GOP Meets Limits to Donald Trump’s Victimhood Appeal

Conventional wisdom among Democrats holds that President Joe Biden is being victimized by the mainstream media. 

Republicans—for whom disdain for the media is practically an article of faith—may be surprised to hear Democrats complain about “press coverage that unduly reflects GOP frames.” 

And yet, as many Democrats try to puzzle out why the incumbent is locked, even slightly behind, in a tight race with former President Donald Trump, many come back to the idea of “false equivalency” in coverage of the two presumptive nominees. In this telling, it is not that Biden’s age isn’t an issue, but that the news media gives equal weight to Biden’s infirmity and Trump’s misconduct. 

It is, of course, an easy climb from that not entirely unreasonable, if academic, assertion to one that regards such coverage as the principal reason voters are uncomfortable with having a sometimes doty 81-year-old seeking another four years in office. This position compounds the problem of Biden’s age by inviting Democrats to underestimate their candidate’s real liabilities.

Republicans, meanwhile, are suffering from the inverse delusion.

As the consequences of Trump’s many legal difficulties start to come down on the former president’s head, Republicans have a long-rehearsed answer: It actually helps him with voters.

Being charged with crimes helps him with black voters who understand the idea of a two-tiered justice system. It helps him with fed-up independents who see him being attacked by elites. It helps him because, in an inverted embrace of the same Democratic notions about Biden coverage, it gets Trump more airtime.

As with the blue team’s complaints about equivalency, these claims are not entirely meritless. There’s hardly a better way to reestablish a former president’s brand as a disruptive outsider than to have him play the role of the system’s victim. Like a banned book, Trump, a retread and party boss, gets an advantage from seeming like a transgressive figure.

Where that was particularly true was … among Republican voters. The criminal and civil charges against Trump did wonders for reuniting the majority of the GOP behind their former nominee. The 2024 Republican primary campaign wasn’t so much between Trump and his inter-party rivals, but between Trump and his many enemies, chiefly Biden. Even many Republican voters who would have preferred a change in leadership didn’t want to abandon Trump as he was fighting to stay out of jail.

But here’s where the problems come in. Republicans are now applying their self-talk to the broader electorate, imagining that the arguments that were persuasive to millions of two-time Trump voters apply to those swing voters who defected in 2020 and many more who saw January 6, 2021, as an unforgivable offense.

Trump’s big problem right now is that he can’t afford to pay his legal bills, an interesting predicament for a fellow whose claim to fame is being a billionaire. Trump, of course, doesn’t want to admit that’s the truth. Instead, much to the presumed chagrin of his lawyers, he claims that he has the cash on hand to pay his own way, but that he doesn’t want to do so because he wants to spend that money on his campaign—which is also undoubtedly false.

So where can Trump get the dough? One of his lawyers left the door open to accepting money from foreign powers, including  “Saudi Arabia or Russia.” Woof. Or there’s a Wall Street maneuver in which Trump could balloon his balance sheet by billions if his MAGA supporters run up the price of his fizzle of a media company. But that wouldn’t deliver a short-term solution. Neither Saudis nor stonks are ideal financing moves for a presidential candidate.

A more direct approach is to wring the cash out of Republican donors. This applies to Trump’s army of small-dollar supporters, who might be moved with lines like “KEEP YOUR FILTHY HANDS OFF TRUMP TOWER!” For the whales, it’s a more personalized touch, with a big soiree in Palm Beach. 

But however Trump gets the fish on the line, the money goes the same place, according to the Associated Press: 

“The invitation’s fine print says donations to the Trump 47 Committee will first be used to give the maximum amount allowed under federal law to Trump’s campaign. Anything left over from the donation next goes toward a maximum contribution to Save America, and then anything left from there goes to the RNC and then to state political parties.”

Trump and his legal fees get taken care of first, then whatever is left trickles down to the party. This is how the new Republican National Committee—led in part by Trump’s daughter-in-law—can say that the committee isn’t going to pay his legal fees. The RNC is going to help Trump raise the money directly and then take the scraps.

For donors who don’t feel pangs of sympathy for Trump being at risk of losing his 15-bedroom Westchester County estate, the appeal of victimhood will have its limits. 

Biden has already pounced on Trump’s predicament, joking to his own fatcat backers: 

“Just the other day, a defeated-looking guy came up to me and said, ‘Mr. President, I need your help. I’m being crushed with debt. I’m completely wiped out.’ I had to say, ‘Donald, I can’t help you.’”

Trump’s mad scramble for cash is just the beginning of what will be many long months of mania, all of which will reasonably invite questions about Trump’s priorities and doubts about his independence. If Trump could previously say that he was too rich to be bought off, it won’t be so easy now.

There is truth in both Democrats’ and Republicans’ delusions about the way negative coverage works for or against their candidates. But right now, it looks to be the GOPers who are in for an education on the limits of soothing self-talk.

Holy croakano! We welcome your feedback, so please email us with your tips, corrections, reactions, amplifications, etc. at STIREWALTISMS@THEDISPATCH.COM. If you’d like to be considered for publication, please include your real name and hometown. If you don’t want your comments to be made public, please specify.

STATSHOT

Biden Job Performance
Average approval: 38.8%
Average disapproval: 57.4%
Net score: -18.6 points 

Change from one week ago: ↑ 0.2 points

Change from one month ago: ↑ 0.4 points

[Average includes: Grinnell Selzer: 38% approve-58% disapprove; USA Today/Suffolk: 41% approve-55% disapprove; New York Times/Siena: 38% approve-59% disapprove; Reuters/Ipsos: 37% approve-58% disapprove; Quinnipiac: 40% approve-57% disapprove]

Polling Roulette

[Pew Research Center survey of U.S. adults, February 2024]

TIME OUT: SWAMP THINGS 

Wall Street Journal: “The Northwest Washington[D.C.] Little League, in a tony part of the nation’s capital, had a draft system to spread out talent, so no one squad could assemble a juggernaut like the ‘27 Yankees. What if, [a player’s parent] wondered, somebody was cheating? Not tobacco-spit-on-the-baseball kind of cheating, but the kind that happens in the front office. Emotions can run high in Little League, a touchstone of childhood for millions, and while blowouts sometimes raise suspicions of foul play, most parents keep the speculation to a whisper. That isn’t the case when the moms and dads of Little Leaguers are law-firm partners, lobbyists and other Beltway heavy-hitters. The result has been a bench-clearing brawl: Parents pitted against each other, a lawsuit, and an investigation by a white-shoe law firm. Baseball-gate even dragged parents’ employers into the bickering.”

BIDEN TROUNCES TRUMP IN EARLY FUNDRAISING

New York Times: “President Biden’s re-election campaign had $71 million on hand at the end of February, more than double the $33.5 million in former President Donald J. Trump’s campaign account. … Over the weekend, Mr. Biden’s team reported raising a combined $53 million in February across the committees backing his re-election bid, with a combined total of $155 million, up from $130 million at the end of January. … Mr. Biden will also be backed by more than $1 billion that outside groups have pledged to support his bid – money that is separate from the party accounts that filed on Wednesday … Mr. Trump’s legal battles have also been a drain on his overall election funds. … Last year, committees backing him spent at least $50 million on legal expenses.”

Small-dollar donors ditch the Donald: CNBC: “Since late last year, members of Trump’s team have been warned by Republican Party advisors that their small-dollar donor base could be shrinking. … In 2023, Trump’s reelection campaign raised 62.5% less money from small-dollar donors than it did in 2019, the year before the last presidential election. … During his failed 2020 reelection campaign, the $378 million he raised from small-dollar contributions represented almost half of the total cash. … Trump’s struggle with small-dollar contributors so far this quarter could be…the result of donor fatigue after nearly nine years of supporting him with contributions. … The drop in Trump’s small-dollar donations is magnified by a second problem: Many wealthy Republican donors have yet to commit to giving millions of dollars toward a pro-Trump political action committee.”

‘You never know’: voters in denial about 2020 rematch: Washington Post: “Last Tuesday, both [Donald Trump and Joe Biden] accrued enough pledged delegates to secure their party’s nominations, setting up a rematch in November. Some Americans aren’t buying it. In surveys, focus groups and interviews, some voters are expressing doubts that the presumptive nominees will in fact be the nominees. … In a Monmouth University national poll conducted last month, almost half of voters said it was ‘very’ or ‘somewhat’ likely that Biden would be replaced as the Democratic nominee by November, and about a third said the same of Trump. … Those doubts are another unusual feature of this year’s presidential campaign: a rematch between two presidents [who are] both historically unpopular. … For some, that dissatisfaction crosses over into disbelief. … But some voters’ doubts stem from genuine uncertainties in an unprecedented and unpredictable election year.” 

Trump’s “too big to rig” claims could dampen GOP turnout: Wall Street Journal: “Donald Trump is dialing up warnings that there could be an even bigger theft this time around, a tactic that threatens to complicate Republican turnout efforts. … ‘We want a landslide,’ Trump said at the rally. ‘We have to win so that it’s too big to rig.’ The line has garnered energetic applause from the Trump faithful, but it presents messaging challenges for Republicans. … ‘When you still want voters to turn out but you’re telling them it’s rigged—it’s no surprise that some of them are on the fence about that,’ [said David Becker]. … Trump has paired his recent remarks with arguments that Republican-controlled states could better secure their elections right away by insisting on single-day, in-person voting, with identification checks. That position is at odds with intensive GOP efforts to encourage supporters to make use of early voting and mail-in ballots.” 

Biden courts Latinos during southwest fundraising swing: The Hill: “President Biden on Tuesday aimed to court Latino voters while fundraising in Arizona, outlining the comparison between himself and former President Trump. ‘You’re the reason why, in large part, I beat Donald Trump,’ Biden said at a campaign event in Phoenix. ‘I need you badly.’ … He then pointed to Trump’s comments about Latino immigrants. The focus on Latinos comes as Biden’s campaign launched a national program to engage and mobilize Latino voters. Latinos con Biden-Harris kicked off on Tuesday and is intended to jump-start a series of events to engage, train, and mobilize Latino supporters. Biden went to Nevada and Arizona with the strategy to target Trump on top issues like immigration, as well as defending democracy, abortion rights, and unions.” 

While the reelect eyes Florida and Texas: Roll Call: “Even as Trump has opened up a lead in most national and state polls, Julie Chavez Rodriguez wrote that campaign officials are eying strategies aimed at ‘expanding the map in places like Florida and Texas.’ … As the Biden campaign tries to grab states he lost last time, Rodriguez wrote that his top reelection staff ‘aren’t taking any state or any vote for granted and are building strong teams to shore up important building block states to 270 such as Colorado, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, and Virginia.’ But the campaign chief made clear that, in many ways, any path to a second term goes through the same battleground states that handed Biden a victory over Trump in 2020. … Another part of the campaign’s strategy is to court anti-Trump Republican and independent voters.” 

POLL: HOGAN WELL AHEAD OF DEM CHALLENGERS

Washington Post: “Voters in deep-blue Maryland favor Republican Larry Hogan by double digits over potential Democratic rivals, according to a Washington Post-University of Maryland poll. … The Post-UMD poll finds that if the general election were held today, voters say they would support Hogan over [Rep. David Trone], 49 percent to 37 percent; and Hogan over [Angela Alsobrooks], 50 percent to 36 percent. … The primary race remains wide open despite Trone’s spending of more than $23 million to Alsobrooks’ $2 million. Nearly 4 in 10 Democratic voters — 39 percent — haven’t yet picked a primary candidate. … [The poll] also finds a clear majority of voters from both parties think highly of Hogan, who promoted a bipartisan brand in a state where registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans 2 to 1.”

Tester launches massive tribal turnout effort: Helena [Mont.] Independent Record: “Montana Democrats are pouring millions into an effort to boost turnout among Native voters in the effort to re-elect U.S. Sen. Jon Tester and help other party candidates seeking to ride his coattails. … The Big Sky Victory coordinated campaign is a multi-million dollar program that plans to hire more than 50 people in 20 offices across the state and focus on ‘the most robust voter outreach program in Indian Country that Montana has ever seen.’ … The seven-figure campaign will include Native organizing efforts, full-time organizers, offices on reservations and a paid communications plan that includes mail and digital efforts to reach Native voters with targeted messaging for each tribe in the state. Turnout across Montana’s reservation counties typically lags behind the average statewide.” 

Trump backs Rogers in Michigan: Detroit Free Press: “Former President Donald Trump … endorsed former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, a former House Intelligence Committee chairman running for the Republican nomination for Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat. Trump posted the endorsement on his Truth Social site, giving Rogers the endorsement for the job despite the fact that, in the past, Rogers had criticized Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, which Trump lost to President Joe Biden. … Since entering the Republican race, Rogers, who has lived in Florida before relocating to Michigan ahead of the campaign, has consolidated much of the institutional Republican support in the race and shown himself an able fundraiser.” 

BRIEFLY

Geoff Duncan won’t run on No Labels ticket—Axios

After Dems cancel primary, a red wave in Florida—Politico 

Progressive Rep. Chuy Garcia fends off moderate challenger—Chicago Tribune

WITHIN EARSHOT: 

“The Michigan Democratic Party has a Black outreach director. I wouldn’t know him from Adam’s housecat.”—Wayne County Executive Warren Evans, speaking to the Detroit News about black voter apathy in the city. 

MAILBAG

“I just wanted to say ‘harrumph!’ regarding your most recent Stirewaltism. I am Puerto Rican, grew up in Arizona, and was often told that I needed to vote or think a certain way because that is how Hispanics do things. It was quite frustrating! So your note was most welcomed for me. Thanks!” —Paola Ondina, Hebron, Kentucky

Ms. Ondina,

I have devoted quite a lot of my vocational life to the question of how demographic subgroups of all types are likely to vote. It’s useful to the work of predicting elections and for getting an insight to the political forces that are shaping our always-evolving republic.

But knowing how something works is very different than saying how it should work. When both parties talk about demographic groups, we hear a lot of the language of obligation: Women should support Democrats because of abortion rights. Working-class men should vote Republican because of wokeism. Etc.

Tools for observation make poor equipment for treatment. Flattening out individuals into interchangeable parts of larger demographic lumps isn’t just insulting, it’s misleading.

America’s ongoing obsession with race as the driving factor in our politics tends to make politicians and the people who cover politics over-emphasize ethnic identity over other, often much more salient, factors. 

Thank you for your kind note. I hope you are loving life in Kentucky, as my fellow Appalachian American. 

All best,

c

“I am cast back to my youth by your mention of The Last Hurrah, a movie I watched, on late-night television, at the knee of my father, an old-school Irish Catholic Democrat and devoted student of big-city politics—not to mention a huge Spencer Tracy fan. Pop not only loved the movie, he also handed me his well-worn copy of the book, which I devoured with glee and especially came to life with Tracy’s raw, brazen politico character seared into my mind. It was O’Connor (and my father) that stirred me to become … what? A political observer? An armchair pundit? Maybe even a jaded idealist? The funny thing is, this book was a thick collection of Edwin O’Connor’s three novels, and it was his late novel All in the Family that grabbed me. A portrait of an Irish American political family, it is hard to see it, especially in hindsight, as anything other than a roman à clef of the Kennedy clan. (Interestingly, it was published in 1966, well before Bobby reached the height of his fame, and certainly well before Teddy became the so-called Lion of the Senate.) While Hurrah has hung on longer than the rest—thanks in part, no doubt, to Tracy—it seems that Family (and the rest of O’Connor’s work) has faded from view as the years have gone by.”—Dennis Quinn, Alexandria, Virginia

Mr. Quinn,

You have just enriched me! I didn’t even know such a book existed, but it is now at the top of my reading list.

Thank you for the nod.

All best,

c

You should email us! Write to STIREWALTISMS@THEDISPATCH.COM with your tips, kudos, criticisms, insights, rediscovered words, wonderful names, recipes, and, always, good jokes. Please include your real name—at least first and last—and hometown. Make sure to let me know in the email if you want to keep your submission private. My colleague, the vernal Nate Moore, and I will look for your emails and then share the most interesting ones and my responses here. Clickety clack!

CUTLINE CONTEST: NOT EASY GAGS, BUT BECAUSE THEY ARE HARD

I love when the Cutline Contest brings us historical photos, because it puts another color on the palette for our entrants to use. And this week’s winner painted a minimalist masterpiece:  

“Sixty five years ago I said ‘ask not’… I now say ‘don’t ask’”—Albert Turk, Benson, Arizona

Winner, Indiana Jones And The Last Campaign Division:

“Anthropologists reveal findings that Presidential candidates were often ‘young’ and ‘exciting.’”—Tripp Whitbeck, Arlington, Virginia

Winner, Hur-ed All About It Division:

“President Kennedy presents himself as an empathetic, well-meaning young man with a fantastic memory and an apparent moon obsession.”—Cannon Alsobrook, Smyrna, Georgia

Winner, We See What You Did There Division:

“I am proud of my Irish-Catholic heritage. Like many countries, Ireland has known its fair share of religious strife. Those days, I hope, will soon be behind us. While some may consider me a Green, I hope that one day an Orangeman too will be elected President of the United States.”—Brent Hall, Edina, Minnesota

Winner, Spamalot Division:

“A visibly irritated President Kennedy insists his nephew devise his own ads.”—Linda McKee, Dubois, Pennsylvania

Winner, Jib Jab Division:

“… and then I told my nephew that vaccination needles are THIS long.”—Rick Whaley, Portage, Michigan

Winner, It’s Who You Know Division:

“I got a new intern this year, goes by Joe. Swell guy—I think he’ll go places!”—Daniel Summers, Knoxville, Tennessee

‘PORK FLEW. HEADS ROLLED.’

AP: “For more than a quarter-century, Phillies fans considered dollar hot dog night among the best ballpark promotions. … Those dog days of April — when Philly weather is cold and the wieners are a steal — are going, going, gone. … What wasn’t positive about dollar dog nights? Armed with projectile frankfurters, some unruly Phillies fans began chucking their favorite Hatfield meat during a game last year, and the dogs soared like cans of corn throughout the stands and onto the field. … ‘It wasn’t just the throwing,’ said John Weber, senior vice president, ‘…but obviously, you know, the throwing was a little bit of a tipping point.’ … By mid-afternoon, one apparel shop already had a T-shirt made lamenting the decision with the inscription ‘RIP dollar dog night. Pork Flew. Heads Rolled.’”

Nate Moore contributed to this report.