Imagine that you are Donald Trump contemplating the GOP’s strategy for the midterm elections. You know that you are facing a highly motivated blue base. It’s far too late to move to the center to win over centrist voters, and you have no interest in doing so, anyway. Any efforts to suppress blue voters have to be done at the state level, not by you, and the time for that has passed, as well. What do you do?
The plan, obviously, is to motivate your own base. You realize that your tax cuts aren’t selling that well, and that the base is driven by anger and fear–your entire political career has been built around that. And so, the obvious points of emphasis will be:
- Immigration: The animals are invading our country, with the support of the Democrats!
- Impeachment: The Democrats are trying to nullify the results of the election with their witch hunt!
- Judicial appointments: We’ll lose the culture wars to the minorities and gays permanently without more right-wing judges!
Will it work? If I knew the answer to that, I would be living in Las Vegas, not Florida.