Political Service Announcement #1: To Beat Trump, Attack Him

Attack Him Again. Then Attack Him Some More.

This is our opponent. Act accordingly. Courtesy Getty Images

Donald Trump, he of the would-be coup, the 91 indictments, and willingness to admit he’d be a dictator on “day one” is going to be the Republican nominee for president, again. Despite all the words, deeds, disasters, and death, the GOP can’t quit him, and his opponents have struggled for years to understand how to beat him. It’s simple, really: Attack him. All day, every day.

Just about four years ago, a slate of earnest Democratic presidential aspirants debated the policies and issues they believed were of crucial importance and interest to the American people. In those hours on stage, they rarely mentioned Donald Trump, as if naming him would cause his sudden appearance like Voldemort (h/t Chris Christie) or the Candyman.

They didn’t understand what they were up against then, and too many members of the pro-democracy coalition still don’t. As I’ve written before, and will continue to write, Trump is not a politician and to treat him as such gives him an incredible advantage. He doesn’t care about your policy or your nicknames.

For too many in the anti-Trump universe, taking him on directly must feel like climbing down in the mud with a monster. It often is, but the fight is there. It’s not that he and his people don’t care about your gentility and your desire to be well thought of in polite circles. They’re counting on it! They know you’re afraid of the catcalls from MAGA. They know that many of you want a life in a post-Trump reality and attacking him vigorously and continuously makes that impossible.

Before I get to how and why it’s necessary to stay in Trump’s face, a bit of #NeverTrump history.

In early May 2020, The Lincoln Project launched an ad, “Mourning in America*” on Fox News in the Washington, DC market. We spent comparative pennies on production and airtime. Trump saw it and went crazy, attacking us as an organization and individually on Twitter. The next day, on the tarmac in front of Air Force One, he called us losers on national television. That day, we moved into Trump’s cranium and have resided there rent free since.

That was the beginning, but not the end. We convinced him to fire his campaign manager, Brad Parscale. After seeing him waddle down a ramp at West Point, we posted a video - #TrumpIsNotWell. At his rally super spreader event in Tulsa, Oklahoma, he spent 20 minutes on stage proving he could, in fact, walk by himself and drink a glass of water one-handed.

Fast forward nearly four years. On Monday night, Trump attacked The Lincoln Project again for an ad outlining he clear and severe cognitive decline. He accused us on his “Truth” social platform that we’d employed artificial intelligence to create the images of him forgetting where he was, who he’s running against, and yet another example of his inability to navigate a ramp all by his lonesome.

Do these tantrums make us happy? Yes. Do they make Democrats happy? Yes. Is that why we attack him the way we do? No. The shorthand for this kind of tactic is ‘trolling’ but that misses the point.

For all his monstrousness, Trump is the most transparent creature to ever run for president or sit in the Oval Office. He tells you, all day every day, what upsets him, what worries him, and what hurts his ‘feelings’ such as they are. There is little positive to being an anthropologist of the worst person in America, but here we are.

Why does Trump lose his mind (again a relative statement) at the attacks I’ve listed (and many more?) Because they do one of two things:

1)    They push all the suspicious buttons in his brain, there are many, typically about the people closest to him. He hates everyone. He trusts no one. The closer you are to him, the more he distrusts you.

2)    The attack pierces the carefully constructed, but incredibly delicate reality distortion bubble Trump has created for himself. When he saw the images of dead Americans and a cratering economy in 2020, he knew he wasn’t up to the task. When he sees images of himself decompensating in public, it sparks his innate knowledge that a) he really is losing it b) he’s mortal, just like everyone else.

The ads have a strategic impact. Confronting him with his age and driving him to deny he’s non compos mentis invokes the Streisand Effect: His inability to control himself further highlights the very thing he’s trying to deflect and deny.

Making sure he sees a commercial on television, and television is THE medium for this, bragging about how he ended Roe v. Wade draws him into a strategic box canyon. He’s never been pro-life (not for one second.) But he’s stuck: He’s wily enough to understand how badly Dobbs has hurt him and Republicans, but he’s too scared of his own base to not celebrate the Court’s decision.

To Make Crystal Clear: There is a direct line from Fox News to the tapioca that passes for Donald Trump’s frontal lobe.

So, dear friends and allies, here’s why you, too, should attack Donald Trump:

It works:

Identify the characteristic, mistake, or gaffe that it’s clear Trump is embarrassed about. Target that in a way that is mocking and cutting. Remember: He says all this stuff out loud! You don’t need to make it up.

It’s cheap:

This method of attacking Trump doesn’t require a lot of time, research, or ad space. As noted above, he says and does all this stuff on camera, so production is cheap. Whatever it is he’s said or done will be found odious by most Americans, so skip the polling, focus groups, and testing. Trump is a friendless, cranky, old, homebody. He doesn’t do anything but sit in the bridal suite at Mar-A-Lago and scream at Fox News. We know where and when to find him.  You don’t need to spend $1 million on broadcast.

It puts enormous strain on his entire operation:

Because in Trump’s mind nothing can be his fault, his ire (post Truthing) is to find the nearest senior staff member and scream at them. And because he is the alpha and omega of his own campaign, legal defense, and public life, his rage sends his entire apparatus into a tailspin. As they’re attempting to right the Bad Ship Donald, keep the pressure up. We hear this from those inside and outside his campaign.

We’ve seen that a lot of groups and individuals are uncomfortable with this tack and worry about what happens when he responds or sends his troll armies out. Fear not. It is precisely as his niece, Mary Trump, has pointed out, he’s gotten this far because, so few people have been willing to take him on. If we’d understood this sooner – in 2015 or 2016, maybe we wouldn’t be here today, but that’s for post-election panel at Harvard to decide.

Here are the stakes:

During a townhall with Sean Hannity earlier this week, Trump admitted he’d be a dictator if he retakes the White House. He was excited by Robert Kagan’s Washington Post op-ed warning of Trump’s tyrannical tendencies. MAGA goon Kash Patel threatened the media on Steve Bannon’s podcast this week. The men likely to occupy leadership posts in a second Trump term are for mass deportation, a system of organized camps, and unleashing the military on anti-Trump demonstrators as reported by Axios today.

As 2024 dawns on us, remind yourself and your organizations what we’re up against. Yes, we must defeat Donald J. Trump 48 weeks from now. He’s just the beginning. As Speaker Mike Johnson told a crowd in Washington on Tuesday that we are “engaged in a battle between worldviews” and “a great struggle for the future of the Republic.” He believes the White Christian nationalists will win.

If you’re not willing to go after the man who will make this dystopian worldview a reality, what are you willing to fight for? This isn’t about whether you like a certain way of campaigning or not. We fight the fight we’re in, not the one we’re used to. Next year is not a referendum, it’s a choice: America or Trump.

*This ad was an homage to the classic Hal Riney spot made for Ronald Reagan’s 1984 reelection campaign. You can watch the origianl below.