How The GOP Failed With Trump

I could write a book on how the GOP has failed. Peevish irrelevant policies, intolerance, outsiders to American culture and American ideas, too cowardly, embracing extremism, reliance on talk radio and think tanks, etc. But today, I'm going to talk about one thing specifically. The massive attack on Trump by Clinton highlights just how poorly the regular GOP handles politics. What do I mean? This...

I have no idea if Trump will pull this election out or not. There are a lot of indications that he might. But there are just as many which suggest that he won't. That's not my point though. For my point, let us assume that the Democratic attacks are working. I think it's hard to claim they aren't. If Clinton wasn't a cross between Al Capone and a Sloth, the Democrats would be solidly ahead and not even looking back. How have they done this? Basically, they've:

1. Angered women at Trump;
2. Angered blacks at Trump;
3. Triggered the cowardice/surrender circuit in conservatives; and
4. Used their power to warp the culture to create a groupthink/herd mentality that demonizes Trump... someone the herd liked before.

So here's my question: if all this information was out there about Trump before, why couldn't someone like Rubio or Kasich or Cruz do this to Trump before? Indeed, their inability to crush him with this stuff before support solidified speaks volumes.

So why couldn't they? There are a couple reasons that come to mind and I suspect it was a combination of each:

1. They never thought to do it;
2. They didn't have very good opposition research;
3. They didn't know what to do with what they had; and
4. They lacked an echo chamber outside of a tiny circle of conservative bloggers to help them.

Number one is the very problem which created Trump. The GOP does not know how to fight. They don't have the instinct. They are still fighting by Marquess of Queensbury Rules in a Yo Mama Age. That's known as bringing a sternly worded letter to a gun fight. It is this inability/distaste for actually taking the gloves off and really fighting the enemy which has frustrated so many people that they turned to Trump because he seems to fight. This problem more than any other let Trump win the nomination.

Number two is the consultant problem. Over and over, the GOP hires the same "experts." These people apparently can't even be bothered to run an internet search. They have no idea how to put out feelers, how to float trial balloons or how to gauge the public. This is nothing new either. Did you know that the strongest attacks on Obama all came from the Clintons? They were just adopted by the right. The GOP needs to replace, en mass its advertising and media people. There are many professional organizations who do this sort of thing consistently for companies and organizations. Use them. Using them might have helped cut Trump off at the knees and could do a better job defending him now.

Number three is a problem of personnel. The Democrats love lawyers. Lawyers excel at politics. Trial lawyers in particular learn to argue anything on the fly. They can spin anything in any direction without needing to stop and think about it. They know when to change topics. And they never make idiotic statements that are easy to lampoon. The GOP likes doctors, who are trained to give advice sternly, businessmen, who learn to do corporate jumble speak to put you to sleep, and preacher types who speak only in hyperbole to true believers. None of these people understands spin, nor do they even seem to realize that the Democrats will spin the things they see. This is why so many GOP type suffer from foot in mouth disease and why they never sound particularly convincing. People who get that politics isn't about frank discussions but is about selling ideas and images could have captured the public's imagination long before they turned to Trump.

Finally, number four is the result of the conservative disdain for anything media -- the press, Hollywood, publishing, etc. That disdain allows the Democrats to amplify their attacks and forces the GOP to argue uphill. It also takes away a huge consequence-free test chamber to try out attacks. The idea that Trump is on cocaine, for example, was spearheaded by Hollywood.

Like I said, whether or not Trump wins isn't the issue to me. The issue to me is that the GOP couldn't have done to Trump what the Democrats are doing and that is the real problem here.

Thoughts?

Thoughts on the debate?