What Trump loses when he takes the bait

The timing was especially bad — again for Trump. The president was coming off of his successful Fourth of July celebration. His speech at the Lincoln Memorial was terrific and his patriotic theme made his media critics look even more biased against him than usual.

So it goes, as Trump works his way into reelection form. He has one big task to carry out. It’s not to make his political base feel good. The base is unshakeable. It’s to win over soft Republicans, moderates, and independents who abandoned the GOP during the 2018 midterm election.

Amy Walter, the analyst for the Cook Political Report, has noted the weakening of support of former Obama backers who voted for Trump in 2016. She points to Yair Ghitza of the Democratic-leaning data firm Catalist, who found the jump in the popular vote for Democrats from a 2% lead in 2016 to 7% in 2018 came almost entirely from those who had voted for Trump three years ago.

That’s an alarming sign for Trump’s prospects. And I’m not sure whether Trump understands it. He’s hinted that he does. The July 4 speech is one indication. The fact that his tweeting has decreased a bit is another. But those are weak hints at best.

In contrast, look at what resulted from his pouncing on the British ambassador. It attracted far more attention to Darroch’s actual remarks in his leaked cables, though he hadn’t said anything the American media hasn’t already dwelled upon.

Darroch sounded as if he followed the practice often attributed to British journalists of echoing the American press. It wasn’t surprising that the Washington Post reported triumphantly that his “cables reveal savvy thoughts about Trump.”

The president makes no secret of his reflex to counterpunch. But he didn’t need to assault the ambassador, who wasn’t responsible for the public airing of his cables. And we’ll probably never know the identity of the real culprit: The leaker.

Trump’s problem is he takes the bait regardless. His notion is that by punching back harder than he was hit in the first place, it will keep the person who’s criticized him from doing it again. But it often doesn’t have that effect.

The president is thin-skinned. He takes political barbs personally. And since he’s under constant attack, this keeps him busy fighting back. He doesn’t adhere to Richard Nixon’s advice to not punch down, not to tangle with lesser figures, those lower on the ladder of fame or power.

He made a mistake in tangling with Megan Rapinoe, the star of the American women’s soccer team. Several weeks before the team won the World Cup championship she declared in highly disrespectful language that she wouldn’t go to the White House to be congratulated by the president.

Rapinoe is a hot dog. She is outspoken. She is a lesbian and a political leftie. She is very popular. She is also talented, tough, and very competitive — just the qualities one would want in an American athlete. She was the captain of the U.S. team. Not surprisingly, she was the most valuable layer in the World Cup.

What was in it for Trump in zinging her? Nothing at all. Maybe he learned something from this tiff. After the U.S. victory, he didn’t revive his criticism. He might have praised her publicly for leading the Americans to victory in one of the biggest sports events of the year. But that was a bridge too far.

Two points. Trump’s conduct, particularly his incensed tweets, are off-putting to millions of fragile Republicans and squishy independents. This is indisputable. They deserted Republican candidates in 2018 largely because of him. He can’t win reelection in 2020 unless he lures a big chunk of the turncoats back.

Liberals have noticed he’s not wooing moderates. A piece by Jamelle Bouie in the New York Times was headlined, “Why Isn’t Trump Trying to Win the Center?” Good question. He shouldn’t wait until next July 4 with his answer.

Fred Barnes, a Washington Examiner senior columnist, was a founder and executive editor of the Weekly Standard.