Byron York has an interesting piece Thursday about the Trump team’s bizarre eagerness to get into a fight with John Kasich. You should read the whole thing, but the short version is this: Kasich, either out of pique or self-interest or principle, didn’t want to participate in the convention in his home state. And instead of wooing him or ignoring him, Trump’s campaign decided to antagonize him.
We’ve seen this same dynamic play out over and over again. You saw it from the candidate himself, when, even after Ted Cruz dropped out of the primaries, he kept suggesting that the guy’s father was part of the JFK assassination. You saw it in Trump’s campaign apparatus Wednesday night, when they decided to whip up anti-Cruz sentiment on the floor of the convention instead of just applauding politely and moving quickly past Cruz’s speech. You even see it from Trump’s rank-and-file supporters—go read Phil Klein’s excellent piece where he recounts a chest-to-chest screaming match on the floor between a Trump guy and a Cruz guy.
What’s strange is that in every case, the Trump team seems incapable of understanding either the power dynamic or their self-interest. Trump is the nominee, which means that he holds a great deal of power. But he is not omnipotent. And in each case, the person or organization resistant to him has something he, or his supporters, want: Votes or, in the case of Kasich, access to campaign machinery.
The Trump contingent seems to believe that they have (or should have) the power to compel people to give them what they want. But as the great Jon Voight says in Heat, “It’s a free country, brother.”
Politics requires persuasion. When someone has something that you want, you must persuade them to give it to you. Sometimes this is done in a high-minded way, through reason or discussion or charm. Sometimes it’s accomplished in a low-minded way, through graft or favor trading. Sometimes it’s achieved in a Machiavellian way, by arranging affairs so that both sets of self-interest align.
And sometimes it’s done in a thuggish way, by bullying and browbeating the other side.
Thugishness tends not to be particularly effective in converting non-believers—there’s a reason that the nice Mormon kids who go door-to-door don’t berate people into joining their church. Yet of all the methods of persuasion, Trumpism seems almost entirely, pathologically, limited to this mode.
Why is that?
It could be any number of things. Perhaps it’s a conscious choice because Trump’s own experience suggests that browbeating is the most effective form of persuasion. Or perhaps it’s a function of his character, and he does it reflexively. Neither possibility suggests wonderful things from a Trump presidency.
Then again, it’s possible that Trump defines his self-interest differently than we assume: Maybe he’d rather give up votes than give off the impression that he’s not the toughest guy on the block. Which, again, could make for not-awesome presidential outcomes. (See: Affairs, foreign.)
Whatever the case, if the Trump movement were serious about winning the White House—and not just posturing—then they’d be more interested in converting Republicans who aren’t onboard, rather than fighting with them. Even if it meant being fake-nice and pretending to take seriously the concerns of people they actually despise. Because in politics, you have to do that. A lot.
Because as Ted Cruz showed Wednesday, insulting a guy’s wife and dad is a sub-optimal way of trying to gain his support.
