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DonViejo

(60,536 posts)
Tue Nov 6, 2018, 09:03 AM Nov 2018

Will Trump shatter his own mystique?


Most presidents face a midterm thumping. But rarely do they make it so much about themselves.

By JOHN F. HARRIS and ELIANA JOHNSON November 06, 2018

ne constant of Donald Trump’s ascent to the presidency and his two years in power is how behavior that would be not just risky but downright stupid for any normal politician ends up working smartly for him.

This is the essence of the Trump Mystique—a three-year record in which he regularly demonstrated that many of the normal precedents, patterns and truisms of American politics simply do not apply to him. This mystique—Is it real or illusion? Is his patented sorcery still working?—is among the big questions being tested in Tuesday’s elections. Trump’s own decisions over the past month have put the issue—whether Trump has defied political gravity or merely delayed its impact—in even sharper relief than it would have been anyway.

It would be smart, viewed through a conventional prism, for a president who has never commanded majority support to try to float above the midterms and allow politicians of his own party to keep their elections locally focused. It seems stupid to unite and energize the opposition in their loathing by insisting that congressional elections are a national referendum on himself.

It would be smart, if playing by normal rules, for a leader presiding over the best employment numbers in decades to make an economic argument his main push against the headwind that the incumbent president’s party historically faces in midterm elections. It seems stupid to reduce this to secondary status in favor of picking scabs over immigration and societal violence in the days before voting.

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https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/11/06/trump-2018-elections-mystique-222220
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Will Trump shatter his own mystique? (Original Post) DonViejo Nov 2018 OP
Elvis was quoted as saying, in the mid 50's, empedocles Nov 2018 #1
Con men are always in a race against time. Tommy_Carcetti Nov 2018 #2
Also, the amount of damage they do as they fall 2naSalit Nov 2018 #3

empedocles

(15,751 posts)
1. Elvis was quoted as saying, in the mid 50's,
Tue Nov 6, 2018, 09:16 AM
Nov 2018

about his popularity with fans, [best as I remember], 'It's not really me that they like so much, its what they need, then they'll like somebody else', [they need].

Crappy George 'nigra' Wallace had no great 'mystique'. Wallace was just saying on national tv what his fans desperately wanted to hear, as they felt embattled and disrespected in 1968. Similar is the trump core following - imnsho.

Tommy_Carcetti

(43,080 posts)
2. Con men are always in a race against time.
Tue Nov 6, 2018, 09:18 AM
Nov 2018

All cons eventually fail spectacularly. It’s only a matter of how much damage they incur before they fail that’s important.

2naSalit

(86,047 posts)
3. Also, the amount of damage they do as they fall
Tue Nov 6, 2018, 09:38 AM
Nov 2018

grabbing at everything they can catch on to and take down with them as the freefall accelerates.

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