A lot of people on the right are shaking their heads as we bear witness to Donald Trump hosting a political version of VH1’s “I Love the 90s” – re-hashing Clinton scandals and conspiracy theories like they are brand new. Here’s the thing though: they are brand new to a lot of voters.
See, a huge chunk of the electorate is going to be young voters who didn’t grow up listening or watching news stories about Bill Clinton’s sex scandals, hearing people make tons of jokes about his sex life, and see Hillary stand by him throughout all of it.
What Trump is doing is establishing a timeline. The Clinton’s have been on the national stage since the 1990s. They are a political force that was (until 2008) considered unstoppable. They are poised to be on the big stage again. When the general election really kicks off, all of these things Trump keeps bringing out will have been out there in front of the voters and the media for months.
Cue up the state department years, the Clinton Foundation, Benghazi, and the e-mail scandal. Trump is going to re-hash all of these, and the media is so caught up in the ratings success they’re having that they’ll cover every last bit of it. Yes, they are absolutely going to drop every piece of opposition research they have on Trump – of which there is no doubt month’s of unique stories worth – but they can’t help themselves. They will need to copy down every word Trump says because they think he is so damn ridiculous that there is no way the public is going to ultimately support him.
Hillary is still busy trying to unite her party behind her. Trump has the Republican Party set up to support him (you don’t like it, I don’t like it, but it is what it is). All Trump has to do is release more web videos and tweet more and talk on the phone to TV anchors for months and ask all these questions. The people inclined to support Donald Trump vote against Hillary Clinton distrust the media and they will latch on to everything Trump gets attacked for.
“Who killed Vince Foster,” Trump will ask. The media will laugh at him about it. The people who hate the east coast media will suddenly start really thinking about it.
“What happened the night of Benghazi,” Trump will ask. The media will sigh and say we’ve been through this. The people that dislike Hillary will wonder what the media is hiding.
“How has Hillary Clinton not been indicted,” Trump will ask. The media will cover for her. The people who hate those who feel like they’re above the rules will get enraged.
It’s not a terrible strategy. Will it produces good results? Maybe. Some, at least. Is it a winning strategy? Who knows? What we do know is that Trump is probably not going to win a policy fight against Clinton. He has flipped on virtually every policy he’s touted. But, he can out mud-sling the Clintons. And he will.
Here’s to the downfall of America. At least we’ll be entertained.
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