In our editorial today, we note that President Trump is riding high — at the apex of his presidency, and if he were a stock, you’d probably be buying.
Part of that stems from his giving the best speech of his life last night.
Don’t get me wrong: It was a genuinely partisan and ideologically charged address. But this was its genius. If you were offended by it, it’s because you were meant to be. Trump and his speechwriters deliberately trolled and upset Democratic partisans to the maximum degree they could without alienating normal people.
They wanted to make Democrats freak out to double the speech’s benefit. The voters, to the extent that they pay attention, saw high-profile Democrats refuse to stand for a Tuskegee Airman or a young black girl who got an educational scholarship. They became enraged at honors given to an advanced-stage cancer patient. In contrast, butter would hardly melt in Trump’s mouth. His only concern (I hope you see the tongue in the cheek here, but this is exactly how he framed it) is to unite the country behind commonsense ideas such as deporting criminals and helping get children out of lousy schools.
Which side do you want to be on?
When I say that this speech worked, here’s the sort of thing I’m referring to:
- Instead of railing against immigrants as he might have in 2015, Trump personalized the issue of sanctuary cities by pointing to specific victims of the policy.
- He personalized his decision to terminate Qassem Soleimani by leading into it with the story of the young son of a soldier whom the terrorist’s campaign had killed.
- He seamlessly transitioned from funding for infant healthcare for babies to ending late-term abortion. This caused an abrupt change in the Democrats’ tone: from applause to stony silence.
- He repeatedly highlighted the accomplishment of black Americans and made further thinly disguised appeals for their votes, following up on his Super Bowl ad.
- And yes, of course: He turned Rush Limbaugh into a relatively sympathetic figure for a general audience — or, at least, he dared to try. It takes some doing for someone who has thrown so many barbs over the years.
The greatest troll of the entire speech came when Melania Trump put the medal around Limbaugh’s neck there and then, on the spot. I was a bit shocked at that myself. Has that ever happened before?
Democrats are right to be furious over that and the entire speech, but their rage is impotent to the point that it’s even funny. And those partisans and pundits who think Trump did poorly are, I fear, confusing its deliberate offenses against their ideological sensibilities for the positive impression it left on a broader audience. Frankly, I believe it was a triumph.
But it all depended on Trump being the beneficiary of circumstance. A speech like that one could never be given by a president suffering through an economic downturn. What made the whole speech work is that Trump could begin it by rattling off, one after another, excellent economic numbers that no one can quibble with. He mildly, but at times explicitly, disparaged his Democratic predecessor for evidently doing such a lousy job before him. This job is a cinch!
It’s as if he pointed straight at the Democrats and asked them: “Hey, you idiots. If you’re right about anything, including and especially about impeachment, then why is everything I do working so well?”
That’s good for Trump, but that’s just one side of the equation. Democrats were supposed to have a voice this week to counter Trump — an opportunity to take him down a peg. And no, I’m not referring to the State of the Union response, a forgettable late-night speech by some obscure politician that no one watches except for the journalists who have to, but the prime-time speech delivered by the winner of the Iowa caucuses.
Monday night was supposed to be the chance to show a future nominee with momentum behind him or her, the energy of the crowd, the inevitability of Trump’s defeat, et cetera. The Democrats’ failure to produce any result on Monday night means that they completely forfeited that opportunity.
This means that the Democrats’ first big moment is past. I find very telling the opening phrases that Holly Otterbein used in her story yesterday about the dismal mood in the Bernie Sanders campaign after the screw-up:
Instead, Sanders and his senior aides found themselves working to reassure demoralized and shaken staffers and volunteers on Tuesday.
Why are they so demoralized about a nominating contest in which Sanders’s principal rival, Joe Biden, was utterly wiped out and humiliated? Because the contest became like the tree that fell in the forest — it’s almost as if it didn’t happen.
Even worse, the failure in Iowa means that a much-needed winnowing of the Democratic field is not happening at a stage when it should happen. If you’re Biden or Elizabeth Warren or Tom Steyer, why on earth should you drop out now and endorse someone else? Because there was no Iowa, there will be zombie candidates who remain alive in states they never should have reached, occupying space on the debate stage, taking votes and momentum away from viable candidates who could, say, stop Sanders or help him by stopping Michael Bloomberg or whatever was supposed to happen.
One lesson is that Democrats should learn to code. The other is that Trump is clearly going to be a lot harder to beat than Democrats assumed, and part of it is their own fault.
