.
[L]et me tell you a story full of sordid maneuvers, backroom deals, tragedy, triumph and innocent victims. You see, at this time last year John had not registered Democratic at that point so a case could be made that Cole, the maverick Republican blogger who left RedState when Republicanism betrayed Barry Goldwater, better represents conservatism than Republican zombies who fill the conservative category every year. It was gratifying when the judges agreed. Completely incidental and not at all on my mind at the time, the bitter tears from rightwingers who take the contest far too seriously, and who certainly would have lost a one to eleven split vote, would have been delicious.Then something happened that may never be explained. Maybe the bitter tears angle occurred to the judges. Maybe their inbox filled up with youtube vids of Michelle Malkin spelling out threatening messages in her cheerleader outfit. Maybe something even more mind-bogglingly awful happened. Officially the awards gurus mysteriously discovered a bug in the code that ‘forced’ them to bump us and the Jawa Report from the conservative category, but you and I and Gene “Time Cube” Ray know that there is more to the story than that. I can handle what happened to us; a reasonable but mistaken person could see our candidacy as an inspired attempt to raise trouble in blogland right. Seeing the innocent guys at Jawa go down, however, still weighs heavy on my conscience.
The joke of this story was that rightwing blogs really, really cared about that awards competition (it was the Weblog Awards sponsored by Real Clear Politics). Back then every conservative blog filled its sidebar with little graphic bugs announcing awards, award runner-ups, group memberships, military affiliation (if any) etc. It was like chest salad in the military for those guys. These days that space is taken up by ads for Goldline and denture cream. When Real Clear Politics dumped us in the Top 250 Blogs category I figured we were a goner because RedState was a significantly bigger blog and they really wanted that award. Their front page was an all day full court press to VOTE VOTE VOTE. But somehow a mix of pleading and grave threats payed off and we started to pull ahead.
Then a weird thing happened. In the last couple days of voting RedState went dark about the award. They just shut up about it completely. I guess Erickson figured they were already pushing about as hard as they could, so a few more email blasts would just make them look like bigger losers.
I sincerely think that Trump getting increasingly desperate, louder and more offensive with every passing week is the GOP’s second worst case scenario, and maybe not even that. I think it would hurt the party much more if their Presidential candidate basically decides the whole contest is dumb and not worth his time. If he can’t stop a girl from beating him, the next best option for a narcissist bordering on worse is to let her win. Before you get me wrong, resigning would never occur to him. That chain around Reince Preibus’s neck? You could not pry it from Trump’s stubby fingers with a five foot crowbar. The press will keep covering him and some subset of people will send money and shout his name, certainly enough to fill a rally hall in Spokane or Couer D’Alene.
If Trump rages futilely against the dying of the light, at least he will inspire people. Maybe not good people, but you know those folks who call your average Congressional office about Agenda 21 Clinton death list space lizards all day? There are a lot of them. The froth keeps them active but you need to keep stirring it. The thing that will really depress GOP turnout is a depressed candidate. If I were Reince Preibus, and I thank jeebus daily that I’m not, I would be terrified that Trump just settles into a comfortable routine of just the stuff he likes: rallies, collecting money, hangout sessions with Sean Hannity. If he does not give the tiniest little shit about the party or America then why bother with busy work like organizing, ad buying, debate prep or kissing up to the wealthy assholes who keep the party’s lights on.
You know what, imagine for a second that Trump does check out halfway through, pocket the campaign money(*) and leave the party’s stakeholders utterly destitute. Given the way his projects tend to go, any other outcome would be a surprise.
***
(*) OK, you say that is illegal. I call as expert witness a narcissistic winner of the sperm lottery who has decades of experience circumventing finance laws. Guess who I have in mind.