Consider this imaginary situation: A new chief of staff can organize President Trump’s harum-scarum White House operation into a crack, disciplined, and loyal team, or he can stop the president from tweeting. eThe catch is he can do one of these but not both. Which should he choose?
I’ve heard from folks more politically savvy than myself that Trump benefits greatly from his tweets. He keeps his political base happy. He end-runs the media. Tweeting ensures he’s the center of attention all day, every day, and keeps other politicians from hogging the limelight. He tags his antagonists with unfriendly nicknames that he tweets maliciously. I could go on.
It’s been a year since Trump was elected and I’ve defended his tweeting most of the time. And it’s true, as Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, wrote in the Wall Street Journal, that some of Trump’s tweets have been “gems of persuasion.” But I think the tweets have lost whatever effectiveness. Now they are harmful to Trump and his presidency.
Trump’s tweets once had a purpose. But doesn’t he need to lambaste the mainstream media in tweets anymore. He’s won that fight. Nor does his base require him to go after his accusers with tweets. The base is secure. And he doesn’t need to be front and center in the news from dawn to dusk. As presidents like Ronald Reagan showed, less is often more effective than more. It keeps folks from getting tired of you.
Most important: If Trump believes he can tweet Congress into doing his bidding, he’s wrong. He needed a well-thought-out argument to get Congress to vote for the Republican health care bill. But tweets couldn’t handle that task. Worse, his tweets were often contradictory, confusing, or simply counterproductive.
Neither will tax reform be won with tweets, even if Trump starts early in the morning and never lets up, carpet-tweeting the nation. To win that battle, he must make compelling speeches, speeches that make a persuasive case and not just assertions. That’s what’s worked for presidents since George Washington’s time.
I have a motive in urging Trump to go tweetless. I want him to succeed, as do most conservatives. He’s embraced the conservative agenda with few exceptions and been hesitant in pushing his purely populist ideas. In all this, tweets can only hurt the cause.
A disorganized White House is a problem, though not always a crippling one. In any case, John Kelly solved it when he became Trump’s chief of staff in July and imposed order on the staff and fired Steve Bannon. I suspect he would love Trump to get out of the tweet business, but I’m told Kelly saw that as the president’s prerogative and chose not to deal with that one. Too bad he didn’t.
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Republican John Adams is carrying a special burden in his race for attorney general of Virginia. He’s running in the only AG election in the country this year. And Republicans are eager to elect another talented conservative and former Supreme Court law clerk, increasing their roster of state attorneys general to 30.
Adams fits the model. A descendent of President John Adams, he’s a first-time candidate, yet is tied with Democratic incumbent Mark Herring. Adams has not only performed impressively in two debates, he’s also matched Herring’s $9 million in fundraising. The election is tomorrow.
In the past, state AG’s won re-election with ease. And their elections, dismissed as unimportant “down ticket” races, were ignored by the media. But the success of Republicans in challenging President Obama’s policies in federal court has elevated the status of AG races.
Adams, a law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas, must overcome several impediments. Virginia has increasingly become a Democratic state. Obama won the state twice and Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump by more than five percentage points in 2016.
Political tradition is also working against Adams. The winner in the governor’s race usually comes from the party that doesn’t hold the White House. That favors Democrat Ralph Northam and his election could influence the attorney general’s race.
Herring, however, is nervous. His second debate with Adams was held in Loudon County, a northern Virginia suburb of Washington. It’s Herring’s home. Nonetheless, he decided the debate should not be televised. And it wasn’t.
Adams and Herring have been cordial opponents, but are quite different in legal philosophy and politics. Herring is a liberal who sees the courts as anything-goes institutions. He claims to be the lawyer of all Virginians, which is nonsense. Adams is a strict constructionist who says he represents the state.
A key issue was Herring’s refusal to defend the state’s law restricting marriage to a man and a woman. Adams said the AG is obligated to defend the state’s action, where he likes them or not.
Herring also took the side of another state’s right-to-work law when it was challenged in court. He explained he thought that law would be struck down, leading to Virginia’s law being invalidated later. So he joined that side, a peculiar excuse if there ever was one.
“That is an unbelievable position for a lawyer with a client to take,” Adams insisted in their debate. As it turned out, Virginia’s law was not affected. But Herring, who wants to run for governor, at least showed organized labor he’s a reliable ally.
What prompted Republicans to put so much effort into the Adams campaign is that six GOP attorneys general are running for higher office in 2018, two for the Senate, four for governor.
Should Adams lose tomorrow, his political career won’t come to an abrupt end. He’s been such an adept and likeable candidate that Republicans are sure to press him to run for another office, maybe as soon as 2018.
