Donald Trump managed to bankrupt three Atlantic City casinos. Separately no less. With the odds stacked in his favor, with Atlantic City bending over backwards to finance and facilitate each casino's success, he managed to bankrupt them on three separate occasions. I'm not quite sure how he pulled that off, but hubris, an overreliance on expensive glitz, and stubbornness all undoubtedly had a role. He did, however, learn after the first bankruptcy that his personal finances shouldn't be baldly on the line with such endeavors. Other people bore the financial brunt of his second and third casino bankruptcies. The man might have failed, but he did learn.
Thirty-five years later, Trump put these lessons to good use both in last week's debate and his public follow-ups to the Biden-Pocalypse fallout. Trump's fans have touted him as "playing 3-D chess" while the opposition has been playing checkers. Perhaps that's true. Or perhaps the chair across from him at the table is more or less empty.
In the week following the Democratic Debate Debacle (henceforth known simply as the "DDD"), Trump did some things that I consider semi-brilliant. Plus he demonstrated a couple of qualities during that "debate" which surprised me.
Debate Discipline
I have watched Trump's 2016 Republican debate debut many times. It was stunning, surprising, and yet 100% Trumpian. He was forceful, obnoxious, effective, and he won over the audience immediately. In last week's DDD, Trump was very, very different. He was, dare I say it, restrained. Disciplined, in fact. Biden struggled, and Trump (in part due to the "debate" rules in place) simply allowed it. He was almost gentle in his immediate responses to Biden's twisting in the wind. Trump could have discussed, focused on, or blathered about Biden's evident cognitive struggles. Instead, Trump more or less stepped back and allowed Biden himself to paint a picture with considerably less than the proverbial thousand mangled words. Trump's strategic reticence surprised me. It almost looked like, felt like, a kind of kid-gloves mercy. Whether it was strategy more than charity, I really don't know. But he let Biden's struggles take and hold center stage. Trump didn't distract from them by trying to frame or amplify them.
Trump took a page from narrative screenwriting. He allowed the characters' words and actions to guide the audience and define the characters. No need for much of a narrator.
Trump's Brilliance -- Three Quick Examples
(1) On July 4th, Trump publicly challenged Biden to a "no-holds-barred" debate with just the two of them on stage. In my mind, this was an absolutely brilliant idea, a strategy that basically check-mated the Biden campaign.
Trump made the offer "anytime, anywhere." The rest of Trump's speech regarding this offer is scathingly brilliant. It puts the Biden campaign in an untenable, pressurized position for the next two months, with this Trump offer/challenge an omnipresent Sword of Trumpian Damocles hanging over them every day until they meet again. It puts a constant day-to-day, hour-to-hour stress on Biden's campaign because the offer hangs there both as a reminder of the first "debate" outcome and as a looming threat for the next. Every press briefing, each Biden walk to a limo, could conceivably be met with the questions, "When will you debate Trump again? Why wait?"
Trump managed the perfect strategic response at the perfect time. It makes every campaign day that Biden doesn't accept Trump's debate invitation a serious and public problem.
(2) While Biden was huddled with family trying to sort out the "debate" debacle, Trump was golfing. A perfect public juxtaposition of health with lack of health. Whether planned or not, it was the best contrast money could buy without spending a cent. A mastery of optics that looked absolutely casual.
(3) Trump then unveiled his new nickname for Kamala Harris, ""Laughin' Kamala." He avoided my somewhat sexist preference, "Cacklin' Kamala." Trump was actually, perhaps superficially, gentle. He hit just the right Goldilocks zone with this new nickname. Not too overtly harsh, but effective. It almost forces Harris to go into a kind of hyper-masculine self-presentation in immediate public events, including any VP debate. Like a zone defense dictating which opponent shoots from where, it takes Harris out of her natural public presentation and comfort zone. She can't win. Her previous propensity to laughing is on tape dozens of times and can be pulled up anytime. If she goes all authoritative in her self-presentation, she appears to be play-acting or simply responding to her new nickname.
Summary -- It's All Trumpster
The last week has been a master class by Trump. He has spontaneously managed the Biden-Pocalypse to full personal advantage. And this is coming from me, who thinks only a moron could bankrupt three casinos.
The other, somewhat hidden, aspect of Trump's actions this past week is that nobody (including me) believes that this has been anything but Trump thinking on his feet. Yeah, maybe some hired sages managed this all, but it seems more likely this was simply a result of Trump winging it like a blue-blood political bloodhound. He instinctively makes all the right moves. And some of those moves are now understated and at least semi-subtle.
The Biden campaign has been checkmated. And we'll never know if they were playing chess, checkers, or simply absent from their seat.
Robert Dietz
July 7, 2024
