The Next 5 Keys to Beating Donald Trump
In a prior story, I offered 5 keys to beating Donald Trump:
1) Attack Trump’s credibility by challenging the perception that he is honest, reliable, and successful, particularly with an ad that I propose.
2) Emphasize the economy and stock market repeatedly and memorably, and offer voters a set of compelling heuristics that allow them to conclude Joe Biden (or the Democratic alternative) is stronger on the economy..
3) Reduce the criticisms of Trump’s rhetoric. It helps Trump.
4) Reduce usage of the terms “racist” or “sexist.” They help Trump.
5) Point to global warming as a national security issue. Offer voters heuristics that allow them to realize it’s now a political issue, not a scientific issue.
In this story, I offer 5 more keys to beating Donald Trump.
6) Fight voter suppression.
Voter suppression in various forms is a significant factor in the lead up to the 2020 election.
Trump has lied about voter fraud, suggesting there were millions of illegal votes cast in 2016.
One analysis documented four illegal votes in 2016. Another analysis found only 31 cases of voter impersonation from 2000 to 2014. Trump’s own attorneys have even asserted in court that there was no fraud in the 2016 election.
But Trump’s allegations about voter fraud serve to justify greater restrictions on voting. 11% of Americans don’t have government-issued photo ID, including up to 25% of black Americans. So, requiring photo ID to vote is more likely to keep black Americans from voting. This is favorable to Trump because only 8% of black voters went for Trump in 2016.
Also in the category of partisan interference with the political process: Russia has a long-standing relationship with Trump (see key #1). In 2016, Russians targeted black Americans on social media to try to discourage them from voting. The Senate Intelligence Committee concluded in a bipartisan report that Russian hackers targeted election systems in all 50 states. They will likely try to do the same in 2020.
Mail-in voting has also become an issue. Voters widely support it, especially because of the coronavirus. But it might narrowly favor Democrats because Democratic voters are more likely to not vote in person under ordinary circumstances and Democratic voters are more concerned about the coronavirus. So, Republican lawmakers have been fighting it.
When Trump talks about voter fraud in order to justify preventing mail-in voting, Biden should point out that Trump’s own attorneys argued in court that voter fraud did not play a part in the 2016 election despite the existence of mail-in voting in numerous states.
Biden should further state that Trump is really trying to prevent mail-in voting because he knows Democrats are more concerned about the coronavirus, so he thinks they will be less likely to vote if they have to vote in person. And that this is an indication that Trump cares more about winning an election than the health of American voters.
7) Emphasize the budget deficit.
The federal budget deficit, in the Trump years, is over $1 trillion.
This carries economic ramifications. There is the possibility that the national debt will have to be monetized, potentially causing inflation. And many economists feel a higher deficit acts as more of a weight on the economy than higher taxes
Democrats have historically been stronger on the budget deficit, though most voters are not aware of that. Since Ronald Reagan was inaugurated in 1981, taxes on the wealthy have typically been lower when a Republican was president. Consequently, while government revenues and government expenses have both grown over time, government revenues have lagged behind government expenses more during Republican administrations.
Essentially, Democrats tax and spend; Republicans borrow and spend.
The national debt tripled during the Ronald Reagan administration. And it doubled during the George W. Bush administration.
Alternatively, under President Bill Clinton, the budget deficit was reduced and a surplus was generated during his last four years. Under President Barack Obama, the budget deficit was reduced by more than half. On Obama’s pace, a surplus probably would have been achieved in five to seven years.
Instead, the budget deficit has ballooned during the Trump administration. This was predicted by The Economist, which, in 2016, called Trump’s economic plan “absurd” and projected the national debt would shoot to over 100% of GDP during his administration.
Despite all that, voters surveyed preferred Trump over Clinton 53% to 44% when it came to handling the federal budget deficit.
Why? Because Republicans, especially Marco Rubio, hammered Obama during the 2016 Republican presidential primary debates on the fact that the national debt had grown during the Obama administration. Of course, this is grossly misleading. The national debt grew during the Obama administration because there was a budget deficit. But during the Obama administration, the budget deficit dropped by more than half.
An analogy: Say that Obama was a personal trainer who started working with a 600-pound man, and the man subsequently dropped to 275 pounds. Rubio was criticizing Obama because the man was fat the whole time — even though he’d lost 325 pounds. Now, under Trump, the man is up to 700 pounds. And some Republicans publicly suggest the false equivalence that both Democratic and Republican administrations are equally bad on the budget deficit.
But the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016 did not call attention to Obama’s success on the budget deficit. Nor did it criticize Trump on the impact he was projected to have on the budget deficit.
To beat Trump in 2020, refer to Democrats’ prior success in reducing the budget deficit and to the wild increases in the budget deficit during the Trump administration compared to the decreases during the Obama administration.
This works especially for Joe Biden. He can say something during the debates like: “You got $413 million from your father, according to The New York Times. And you still had to keep getting bailed out over and over by him. And you still declared for bankruptcy on six businesses. You’re a sham businessman. And now you’re doing to our country what you did to your businesses. After we (Barack and I) cut the budget deficit from over $1 trillion when we took over to less than half of that when we left office, you’ve ballooned it to back over $1 trillion. That’s money we’re going to have to pay back. We don’t have a rich father to bail us out.”
Trump may say in response that the national debt nearly doubled during the Obama administration.
Biden’s response?
“The national debt grew slower and slower throughout our administration because we worked the budget deficit down. We were working toward a surplus, and then you came in and messed it up again.”
Trump might also respond by saying the budget deficit is lower under Democrats because taxes are higher.
In that case, the appropriate response would be to emphasize that taxes have been higher mainly on the wealthy.
And that the economy performed better in our last three years compared to your first three years — even before the coronavirus —because the economy does better when the poor and middle class have greater consumer confidence and economic security. Which is a big part of why tax revenue has been higher.
8) Don’t demonize the wealthy.
A couple of Democratic candidates, particularly Bernie Sanders, have recently railed against “the rich,” “the super rich,” and “the billionaires.” This is not effective messaging for several reasons.
It is true that most swing voters are not rich and that taxing the very wealthy may be within their economic self-interest. However, the self-interest influence upon voting is rather weak.
Self-interest influence upon voting has been argued to be strong in a recent book by Weeden and Kurzban.
But, as is customary in political science, their analysis makes no effort to separate self-interest influence from personal experience influence.
People within a certain demographic often have a self-interest to have rights and benefits conferred to that demographic. However, as I have argued, they also have personal experience with that demographic. The influence of personal experience with a demographic has been shown to exert a strong influence in favor of conferring rights to that demographic, even if that person is no longer in that demographic or never was (that is, even if self-interest is not applicable).
Despite this, self-interest is often found to be weak.
Moreover, the act of voting itself is seldom in a voter’s self-interest.
It typically involves spending several hours traveling to, and from, and waiting on line at, a voting booth to vote in elections that are almost never decided by a single vote. (An exception might be an example of reciprocity: People go to the booth with a like-minded bloc, all the members of which are only voting if everyone else does.)
If the act of going to the voting booth is not in a voter’s self-interest, how can we expect a voter to act in his or her self-interest once at the booth?
Voters are more motivated by a sense of justice. And many voters (especially, swing voters) are not bitter toward the wealthy because it is not clear to them that they did anything wrong by becoming wealthy. In fact, many voters are admiring of the wealthy.
Additionally, even for voters motivated by self-interest, many are actually expecting to be wealthy in the future.
It is fine to say briefly that you are raising taxes on the wealthy to the Obama-era rate (or higher) and to invoke the terms “wealthy” or “highest income” for that purpose. They are, after all, more capable of paying taxes. But don’t rail on them over and over because that does not appeal to the sense of justice of many voters.
Similarly, do not make this a campaign of the poor versus the rich. Don’t argue that Trump only benefits the wealthy. Instead, argue that you will be better for the economy and the stock market (see key #2) and that that will be favorable to rich and poor alike. The historical record offers a Democratic candidate the opportunity to argue that with credibility.
9) Keep an underdog’s mentality.
Trump is the incumbent. Incumbents have won every U.S. presidential election since 1992.
Why?
Swing voters typically do not like to admit they were wrong when they voted for the candidate the first time. (Voters then blame the incumbent’s party for their problems when that incumbent’s eight years are up and they move on to the candidate of the other party.)
This is an important insight to consider because some campaigns are somewhat scared about taking a negative tone. They have worked decades to move up in the political world, and they want to make sure they don’t make the big mistake and jeopardize their careers.
But that is the mistake.
They wind up running pointless, innocuous advertisements like the one showing Donald Trump on The David Letterman Show talking about having his ties produced in China or the one about Hillary Clinton’s mother.
It is especially a mistake in this case: You are the underdog.
If you have something to say about Donald Trump that is compelling and useful to voters, say it (through your candidate or in advertisements) even if it runs the risk of sounding negative.
Former Dallas Cowboys head coach Jimmy Johnson said it best: “When you go after a big gorilla, you don’t ever hit him lightly. You hit him with everything you’ve got.”
Part of this is not being afraid to communicate with the American public. If there’s something you feel you should communicate, do so regardless of whether or not it sounds negative.
For a recent example, Hillary Clinton wanted to go at Bernie Sanders during the 2016 Democratic primary but she felt she (or rather her campaign) waited too long to go at him directly. Consequently, she was unsuccessful in states early in the primary season.
10) Be frugal early.
The Clinton campaign (2016) rolled out an aggressive TV advertising campaign immediately after a very successful Democratic National Convention that had already moved poll numbers in their favor.
The average voter has a very unsophisticated view of politics and political issues. Exceptions aside, voters are generally too busy with their families, jobs, and hobbies to analyze political issues. Not only do most voters rely on heuristics but they also have short memories when it comes to politics. When they go to the voting booth in November, they are not thinking about something they saw in the Spring and Summer unless they are reminded in October or November.
Therefore, once you have defeated all primary challengers, be frugal with advertising spending in the early months against Donald Trump. Be prepared to spend the heaviest in the handful of weeks leading up to the election.
A rejoinder is that spending on campaign ads during the Spring and Summer might generate a lead. Donors might then be more likely to fund the campaign, since donors prefer campaigns they think are more likely to win.
However, I believe thinking this way is a trap. The presidential campaign is likely to be close throughout no matter what because, regardless of advertisements, both the Democratic candidate and Trump will receive a lot of publicity and many opportunities to make a case before millions of people. But having enough capital at the end of the race allows the campaign the opportunity to make a surge during the weeks when the election will be won.
$1 spent in October and November is worth many more spent in the Summer.
In sum:
Fight voter suppression.
Let voters know that Trump is against mail-in voting because he thinks Democrats are more concerned about the coronavirus and, because of that, are less likely to vote if they have to vote in person; consequently, it shows that Trump cares more about the election than the safety of the American public.
Let voters know (preferably once every debate, as well as during speeches) that, since the Reagan administration (including Obama), the budget deficit has dropped under Democrats and increased under Republicans.
Don’t demonize the wealthy.
Make the point that Democratic economic plans are better for not just the poor, but the middle class and wealthy too.
Don’t be afraid to put negative arguments in front of the American public.
And keep capital for the last couple months, when the election will be won.
