Trump to Congresswomen: Go back to your own country!

[_EAllusion]

Funny. Looking around here tells a different story.

A strong majority of the country seems to think the President's actions were bad. More broadly, the President is way more unpopular than someone in his position should be and its helping to drag down his entire party when they should be in the driver's seat right now. If you're just referring to the fact that the President is the President, then you might as well declare anything he does savvy political strategy. If he drowns in a thimble of water, that's savvy political strategy.

I think its easy to confuse political luck with smart strategy. Smart Republican political strategy is making it harder for black people to vote. Saying wildly racist things? Not so smart.

Is it good for Trump for the public top focus on his racism rather than gross corruption? Maybe. Maybe not. Keep in mind that people are capable of knowing about more than one thing at a time. It would be even better if neither were things to focus on. Is it all that harmful for Democrats for "the squad" to be prominent in media coverage? That's dubious.

[_EAllusion]

The fact that Trump is now saying he doesn't approve of his crowd screaming "send her back" pretty much proves the point this was never part of a strategy.

I was pleasantly surprised that he even said this though. I half expected him to say something like, "I'm not sure if I have the power to send her back, but we'll look into it."

Lara Trump was a warm-up act where she was practicing with the crowd a love it or leave it style chant. There's a difference between telling someone to get out and threatening to "send them back" but make no mistake those are both awful sentiments. In the lead up to the send her back chant, Trump was portraying Omar as an Al-Qaeda sympathizer. Notice that part isn't being walked back. This is Trump's team calculating that things went too far this time based on the reaction.

[_Kevin Graham]

And now Omar has received multiple death threats.

But death threats only seem to matter when the victim is a white MAGA hat wearing kid.

[_honorentheos]

Funny. Looking around here tells a different story.

A strong majority of the country seems to think the President's actions were bad. More broadly, the President is way more unpopular than someone in his position should be and its helping to drag down his entire party when they should be in the driver's seat right now. If you're just referring to the fact that the President is the President, then you might as well declare anything he does savvy political strategy. If he drowns in a thimble of water, that's savvy political strategy.

I think its easy to confuse political luck with smart strategy. Smart Republican political strategy is making it harder for black people to vote. Saying wildly racist things? Not so smart.

Is it good for Trump for the public top focus on his racism rather than gross corruption? Maybe. Maybe not. Keep in mind that people are capable of knowing about more than one thing at a time. It would be even better if neither were things to focus on. Is it all that harmful for Democrats for "the squad" to be prominent in media coverage? That's dubious.

I guess I don't see where "People think what Trump said is bad" is somehow excluded from, "Refocusing the public's view of the Democrats onto four freshman congresswomen who aren't running for President and aren't in the Democrat leadership is a better match up for Republicans and their message that the next election could turn America into a socialist wasteland."

I think people aren't really following the point at all. Ironically, that seems to be due to the inability to not have their mental gazed sucked into Trump's navel automatically.

[_Some Schmo]

I guess I don't see where "People think what Trump said is bad" is somehow excluded from, "Refocusing the public's view of the Democrats onto four freshman congresswomen who aren't running for President and aren't in the Democrat leadership is a better match up for Republicans and their message that the next election could turn America into a socialist wasteland."

I think people aren't really following the point at all. Ironically, that seems to be due to the inability to not have their mental gazed sucked into Trump's navel automatically.

It's not a difficult point to understand. It's just dubious, that's all. If you're the type of person freaked out by "The Squad" or the word socialism, you're already a lost cause.

[Guest]

I guess I don't see where "People think what Trump said is bad" is somehow excluded from, "Refocusing the public's view of the Democrats onto four freshman congresswomen who aren't running for President and aren't in the Democrat leadership is a better match up for Republicans and their message that the next election could turn America into a socialist wasteland."

I think people aren't really following the point at all. Ironically, that seems to be due to the inability to not have their mental gazed sucked into Trump's navel automatically.

I think I understand the point you’re making, but I wonder if the idea that Trump has refocused perception of what the Democratic Party ‘is’ on to ‘The Squad’ itself Is more how Republican voters are processing it, as opposed to Democratic and Independent voters. The press, of course loving a good Trump controversy, will jump to cover it like they did with the Covington Catholic kids face-off.

But if this was Trump’s strategy by design as opposed to his usual and typical need to whip up simple minds in rallies, then he has crippled that strategy by attempting to milk Omar’s supposed list of sins almost exclusively. Maybe he had a chance to score a diversion with the Base when working with the smaller group of four in painting a larger group (all Democrats) with the same broad brush, but attempting to single out and turn Omar into a stand-in for the Democratic Party or its eventual Presidential candidate isn’t going to work, and runs a chance of making his own Base look quite literally like something worse than just ‘deplorables’.

[_honorentheos]

More than half of the country views socialism negatively. It's better for Trump to be sitting on a good economy campaigning against a supposed socialist take over of the country than it is for him to be campaigning against an effective co-equal branch of government focused on what they are doing for the average American.

The race issue will be what it will be and certainly motivate people on both sides. But if you are a Republican strategist, you prefer Trump v. Socialism rather that Trump v. Insert Democrat Here.

It's not complicated. It's just easy to get distracted because of the heighten emotionality that Trump brings.

[_honorentheos]

I don't think it was by design. But it was his gut reaction and it pulled him in the direction he intuits is better for him. I don't think words like strategy or tactics have their typical meaning when it comes to Trump.

[_canpakes]

The race issue will be what it will be and certainly motivate people on both sides. But if you are a Republican strategist, you prefer Trump v. Socialism rather that Trump v. Insert Democrat Here.

Yes, but that’s a given. This is going to happen even if the party was composed of nothing other than Biden clones. And one of the current candidates used to be a die-hard conservative: she’ll be painted a socialist all the same.

That being the case, what do you see as the best strategy to disarm that approach, if we are to belief that it can be disarmed?

[_honorentheos]

Go back two weeks ago and review what Democrats were doing then. Review what the messaging was immediately after the tweets.

Democrat leadership is trying to focus on key issues and effective legislating. The dust up with the Squad was resistance to party discipline but the lesson being given was tweets and media saturation don't mean crap if someone doesn't command enough votes to matter, and people need to get things done that can show Congress is working. It was a good direction and they are moving back to it. The debt ceiling negotiations will be interesting tells as to how this last week affected things and attitudes. We will see I guess.