Running Against the Devil: A Plot to Save America From Trump--And Democrats From Themselves

by Rick Wilson

  As with many things in the Clinton 2016 campaign, the only response is “What the fuck?”

  At this writing, it’s unlikely that the nominee will be an African American, though Senator Kamala Harris ran a campaign that’s kept her in the top tier of Democratic candidates, but she couldn’t quite close the deal in a field with Biden, Warren, and Sanders. She may well be on the ticket in the second spot. Having her as president or VP would—probably—have an effect on black turnout similar to Obama’s in 2008.

  The raw, real politics of 2020 demand that the Democrats get their shit together when it comes to their most loyal and vital constituency. African Americans have given the Democrats their votes with stunning regularity and consistency for decades. The only differences come with turnout rate. They may not be voting for Trump, but the key question is whether Democrats are turning them out to vote at all.

  One African American operative who worked for Obama shook his head when I asked if the Clinton campaign’s African American outreach was effective. “Well, some people got paid,” he said, “if that’s what you’re asking.”

  You may have noticed by now that Donald Trump’s support with African Americans is…what’s the word? Oh, yes: abysmal. Racism will do that.

  The struggle of the GOP to play the “Look at my black friend” game in the era of Trump is a monumental lift, and largely results in merely nervous laughter. Those great voices of the civil rights struggle like Diamond and Silk, Candace Owens, and Sheriff David Clarke haven’t exactly altered the political chemistry for a presidency that reeks of racism from stem to stern.

  The profound and fundamental question is how Democrats move African American voter performance into the region they need to secure victory in the Electoral College target states.

  For black voters, the referendum on Trump is in one dimension: racism, not race. With the rising tide of racial violence inspired by Donald Trump’s rhetoric, and the large presence of covert and overt racists in his base of support, I’d argue that the path to activating African American voters leads through Charlottesville.

  While some Democrats have adopted the idea that reparations is an issue sufficient to drive African American turnout, I’d argue as a guy sensitive to the politics of race (after an upbringing in both the Deep and New South—the Venn diagram is complicated) that the idea that Trump is bending the arc of history in the wrong direction is more compelling than a reparations plan. It was a momentarily hot issue in the Democratic debates, but in a Democratic primary Fox News will turn it into THE BLACK LIVES MATTER–ISIS CONNECTION! CAN PRESIDENT TRUMP SAVE US? It’s an issue with little growth potential in the general voting pool; just 26 percent overall favor reparations.15 Perhaps surprisingly, only 58 percent of African Americans favor them.

  Winning the African American vote likely comes down to the two people who stand as political superheroes in the black community: Barack and Michelle Obama. Both of them have sky-high popularity across the board, and the Obamas’ unique ability to move, motivate, and turn out African Americans cannot be underestimated. The nominee needs to put any ego aside, make the ask, and do whatever it takes for the Obamas to come out and hit the road for the last six months of the 2020 campaign.

  The only reasonable answer from the first African American First Couple is “Yes, we can.”

  Scenes from a Trump Focus Group

  At this point, the video and audio recording of the focus group become difficult to interpret. The nude figure of the moderator is seen tied to a primitive altar constructed by the participants out of office chairs and focus-group dial-testing equipment.

  FOCUS-GROUP PARTICIPANT (unknown): BLOOD. BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD.

  (The one-way mirror becomes obscured by the smoke in the room from the fire set near the base of the altar. As the smoke thickens, the only words that can be made out over the guttural incantations and screams of “MAGA!” “KAG!” are those of the moderator as he descends into the final moments of madness before his death.)

  MODERATOR (screaming): You people can’t really fucking believe this garbage. You can’t. Can’t you see he’s completely full of shit? What the fuck is wrong with you?

  ALL: MAGA! MAGA! Cthulu fhtagn!

  MUH YOUTH VOTE

  You chase it every damn time.

  Democrats are all aflutter, every damn election cycle with the idea that the youths are coming out in droves, this time. This time there’s a massive tidal wave of kids ready to rock the vote. Hold on a moment while I recover from that eye roll. Memorize this rule: Old people vote. Repeat it until it sinks in.

  The youth vote is a moving target, a political unicorn running through a field of poppies, shooting rainbows from its ass. Democrats in particular seem to spend an enormous amount of time trying to activate 15 percent or so of the voting pool in general elections (lower in the off-cycle races). Yes, youth participation was up in 2018, and meaningfully so. The percentage of millennials who voted in 2014 was nearly doubled in 2018.

  Want to know why?

  Because the oldest millennials (for our purposes, people born between 1980 and 2000) are closing in on forty, the age when voter participation tends to kick up. Even the youngest millennials are now leaving college and dealing with the cruel fate of their college loans and all that the departure from Mom and Dad’s nest entails. In big, broad strokes, millennials are voting because they’re aging up.

  Millennials are aging out of the youth vote, but the Democrats still overplay the idea that the youths can be turned out if only they strike some alchemical formula combining college loan relief, Taylor Swift, Obama, and Rock the Vote.

  Wow, you’re thinking, this sumbitch is cynical. The children are the future…

  As is often the case, Democrats reading this will glare balefully at me, puff out their cheeks, and intone, “Ackshually…Barack Obama proved…”

  Obama proved nothing.

  He goosed the youth vote with eighteen- to twenty-nine-year-olds by 2 percent to 17.1 percent, but here’s the hard reality: If not a single young voter pulled the lever, he still would have won the 270 votes in the Electoral College he needed to beat John McCain. NBC polling analyst Ana Maria Arumi ran the numbers state by state, and when she pulled out the under-thirty demos, the map flipped in only two states: North Carolina and Indiana.16

  Now I’m really gonna break your hearts about who and what moves the youth vote. The modern era’s peak youth vote wasn’t for Barack Obama in 2008 or 2012; youth turnout in those years was 17.1 percent and 15.4 percent, respectively. It wasn’t for Bill Clinton in 1992 (17.7 percent) or 1996 (14.9 percent).

  No, the peak youth turnout in the last thirty years was in 1988, when teen heartthrobs and sex symbols Mike Dukakis and George H. W. Bush were on the ballot. That year, turnout for eighteen- to thirty-year-olds was 18.1 percent. Nothing sends the kids today rushing the stage like a septuagenarian preppy and a fusty Cambridge nerd. In the words of political scientist Eddie Murphy, “Bitches throw they panties on the stage.”

  I know, I know. You don’t believe me. “But muh youth vote.”

  I’m going to stop you there, because you know who does vote? (Stop me if you’ve heard this.)

  Old people vote.

  You know who votes in the swing states where this election will be fought? Really old people. Instead of high-profile videos with Cardi B (no disrespect to Cardi, who famously once threatened to dog-walk the egregious Tomi Lahren), maybe focus on registering and reaching more of those old-fart voters in counties in swing states.

  If your celebrity and music-industry friends want to flood social media with GOTV messages, let them. It makes them feel important and it’s the cheapest outsourcing you can get. Just don’t build your models on the idea that you’re going to spike young voter turnout beyond 20 percent.

  The problem with chasing the youth vote is threefold: First, they’re
unlikely to be registered. You have to devote a lot of work to going out, grabbing them, registering them, educating them, and motivating them to go out and vote. If they were established but less active voters, you’d have voter history and other data to work with. There are lower-effort, lower-cost ways to make this work.

  Second, they’re not conditioned to vote; that November morning is much more likely to involve regret at not finishing a paper than missing a vote.

  Third, and finally, a meaningful fraction of the national youth vote overall is located in California. Its gigantic population skews the number, and since the Golden State’s Electoral College outcome is never in doubt, it doesn’t matter. What’s our motto, kids? “The Electoral College is the only game in town.”

  This year, the Democrats have been racing to win the Free Shit election with young voters by promising to make college “free” (a word that makes any economic conservative lower their glasses, put down the brandy snifter, and arch an eyebrow) and to forgive $1.53 trillion gazillion dollars of student loan debt. Set aside that the rising price of college is what happens to everything subsidized or guaranteed by the government.17 Set aside that those subsidies cause college costs to wildly exceed the rate of inflation across the board, and that it sucks to have $200k in student loan debt for your degree in Intersectional Yodeling. Set aside that the college loan system is run by predatory asswipes. The big miss here is a massive policy disconnect—a student-loan jubilee would be a massive subsidy to white, upper-middle-class people in their mid-thirties to late forties.

  I’m not saying Democrats shouldn’t try to appeal to young voters on some level, but I want them to have a realistic expectation about just how hard it is to move those numbers in sufficient volume in the key Electoral College states. When I asked one of the smartest electoral modeling brains in the business about this issue, he flooded me with an inbox of spreadsheets and data points. But the key answer he gave me was this: “The EC states in play are mostly old as fuck. If your models assume young voter magic, you’re gonna have a bad day.”

  PART 3

  ARMY OF DARKNESS: TRUMP’S WAR MACHINE

  Some days, you can almost convince yourself he’s trying to lose this election. It feels like he’s sabotaging himself with the tweets, the crazy talk, the scandals generated by his own slips of the tongue and thumbs.

  Shake it the fuck off.

  Of course he’s trying to sabotage himself. His entire life is a pattern of self-sabotage and self-destructive lying, whore-humping wandering cock syndrome, boom-and-bust spending, and bumping business uglies with a constellation of sleazeballs.

  It doesn’t matter if he’s trying to lose. The hard political reality is that the machine under him is doing everything they can to prevent it, and that the investment Fox has made in their pet president will serve as a powerful countervailing force against even his most damaging actions.

  Trump, for all his fuckups and follies, still has a better-than-average chance of reelection. I’m going to outline the powerful assets and forces arrayed in Trump’s favor. I do this not to scare you, but to give you a clear-eyed perspective on just how difficult beating any incumbent president can be, to say nothing of one with the skill set in entertainment, transgression, and social-media manipulation in this president’s arsenal.

  Do not mistake his clownishness and stupidity for a campaign that’s incompetent. The consulting people around him are not dumb, and they’re going to have unlimited resources. Underestimate my former colleagues and their appetite for survival at your peril.

  White House Diaries: Melania Trump

  I am hatings him, of course.

  How couldn’t I? Of course, I should not be writings this diary, but I am trapped here in this White House and honestly, without visitings to border camps, or Be Besting, I am so boreds.

  Diary, I will tell you the things. All of the things.

  First, let me say, because you are not being surprised, that Jared is creepy. How you say? As a mofo. Some day, he murders us all in our sleeps.

  Seconding, you know Donald is badnesses, da?

  Someone ask me at Be Best event, “Why is Donald so cranky in morning?” I say, “How I know? Prenup says no touching until after Melania has had chardonnay and sun is down.”

  You will ask questionings, I will answers.

  THE TRUMP 2020 WAR MACHINE

  Donald Trump may be a terrible president, a terrible candidate, and a terrible human being, but in 2020 the entire apparatus of the GOP will form a shield around him. The consultants, ad makers, pollsters, and operatives may have a rogue candidate, but they’ll simply focus on burning the Democrats to the ground and then stirring the ashes. I know these guys. I was one of them until I grew a soul.

  They’ll have Fox News and its massive viewer reach, the corrupted and degraded “conservative” media, and Donald Trump’s chekist friends from Russia weighing in. They’ll work every minute of every day on ways to—and this is a technical term, so bear with me—fuck you over, regardless of what Trump tweets, what lunacy emerges at his rally-du-jour, or what idiot squawking comes out of the president’s lie hole.

  Guys and girls in my former business can and will transform any lack of Democratic discipline into attacks that cut you off at the knees. You might think it’s absurd to transform the Green New Deal into “They want to take away your hamburgers and airplanes,” but middle Americans famously don’t read policy but do watch television ads. And guess what? It’s now an article of faith in the Midwest and South that the Green New Deal is there to ban meat and motorcars.

  EARNED MEDIA

  Let’s get one thing straight about earned media: It is the campaign, and the Democrats start with a massive disadvantage. Donald Trump is the most effective, powerful, and amoral user of earned media in the history of American campaigning. His massive Twitter and social-media footprint and his pet state-media organs amplify every signal, no matter how mendacious or misspelled. His 60 million followers—including a few million bots controlled by foreign intelligence services (ahem, @Jack!)—will echo, signal-boost, share, and spread every message. If Trump tweeted the word “fart,” he’d get 100,000 likes and people would sing his praises for breaking down the old barriers of presidential stodginess.

  Pitching long-lead, deep-think stories about your candidate is a fool’s errand. Trump will literally tweet a dick joke to splash a new wave of controversy over whatever media fire you kindled so carefully. Pitching single-line themes of the week is similarly pointless. “Healthcare Week” will be rolled over by whatever toilet-tweet he rips out that morning along with his twice-weekly KFC dump.

  Trump’s power resides in earned media propelled by social media. Twitter is his singular megaphone, and he understands the way the mainstream media is drawn to it like moths to a flame. He knows that every tweet is breaking news and will create hours of work for reporters across the media. He relies on it. There is some evidence his tweets are diminishing in impact and reach,1 but this is like saying a punch from Mike Tyson won’t still knock you on your ass.

  Trump’s control over the media agenda is relentless, but it’s neither perfect nor inevitable. The Democrats’ earned-media teams need to work reporters, hard and constantly. They need to call bullshit on Trump’s lies and crazy talk and then immediately reframe Trump’s message as part of an indictment on him. Bridge back to your angle, no matter what bullshit Trump and his spokes-harpy Kellyanne Conway vomit out.

  THE POWER OF GIVING NO FUCKS

  Donald Trump’s game is the base and the base only, which, though it limits his ability to seek and persuade new voters, also liberates him from much of the hard work of politics. He will never, ever look over his shoulder and think “Uh-oh. Have I crossed a line with the PC speech commissars? Have I offended the [select your disadvantaged group] community? Did I use the wrong gender pronoun? Is my base mad at me for being too mean?”

&
nbsp; His base thrives on the transgressive, offensive, ignorant, and linguistically incoherent sewer outflow of his Twitter feed. It binds them to him. It is a secret handshake, and the outrage from anyone outside the cult only makes the bond more powerful. They’re all members of the same juvenile, shitty little club, but it’s their club, and it’s all they’ve got.

  As noted above, there were some signs by the summer of 2019 that Trump’s Twitter account was reaching a point of diminishing returns, yet it’s still the most powerful weapon in his arsenal, and no Democratic candidate has anything close.

  And of course, he gives no fucks. He will lie. He will mislead. He will incite fear, hatred, and violence. He will burn down norms and sanity. He is an unconstrained political force. It’s his best weapon, and he’s going to use it.

  DIGITAL AND DATA

  Campaigns have evolved in the last decade from digital being just one element of the campaign to digital is the campaign. Until 2004—the dawn of modern, digital campaigning—campaigns were built using the same model they’d followed for generations: money, media, and message delivered by the modality of the time, first human contact, then print, then radio, then television, then cable, and lastly, digital.

  Like every other thing that collides with the power of software and the Internet, politics has become mediated by digital analytics and online communications media. It doesn’t matter if the message is in your Facebook feed, a YouTube video, a text on your phone, or a snap. Digital campaigning is platform-agnostic.

  Before George W. Bush’s 2004 campaign’s micro-targeting operation, campaign data was largely list management: slow, cumbersome, and limited in scope and power. Bush’s team combined commercially available consumer data with polling, voter history, and interest data to build big typologies of American voters. Today, that seems clunky. Then? That was some rocket science.