“What’s you prediction for the fight?”
“Prediction?”
“Yes, prediction.”
This… this is going to be bad. However much you think you hate politics now, I promise you that by November you will feel exponentially worse.
The 2016 presidential campaign will not be a “hopey changey” election. Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump pits two historically unpopular candidates, each well-versed in the dark arts of negative politics, in an all-out race to the bottom. It is the political equivalent of a Cactus Jack-Terry Funk Deathmatch: no ropes, barbed wire, C4 explosives, and after ten minutes, the ring will explode! (Spoiler alert that should surprise no one: that video is extraordinarily bloody and violent. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.)
The goal for each candidate is quite clear. Clinton inspires little enthusiasm among the young optimists who helped sweep Obama into office, most of whom are currently “Feeling the Bern” and think she’s a corporate shill. She’s not particularly well-liked by independents either, and she has a catastrophic approval rating among men. Overall, her disapproval rating, which sits in the mid-50s, would be an all-time low among presidential contenders… except that her opponent’s is even worse.
Hillary has one simple mission – scare the bejeezus out of voters with the prospect of a Trump presidency. Make sure that every minority and female voter sees Trump as a threat to their very existence if they don’t show up on Election Day. Terrify swing voters into thinking that giving The Donald the keys to the White House and the nuclear football will end the country as we know it, and possibly the world. Drive home the idea that he is intellectually, morally, and temperamentally unsuited to be Commander in Chief. Then stand there as the experienced, competent alternative who maybe won’t send a thrill up your leg, but also won’t fundamentally disrupt the status quo or endanger planet Earth.
For Trump, whose unfavorable numbers sit in the 60s and who trails significantly in most polls to this point, the path to victory involves dragging Clinton down into the gutter with him and (metaphorically, of course) pummeling her to death. It is a task for which he is uniquely well-suited.
Trump has ridden a wave of anti-Washington resentment, paired with overwhelming assaults on opponents, to upend the establishment and take the Republican nomination by brute force. Now he’s set to unload the entirety of artillery on Clinton for six full months. He can be expected to launch these attacks with the glee of Buddy the Elf pressing elevator buttons.
The first front in Trump’s battle will be to put the stink of Washington on Hillary and stoke voters’ anger with politicians. This will not be hard. Hillary has been a fixture in national politics for 30 years, and can be tarred with basically any unpopular policy decision in that time. She’s also deeply entrenched with major donors, political operatives, and lobbyists. This is an angle that Bernie Sanders has been able to demagogue about to great effect in the primaries, and Trump has been transparent in saying that he will co-opt the attacks in the general. He already brands Clinton as “Corrupt Hillary” in every press release, statement, and tweet.
The other battlefront for Trump will be to upend Clinton’s narrative of being the safe, competent pick. This is where the election will turn darkest. Trump will attempt to humiliate and obliterate Hillary at a personal level. He’ll look to consolidate millions of Republicans by reminding them why they have feared a Hillary presidency since the 1990s, and he’ll try to make her such a disgusting choice to the newer and softer voters of the Obama coalition that they just stay home in November.
There is no shortage of material on the Clintons in this arena. Rumors about the couple have swirled on the Internet for a generation, and in private moments most anyone who has crossed their paths will quietly whisper to you about one potential scandal or another.
Most journalists and politicians are reluctant to chase these stories, but not Trump. One of the qualities of his unique political genius and success is that he is utterly unbound by convention or shame. On Ted Cruz’ last day on the campaign trail, Trump casually threw out the possibility that the Senator’s father had helped conspire to assassinate JFK. He didn’t need to do it, but he could. So he did.
Benghazi. The private e-mail server. Funding for the Clinton Foundation. Vince Foster’s death. Juanita Broaddrick’s rape allegations. Jeffrey Epstein’s sex island. Ron Burkle and “Air F**k One.” The list will go on and on and on. No stone will go unturned, no missile unlaunched. Trump will throw everything at the wall to see what sticks, and when something does, he will latch onto it with pitbull-like ferocity.
Launching these fusillades suits Trump’s instincts to always go for the jugular, but it also serves a practical purpose. If voter turnout looks like it did for the Obama elections in 2008 or 2012, Trump will lose. But if he can muck up the system and turn voters off from participating at all, the electorate will look more like a midterm Congressional election. That plays very much to his favor, as Republicans have dominated these elections in recent years. Making Hillary an unpalatable choice is absolutely critical to his campaign’s success.
Clinton contends that she will not spend her campaign responding to these sorts of attacks, and will instead focus on her policy priorities. But that assertion is naïve. By invoking the stories, Trump will give license to the media to begin discussing them openly. Hillary will be asked about them constantly. There will be investigations and exposes and fact checks. Trump will constantly be lighting fires and making Clinton put them out. Nothing will go away.
Hillary’s only option then will be to try and shift the narrative and launch her own barrage of attacks right back at him, for which there is comparable fodder – divorces, shady business deals, mob ties, etc. This will create a vicious downward spiral of mutually-assured destruction.
And that’s how we begin our summer. Two widely unpopular candidates looking to become Leader of the Free World by making their opponent look unbalanced, unlikable, and unfit for office. This is what you have to look forward to. These are your only choices. Good luck, America.
lousypundit 