Donald Trump’s campaign is, fittingly, really unusual. No one has ever run a presidential campaign like this. But hey, it’s working – or, at least, I hope it’s working. The polls say it is. The Trump campaign is something we’ve never seen before. First, it’s Trump, and that’s sufficient right there. Anything involving Trump is going to be different. But it’s also an ex-president going for a Grover and seeking to win a non-contiguous term for the first time since Teddy Roosevelt tried to over a century ago. And it’s also a campaign where the incumbent is senile and where Democrats are trying to put the Republican in prison for the crime of…well, there is no crime, and the legal aspects of these sham cases are beside the point. Weird times call for a weird campaign, and this one is really weird – but not necessarily in a bad way.
Trump’s fundraising is unusual. He’s not going to rake in the dough Biden will, as rich people now tend to be Democrats. The remaining big GOP donors tended to go for other people in the primaries. Republican big-money donors are almost always soft, so Nikki got a bunch of their cash – whatever happened to her, anyway? They are coming back now because there is nowhere else to go, and because Trump is making it clear they face a stark choice – him or the commies. He told oil types to give him a billion because Biden would drive them out of business, and the Democrats plotzed. Doesn’t the Bad Orange Man know that quid pro quos are supposed to be kept secret?
He’s also getting a lot of his cash from regular folks, the small-money donors. You all recall that my Mom passed away last year and my Dad the year before – thanks for the support, BTW. The only upside to that has been that neither one had to see the disgrace of this country under Biden. Anyway, I still maintain their email account and monitor it occasionally, which worked out when an incoming email led me to a stock account I did not know of. But enough of my estate clean-up hints (I could write a book) – relevant to our discussion about the 2024 election is what I find in that account whenever I check it.
Their account gets about six emails a day from the Trump campaign. Straight up dunning for cash. MAGA Hat offers. Invitations to take fake polls (“We need to know what YOU think about inflation, crime, and perverts in schools!”). Petitions (“Sign this petition to tell Joe Biden that you love America!”). Hey, want to enter to win a dinner with The Man himself at Mar-a-Lago? And there are passive aggressive appeals for them to respond – Donald Trump is disappointed because they won’t send him a check! The Republicans want the dead to pay; the Democrats want the dead to vote.
That’s fine, though. In an information-saturated environment, you need to be repetitive yet redundant to help your message break through. I get the messages too in the form of texts. Don Jr. is apparently very interested in whether I will step up to help the President win. It’s tiresome but necessary. The campaign needs money, and if saving America means I have to hit the “Mark All As Read” button, I can live with that.
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But this is not a money campaign in the way Biden’s needs to be. The Dems need ad money to motivate their base. They rightly fear that key Democrat constituencies, like black men and Hispanics, are not going to come out to vote in the numbers they need. Expensive ads, which will explain how Trump = (Hitler x The Klan)2, are their best shot in artificially juicing the voting numbers, just like Biden’s best shot for juicing himself at the debates is Adderall. Or maybe cocaine – lucky Joe has an in-house stimulant expert.
Trump does not need TV/radio/interweb ads to the same extent. His base is not just committed to voting but is actively chomping at the bit. Where Biden is trying to hold together his fraying coalition and having to sacrifice some factions for others – Michigan Muslims > Jewish voters in his handlers’ minds – Trump is out there expanding his reach into blue territory. He’s reaching out to the Jewish voters appalled at Biden’s footsie with Hamas. He’s reaching out to black men who feel they’ve also been mistreated by law enforcement and who remember how well they did under Trump. The same with working-class Hispanics – those already here want a return to 2019’s economy and have zero use for millions of Third World peasants being imported to compete for jobs and suppress wages.
Trump is back to doing rallies, which the networks refuse to cover other than to bicker about crowd size. The regime media will not have him on its shows, as it did constantly in 2016. Most social media still bans Trump, and for his part, he is sticking with Truth Social instead of taking advantage of Twitter. He is stuck in court most of each week and subject to an unconstitutional gag order. The result is that there is a lot less Trump out there, and absence makes the heart grow fonder.
Remember, there are two kinds of people who do not vote for Trump – dedicated Democrats and moderate people appalled by his Trumpy vibe. Those are the mean tweets people. They like the no-war and economic boom parts, but his tweets are so mean! The result of the elite’s campaign to deplatform and silence the guy about half of America wants to be president again is to prevent Trump from alienating these swing voters. Without constant reminders of why they disliked him, what’s left are accurate memories of good times right up until COVID and the post-election nonsense. You will notice that Trump, when he does speak, steers away from his vaccine/pandemic record and downplays talking about the stolen 2020 election stuff. It’s now all about Biden and how he sucks. And everyone agrees with him that Biden sucks.
Then there is the debate thing. Biden’s handlers do not want him debating (The only thing Biden himself is interested in debating is “Matlock” versus “Murder, She Wrote”) but they know he has to at least pretend to want to debate. His challenge to Trump for two debates under ludicrously unfavorable conditions was clearly made in cahoots with CNN, which just happened to be ready to offer to host the first one in June. It was also clearly a bluff. The idea was for Trump to reject it – which he would have had every right to do, as the rules pretty much required him to be loaded up with handicaps like Harrison Bergeron.
But Trump did what you do when you find yourself in the kill zone of an ambush – he charged. He called their bluff and accepted. He’s showing up. It is unclear whether it is a genius move or a big mistake, but it certainly is a Trump move. This is a man who has never taken counsel of his fears and is not starting now. But Biden does, and mark my words – he will refuse to attend because “It is undignified and inappropriate for the President to share a stage with a convicted felon.”
Oh yes, Trump will almost certainly be convicted in the New York kangaroo court. There is a small chance one or two patriots will refuse to participate in this travesty and hang the jury, but do not count on it. The fix is in, and the rigging has been rug.
But Trump will not bear the title “Convicted Felon” with shame. Trump will wear his conviction like a medal. He was so terrifying to the garbage elite that they had to drop their masks and stop pretending that they had honor and deserved respect in order to manufacture a conviction against a political opponent the American people preferred to the senile zombie who represents their best and brightest. Who else would have the audacity to run on the fact he had been convicted of crimes besides Donald Trump? Mitt Romney wilted under the mere reprimand of Candy Crowley.
Yes, this is the weirdest campaign ever – and it may just lead to the greatest comeback ever.
Follow Kurt on Twitter @KurtSchlichter. Get the newest volume in the Kelly Turnbull People’s Republic series of conservative action novels set in America after a notional national divorce, the bestselling Amazon #1 Military Thriller, Overlord! And get his new novel about terrorism in America, The Attack!
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