Trump Fatigue…and Trump Fatigued

A recent Washington Post lead story featured the headline, “Trump Aims to Drag Down Harris as He Scrambles to Keep Up in Tight Race.”  Underneath, it read, “The Republican nominee’s advisers and allies are clear-eyed about the unlikelihood of improving his standing. That leaves one option: damaging hers.”

The article went on to detail the campaign’s intention of “pummeling Harris with attack ads,” so that “neither one of them is going to be liked at the end of this race.”  Needless to say, the Trump advisors who proclaimed this strategy did so anonymously.

The piece ran on Labor Day, which seems ironic since Trump himself has recently demonstrated either an unwillingness or an inability to invest the degree of Labor necessary to win a highly competitive election, which might also be the only way he can stay out of jail.  Rather than be “seen daily,” as his spokesmen promised weeks ago, Trump’s approach to winning the White House has been languid at best.  He is taking virtually the entire Labor Day week off, supposedly to prepare for the debate. This is highly improbable. Not only does he lack the attention span for such a rigorous undertaking, but he is unlikely to overcome his addictions to television and social media for any significant stretch of that time.

When Trump has appeared, there seems to be something missing—the fire, the utter joy of tossing off crude, abusive insults, even the sense that he cares as much about winning as he displayed when he ran against Joe Biden.  (The 2016 election doesn’t count because he was so convinced he was going to lose that on election night he sat stunned when he realized he did not.)

Trump’s lack of campaign vigor has not gone unnoticed.  His spokesmen, especially Steven Cheung, who quite appropriately came to Trump from a stint as a publicist for UFC, are constantly trying to convince supporters and the press that Trump is as amped up as ever and just-you-wait until he really gets going.  The Harris people have a different explanation—Trump cannot compete forcefully because he is now too old and too cognitively impaired to mount a robust campaign.  He would, they contend with some accuracy, rather be playing golf.  (It is impossible to overestimate the glee in the Harris camp for expropriating the very argument that Trump was using to destroy Biden.)

But the lack of energy with which Trump is hurling calumny is not his only problem.  Not only does he seem tired—his rhetoric does as well.  It is not by accident that after more than a month, he and his campaign have been unable to reverse, or even dent, Harris’s meteoric rise in the polls.

When, for example, has Trump been unable to come up with a degrading nickname that stuck?  “Sleepy Joe,” “Crooked Hillary, and “Little Marco,” were all gobbled up by the press and often evoked embarrassed chuckles from otherwise serious observers.  Like it or not, “Pocahontas,” helped do Elizabeth Warren in. 

But Harris?  Nothing.  He’s tried “Laffin’ Kamala,” “Kambala,” recycled “Crazy” and “Lyin’,” and finally, retreating to alliteration, settled on “Comrade Kamala,” which has, to say the least, landed with a resounding thud.

Nor have his attempts to paint her as the “Border Czar,” or the most liberal candidate in history gotten any more traction than his attempt to portray himself as the person who did more for Black Americans than any president since Lincoln.  (Or was it more than Lincoln?  Tough to remember.)

After eight years of finding a way to become the lead story in virtually every media outlet any time he so desired, Trump is encountering enormous difficulty pushing his way past Harris.  When he does grab the headlines, as with his interview at the National Association of Black Journalists conference, it is often with disastrous results.  Even worse, oftentimes his own running mate gets more airtime or ink than he does, and JD Vance, lacking the same non-stick coating, has hardly made Trump’s candidacy more compelling. 

Although this is difficult to quantify, it seems a distinct possibility that Trump has become so rote, so repetitive, so predictable—and so dull—that he is evoking yawns rather than the idolatry or outrage he so fervently craves.   

The import of Trump Fatigue goes far beyond schadenfreude, although there is no denying how satisfying it is watching him flail and flounder.  Poll watchers insist the race is still a toss-up, and that Harris’s momentum has stalled, her bump coming pre- rather than post-convention.  While this may be true, it is also apparent that Harris’s rise occurred while Trump’s numbers held steady, an indication that the hard ceiling under which Trump has been forced to navigate is still unbroken. 

Since Trump failed to exceed 47% in either election, this upper limit matters because, as the Post article implies, Trump is unlikely to improve on his share of the vote. Harris, on the other hand, appears to have significant room for growth.  (Jill Stein is once again on the ballot, as is Cornel West, but, despite foreboding on the left, both seem afterthoughts this time around.)

Although the swing states were decided by mere tens of thousands of votes, Trump lost them all in 2020, except for North Carolina.  To win these, he must not only hold on to his own voters and, as he is unlikely to peel off many of Harris’s, he needs to convince them to stay home. 

If, however, Trump is unable to alter what has become, as Harris put it, “the same old tired playbook,” the voters more likely to stay home will be his. 

Policy is important, of course, but to a significant degree, this election is going to turn on who voters would rather look at for the next four years.  Assuming Harris does not self-destruct, unless he can summon up a good deal more energy and some better gag lines, it is not going to be Donald Trump.