Trump’s Name-calling Now Comes Off As Desperate, Not Intriguing

I generally like Matt Lewis and agree with a lot of what he says. But Lewis, like so many others in the press seem to have this obsession with wanting to see a mud-slinging match between Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis. As I wrote earlier, there is no reason before declaring he will run for president, for DeSantis to respond. Remember how when a shoving match in school would attract a circle of spectator kids hoping for an all-out fight? The chant of “Fight! Fight! Fight!” would begin and eventually, the spectators would get what they wanted.

That’s what’s beginning to take place as the media forms a circle around Trump and DeSantis, whispering, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” It won’t be long before it reaches a crescendo as if the presidential primary race takes place at the Roman Coliseum. “Are you not entertained?!”

According to a report in the New York Times, Trump has called Ron DeSantis, “Meatball Ron” which is an apparent reference to the Florida Governor’s physical appearance (some DeSantis supporters have called it a slur related to DeSantis’s Italian heritage). Trump denied he said it, calling the report “fake news” which only means it is true. His “Ron DeSanctimonious” hasn’t landed the way he hoped, and “Shutdown Ron” went away faster than a fart in a windstorm. Still, people are behaving as though Trump’s nicknames provide him a lane to the presidential nomination. Lewis writes:

“Trump realizes campaigns, especially for president, aren’t about issues—they’re all about personalities, especially for independent voters,” Brad Bannon, a Democratic strategist, told Roll Call. Evan Siegfried, a Republican strategist, concurred, saying, “The bottom line is: Trump’s nicknames stick.”

They stuck — seven to eight years ago.

This is not 2015 or early 2016. The reason Trump’s nicknames (Lyin’ Ted, Crooked Hillary, Low-Energy Jeb, Little Marco) stuck then was it was all new. No one ever saw anything like that before. And while many people acted horrified at the juvenile tactic, it worked because it was new. It was fresh, despite the absurdity of it all. Each time he did it, people waited around for his campaign to collapse (Remember his “I like people who weren’t captured” dig at John McCain?), it only emboldened Trump’s core supporters who went wild that he took on the “establishment” with the gusto that no other candidate did before.

That was then. Now? Trump’s goofy nicknames come off like an 80s glam rock band that tour county fairs, operating under the delusion that not only do the Volvo-driving soccer Moms want to hear their music, but want to see 60-something aging rockers wear spandex pants and open shirts, complete with soft bellies and man-boobs. The only band that can still pull that off is Kiss, and that’s because they’re in on the joke and don’t take themselves seriously.

That Trump has to workshop different nicknames for DeSantis is evidence the exercise has become trite, and one that some, for whatever reason, seem to hope takes off.

Trump sees the polls and while he still leads in some national primary polls, there is no such thing as a national primary. Iowa and New Hampshire have become outliers in Republican primaries in determining GOP primary voter sentiment. The big one is the South Carolina primary and while polling is sparse, one of them shows DeSantis up big over Trump — 19 points.

Trump will probably come up with a lame zinger for Nikki Haley in the next few days as he will for any other Republican that gets into the race and plenty of people will sit around with a tub of popcorn waiting for it to happen. But forget all that for a minute.

For any Republican to make headway vs. Trump, one of them will have to do one thing that will take some guts, and that is to stand there on a debate stage, look right at Trump and say, “You lost.” The 2022 midterm elections should be a giant wake-up call to any Republican looking to get the nomination. Voters don’t want to have anything to do with election denialism. Kari Lake, had she run a normal campaign, focusing on issues important to voters in Arizona, would have won her race agaist Katie Hobbs in a walk. Instead, she hitched her wagon to Trump’s “stolen election” narrative, went out of her way to insult the late John McCain (and supporters) and wound up losing. Now she’s doing her best impersonation of Stacey Abrams, going around the country claiming she won.

Doug Mastriano, Dan Cox, Adam Laxalt, Blake Masters, Don Bolduc, Geoff Diehl all lost statewide races that were winnable or competitive as voters all rejected their talk about 2020. Republican House candidates Joe Kent, John Gibbs and J.R. Majewski all lost races that Trump carried in 2020 because they made the 2020 election the centerpieces of their campaign.

DeSantis (who will likely run), Haley, Mike Pompeo, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, Mike Pence, Glenn Youngkin and anyone else who throws their hat into the ring, cannot dance around the issue. It has to be a direct hit. “You cost Republicans the House in 2018. You lost the presidential election and then you cost Republicans control of the Senate. And then in 2022 your hand-picked candidates cost Republicans control of the Senate and a larger majority in the House. It’s time for someone to run that can win.”

They simply cannot make the case for themselves if they give off a whiff of “the 2020 election was stolen.” If they do, what can they possibly say that makes a case for them to replace Trump as the nominee? For any of them to go along with Trump is to concede they have no business being there, as Trump deserves the opportunity to take back what is rightfully his.

Is it a risk? Sure. There are plenty of “always Trump” voters in primary states who will seethe with anger at anyone who says Trump lost. But so what? Someone like DeSantis can defeat that contingent and, at the same time, create a lane for moderates and independents that want nothing to do with election denialism nonsense anymore and perhaps translate it into a popular vote win for the GOP at the presidential level for the first time in 20 years.

So forget about the stupid nicknames and how candidates will respond to Trump’s insults. If none of his primary competitors has the guts to say “You lost,” then they deserve to lose and Republicans deserve to lose yet another presidential election and remain a minority party until it can come to its senses.