Much like the Trump presidency, the Trump nominating convention was a pageant of scaremongering, ego-stroking, revisionism, jingoism and dishonesty. Even veteran political watchers marveled at the next-level chicanery.
That said, the alternate reality that Team Trump created — one in which the president is a caring, competent, principled leader — was built on a handful of tried-and-true political tactics common to many campaigns. This goes beyond making promises the candidate can’t keep or lying about the opposition’s ideological extremism — though there was plenty of that. (Warnings about the “radical left” and “socialism” flowed like cheap booze at a — well, at a political convention.) Some of the more textbook maneuvers included:
The “My-Friend” defense. The most basic version of this is when politicians who’ve been accused of one type of bigotry counter by saying they have Black friends or gay friends or Jewish friends or female friends and so on. It’s an attempt to counter a broad criticism with a tale of individual decency. Team Trump went all in.
In her Wednesday speech, Lara Trump said that she learned how much her father-in-law values women when, during the 2016 election, he asked her to help him win her home state of North Carolina. “He knew I was capable even if I didn’t.”
Kayleigh McEnany got even more personal. The Trump campaign aide turned White House press secretary shared how, after learning that she had a genetic mutation that increased her risk of breast cancer, she opted to have a prophylactic mastectomy. While recovering, she received a get-well call from the president. “I can tell you that this president stands by Americans with pre-existing conditions,” she gushed. “The same way President Trump has supported me, he supports you.”
So … Mr. Trump is fighting to kill the Affordable Care Act, and with it protections for patients with pre-existing conditions, but Americans should take comfort that, if they ever have a health crisis, he’ll send them healing vibes?
Just because the former football star Herschel Walker reminisced about being buddies with Mr. Trump does not change the president’s appalling record on race. That’s like claiming he’s pro-immigrant because he married Melania — and helped her Slovenian parents become American citizens, through the “chain migration” he loathes, no less.
The Ricochet Pander. One of the more delicate two-steps, where a candidate reaches out to one segment of voters with an eye toward winning over a different segment altogether.
So it was that Team Trump lined up a rainbow of speakers to praise the president as a champion of Black America and other minority communities — or at least offer assurances that he isn’t a raging bigot.
Random testimonials are unlikely to convince many minority voters to ignore the president’s record and rhetoric on race and immigration. But Mr. Trump isn’t so much wooing those groups as he’s looking to soothe and win back more moderate Republicans — especially the suburban women who polls show are souring on him.
In 2000, George W. Bush attempted a much milder version of this move with Black voters as part of his effort to sell himself as a “compassionate conservative.” Eight years later, Barack Obama’s courting of evangelicals was seen by some as a way to win over less conservative people of faith.
Boat, Swift. This refers to an unfair, personal smear campaign, ideally one that turns an opponent’s asset into a liability — or at least defuses one’s own vulnerabilities. The name comes from the attacks on John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004, by a group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Mr. Kerry’s heroism during the Vietnam War was considered an asset against Bush 43, who had spent the war stateside in the Air National Guard — and whose war in Iraq was not going so hot. To neutralize Mr. Kerry’s advantage, the Swift Boaters began issuing baseless claims disparaging his military record.
Many people suspect Mr. Trump of all sorts of corrupt behavior, including using his office to enrich the family business. The president has worked long and hard — even to the point of getting impeached — to promote unsubstantiated allegations that Mr. Biden is the corrupt candidate in this race. No way a Trump convention would fail to rehash the Hunter-Biden-Ukraine smears, among other fictions.
More shameless are the suggestions that Mr. Biden is the real racist in this election. And, of course, there are the bald assertions that Mr. Biden is too old and senile for the presidency — tricky terrain for the not-so-young, not-always-so-coherent Mr. Trump.
Trust me: I know the real him. Standard stuff. Politicians trot out family members and friends to help humanize them — especially if they have a notable personality quirk. In 2000, people close to Al Gore talked about how much funnier, looser and less boring he was in private. Hillary Clinton’s friends and aides had a million stories about her warm and caring side.
Multiple speakers, from the older Trump kids to Vice President Mike Pence to Dan Scavino, a longtime Trump aide, stepped forward to rave about the president’s softer side. After a while, some of them sounded like a beleaguered wife assuring friends that her jerk of a hubby is ever so much sweeter at home.
The more challenging the candidate, the more complicated these tricks of the trade become to pull off. As with everything, Mr. Trump is pushing all of them to their limits.
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.
Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.
Source: Elections - nytimes.com
