In his Sunday morning tweets, President Trump denounced four female House members known as the Squad: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts. Trump suggested they be sent back to their countries of origin, though all four are American citizens and three were born in the U.S. In response, the House passed a resolution accusing Trump of racism.
What did we learn about the president from this episode? A good bit, I’d say, much of it not entirely new.
Center of attention: That’s what Trump is eager to be at all times, even early on Sundays before he departs the White House to play golf. It’s often hard to know if his efforts are just to get attention and only that, or whether he has something else in mind. In this case, politics was involved. But put that aside for a moment. Trump’s insistence on being front and center most of every day is an obsession. Other presidents, such as Ronald Reagan, felt that being a constant presence in public eroded their stature and the seriousness of their office.
Trump gives no hint of worrying about this. He craves attention. And there’s a strategy, I believe, behind his demand for it. He takes up such a big chunk of public space that other leaders, candidates, and adversaries get far less.
He is an accomplished attention-grabber. Trump has made Twitter his national microphone. He’s weaponized it. His tweets, like his casual comments, are routinely in attack mode, mean-spirited, and controversial (Also clever.) The result: more attention than any president has ever gotten.
Disruption: Trump creates it. He thinks it puts political elites in a tizzy. He’s right about that. Elites become disoriented. His Sunday morning storm caused Washington’s political community, including the permanent establishment and the media, to go berserk. This may have hurt Trump by further alienating soft Republicans and independents who voted for him in 2016 but now have strayed. In May, a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll found that 5% of voters approve of his handling of the economy but disapprove of his “overall job in office.” I think that refers to his lack of presidential demeanor.
But disruption works in Trump’s favor more often than not. The press and Democrats scream about the president’s policies to control illegal immigration and the turmoil at the border. This has prompted Democrats to all but endorse open borders, a policy considerably less popular than Trump’s.
Democratic hostility: It would be an exaggeration to say Trump thrives on this. But he knows how to deal with it. Take the Sunday tweets. Speaker Nancy Pelosi had imposed a measure of unity on House Democrats. Then Trump attacked the four women, who are Pelosi’s leftist antagonists. The effect was to elevate them to the party’s top status. Unity was undermined.
Hatred of Trump by the Democratic “resistance” has benefited him too. By refusing to compromise, Democrats have left Republicans to operate on their own — to pass tax cuts, confirm federal judges, and carry out deregulation.
Republican oversight: Trump is suspicious of congressional Republicans. He expects them to back him automatically. He values loyalty. So he pays attention to how GOP legislators vote and what they say. Only four House Republicans voted for the racism resolution.
The media regards Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the lone black Republican in the Senate, as the key figure on racial issues. In a statement, Scott noted, Democrats are “embroiled in racial controversy. From Kamala Harris attacking Joe Biden on segregationists, to four black and brown women chastising Democratic leadership for attacking women of color, it is clear the Democratic Party has serious issues along these lines. Instead of sharing how the Democratic Party’s far-left, pro-socialist policies … are wrong for the nation, the President interjected with unacceptable personal attacks and racially offensive language.”
When I interviewed Scott, I asked about his friendship with Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, a Democratic presidential candidate and sharp critic of Trump. “If Cory Booker is the nominee, I’m still voting for Trump,” Scott said. He doesn’t believe Trump is a racist.
A final point. I’ve been amazed at Trump’s ability to recover from being pummeled by political opponents and the media. This time, he was tagged as a racist, an unforgiving charge. Yet once again, he appears to have emerged unfazed. It’s as if he’d experienced nothing more than a mild policy disagreement or read an unfavorable editorial.
Make of this trait what you will. My take is that he’s one of a kind.
Fred Barnes, a Washington Examiner senior columnist, was a founder and executive editor of the Weekly Standard.
