Obama Joins Team Trump

by JASmius



....by announcing that he's going to spend next year "speaking out" against Hairboy, of course.

Or, as Eeyore leded it:

But … but that’ll help Trump. Can’t Obama see that? If a man as distrusted by Republicans as O starts name-checking Trump as a special threat, undecided GOPers will rally around him. That could be the difference in a close race with Cruz and/or Rubio. Why would Obama do something that’s likely to increase Trump’s chances at the nom—-

Oh. Ohhh.

I've beginning to think it's Allahpundit that is my true "brother from another mother":

According to people in the White House, Obama doesn’t talk about Trump much. When he does, it’s with a combination of amusement and disgust at the rhetoric, occasionally mentioning his amazement at GOP leaders’ inability to understand Trump’s supporters and the long-term damage the president thinks Trump is doing to the party with the groups of voters who will decide future elections…

Oh, Trump is doing long-term damage to the GOP alright; just not with the "groups of voters" of which he's thinking.

“In the long sweep of history, this chapter is all pretty simple: The country actually switched from one dominant culture that was in charge for 240 years to one that’s multicultural,” said one Obama campaign veteran. “And that wasn’t going to go easy. But now we’re in the middle of it, so it seems chaotic and complicated.”…

Not really; it's the Left that made it "chaotic and complicated" by viciously denigrating the "one dominant (i.e. American) culture" that preached assimilation (i.e. "the melting pot") in favor of cultural splintering and balkanization (i.e. the "tossed salad"), guaranteeing permanent internecine conflict and division that would prevent We the People from uniting against the Left and overthrowing their "messiah".  And now that corrosive dynamic is, yes, infiltrating the GOP, not via the so-called "establishment," but via Trumpmania.

Which is the rationale and strategy behind this:

Going into next year, Obama will be speaking out against Trump, as he did indirectly in several pro-immigration speeches earlier this month and by name in an interview with NPR last week, when he argued that the "Republican" co-front-runner is exploiting the fears of “particularly blue-collar men [who] have had a lot of trouble in this new economy.” And pushing back against Trump will be a central theme of Obama’s international engagement.

Psychology 101, folks.  Or, rather, reverse-psychology.  It's possible to manipulate anyone if you know which buttons to push, and the more emotional and unthinking the rube, the easier it is to both make that determination and push them.  Bill Clinton did it to Trump to encourage him to run in the first place without ever coming right out and saying, "You should run for president as a Republican, Donnie," (giving Mr. Bill plausible deniability in subsequent media interviews) by simply dropping hints and especially ego-massages that let Trump think it was his own idea.  And Trump, in turn, did it to a lot of conservatives/Tea Partiers who are possessed with a "right makes might" entitlement mentality that simplistically convinces them they can only lose elections when their own party won't "Fight!  Fight!  Fight!" hard enough, and therefore that must be the result of leftists conspiratorially "infiltrating" the GOP "establishment," and ergo it's their own party that needs to be purged and "purified" and otherwise burned down before the Democrats can be taken on.  All The Donald had to do was entertainingly insult the Republican leadership (i.e. the people his targeted suckers irrationally can't stand) and he had an instant, turnkey base of support that he'll never lose.

Given that Obama is their fourth-most hated enemy after Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and John Boehner (in an emeritus sense, and rest assured, they're growing that list all the time), what effect do you think a White House verbal offensive against Trump will have amongst dismayingly gullible Republican voters?

Call it the McCaskill Effect:

Using the guidance of my campaign staff and consultants, we came up with the idea for a “dog whistle” ad, a message that was pitched in such a way that it would be heard only by a certain group of people. I told my team we needed to put Akin’s uber-conservative bona fides in an ad — and then, using reverse psychology, tell voters not to vote for him. And we needed to run the hell out of that ad…

This presentation made it look as though I was trying to disqualify him, though, as we know, when you call someone “too conservative” in a Republican primary, that’s giving him or her a badge of honor. At the end of the ad, my voice was heard saying, “I’m Claire McCaskill, and I approve this message.”

It started to work. Our telephones were ringing off the hook with people saying, “Just because she’s telling me not to vote for him, I’m voting for him. That’s the best ad for Akin I’ve ever seen!” [emphases added]

And thus was arguably the lowest hanging Democrat-held fruit in the 2012 Senate election cycle kicked away by Tea Party voters, not because Todd Aiken was "too conservative," but because (1) Aiken was an idiot, and (2) he had that angry, surly "Fight!  Fight!  Fight!" mentality and mien that goes over with general election voters like Miley Cyrus uncrossing her legs in a Sunday School class.

Drill this through your raging cerebellums, Tea Partiers: The general electorate is mostly made of up non- and anti-conservatives.  It is therefore a prerequisite for Republican general election victories that we nominate candidates who will not instantly repel them before they have a chance to persuade them.  And then actually attempt to persuade them instead of berating them.  In other words, follow this man's example:



Because if the GOP doesn't win elections, the GOP can't gain power, and if the GOP doesn't gain power, conservatives/Tea Partiers cannot even attempt to turn the country around from the roaring falls growing ever closer in the distance.  Assuming that you're all hopeless optimists and don't realize that we went over those falls three years ago.

Unless you don't really care about saving the country and prefer to just piss in the faces of natural friends and allies on the way to the gulag.  In which case, keep right on doing what you're doing and push to "make America as great as Russia" again.  Have fun noticing the grinning, big-eared mulatto polishing his Big Bertha next to you.