By Chris Stirewalt
Friday, March 22, 2024
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.
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