No, The Kraken Isn't Just Sleeping

The web has been pretty much empty of intelligent commentary since the Trump legal team's disavowal of Sidney Powell. There's a consensus among a few people like Rush Limbaugh and Robert Barnes that the November 19 news conference, in which Giuliani effectively endorsed Powell's unsubstantiated theory that Dominion voting machines switched millions of votes from Trump to Biden, only to fire her days later, was a disaster. But other questions need to be asked.

Trump won a close election with a popular vote minority in 2016. In 2020, he ran almost exactly the same strategy, which the Democrats anticipated, and lost a close election trying to win exactly the same states. Both years, he ran against weak, out-of-touch, sick Democrat candidates who campaigned far less than he did. The evidence we're starting to get, and the opinions of commentators like Alan Dershowitz, is that although there was vote fraud in 2020, it was what we've always expected from big-city machines, and it wasn't enough to overturn the margin of victory. What was the difference between 2016 and 2020?

Nobody's asking questions about this. Rather than mourn the dead kraken, why not try to figure out what went wrong and how we can fight going forward?

What was the difference between Trump and Reagan, who won a credible victory in 1980 but a landslide in 1984? Even George W increased his margin of victory in 2004 vs 2000. Trump seems never to have aimed in that direction, apparently expecting to carry the same states he carried in 2016, with only head fakes to Minnesota and New Hampshire. But he lost key states he'd carried in 2016, and the kraken, now dead, can't be blamed.

One thing that strikes me is that both Reagan and Bush Jr had solid and trustworthy advisers, Reagan with the "kitchen cabinet" who'd accompanied him from California. Reagan also had input from the Wall Street Journal, Arthur Laffer, William Buckley, and the National Review contingent at the time. Bush Jr had a cadre of neoconservatives, many from NR and WSJ, as well as Vice President Cheney. Those were wrong on Iraq, but their mistakes didn't come out before 2004. Junior had also been a frequent visitor at the White House with his father.

I suspect one thing that will come out about Trump is a complaint that was also made about Newt Gingrich, whose career prematurely flamed out in the 1990s. Gingrich, it was said, tended to take the advice of the last person who'd talked to him. I bet something like this happened with Trump. That Sidney Powell was able to hijack the post-election legal effort is probably a symptom -- she had a superficially good idea that she couldn't back up if anyone pressed her at all.

I think one answer is that Trump was a talented political newcomer. Robert Barnes suggests there might be a parallel with the election of 1824, where Andrew Jackson was edged out in favor of the lackluster John Quincy Adams, and Jackson made a comeback in 1828. But Jackson was 57 in 1824, while Trump is 74 in 2020. Robust as he is now, he seems tired in the wake of the election, and I don't think he'll be the same man in four years.

Trump was able to recognize political trends that he didn't create, and they won't go away when he leaves office. He wasn't surrounded by advisers and cabinet who could support and extend his vision. But the constant commotion among his staff, right up to the November 19 press fiasco, is an indication he didn't have a fully mature set of advisers, which took him down. Among his failed instincts in hindsight was his adoption of Dr Fauci as administration spokesman on the COVID crisis. Commentators pointed out that Fauci had a record of poor performance during the AIDS crisis, but apparently Trump had no Washington hands to give him insight on Fauci when he needed it.

Robert Barnes and Richard Baris make the point that no Bush, McCain, or Romney could carry Wisconsin, Michigan, or Pennsylvania. They had hard enough times with Ohio and Florida. There needs to be some serious rethinking among the next generation of Republican hopefuls. Pretending the kraken is just sleeping will only delay the necessary tasks.