10 ways Trump is throwing away the election

Given the issue environment and national mood, Donald Trump should be the favorite to win back the White House in November. Instead, he is running the most incompetent presidential campaign since George McGovern. The list of foolish moves, dumb remarks and out-and-out stupidities is almost inexhaustible. Here are my Top Ten reasons Trump is blowing it. 

#10: Lack of discipline: The former president’s indiscipline is really the biggest problem, but he is most certainly not changing on this front. Asking Trump to stick to a message, stop rage-posting and take advice is like demanding Joe Biden be mentally fit for the presidency. It just won’t happen. 

#9: Failing to attack Sean Fain and UAW leadership: In March, the Biden administration set a deadline to cut gas-powered car sales in the U.S. in half. Electric vehicles are less labor-intensive and sure to result in job losses in the auto industry. Trump should be making “Joe Biden and Kamala Harris outlawing your job” a main talking point in Michigan and Wisconsin. Additionally, Fain has a reputation as a hothead, and is likely to be easily baited into saying foolish things. Blasting Fain and the United Automobile Workers is a layup. 

#8: Won’t get tough on Russia and Putin: Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, are incredibly unpopular: 76 percent of independents think Russia is “unfriendly” or an “enemy,” along with 82 percent of conservatives and 92 percent of seniors. But Trump just will not come out strong against Putin, which hamstrings his ability to hit Biden or Harris on their incompetence in Ukraine. 

#7: Can’t quit Biden: Joe Biden is largely irrelevant these days, now that his vice president has taken over the Democratic nomination. Yet Trump can’t stop talking about him. Yes, Democrats decided democracy is less important than winning by anointing Harris in a process as secretive as a papal election. And Trump was caught flat-footed. Did his team really think Democrats were not going to dump Biden? Even if they did, they should have been prepared for that contingency.  

#6: Not turning the tables on the mainstream media: The media are a predictable bunch, as obsessed with their own hobbyhorses and grievances as any parochial group — and out of touch with most Americans. Mixing it up with them should be an easy way to score political points. Instead, Trump blew an opportunity with the National Association of Black Journalists by not pointing out that nearly 30 Black Americans (2022) are murdered every day, far more than the number of people killed at the January 6 riot at the Capitol. Also, Chicago residents were protesting migrant camps the year before. Why aren’t these Black journalists concerned about that?

But Trump cannot stand any attack, so his responses devolve into whining snits about people being mean to him. A calculating, strategic candidate would instead ambush the media.  

#5: Obsessed with side issues: Crowd size, Harris’s ethnicity, Hannibal Lecter — Trump keeps wandering into one side issue after another. Maybe it’s undiagnosed ADHD or maybe it’s just a symptom of old age, but it’s a disaster. Even Trump’s loyalists say he needs to stick to the big issues, but he won’t. Maybe it’s time for a Ritalin prescription. 

#4: Running as a reality TV candidate: Presidential campaigns and show business have much in common, but they are not the same. Trump has not figured this out. Winning elections requires a focus on a few winning issues and attack lines. But Trump’s reality TV mindset means new content to keep people tuning in. His reality TV campaign plays out in his rallies, where he gets huge applause for his insult comic routine. But reality TV is not real life. Trump cannot win with just the rally vote.  

It’s worth noting, the best audience Trump’s “Celebrity Apprentice” did was 12 million viewers in Season One, which diminished every year after. Kind of sounds like Trump’s political career. 

#3: No strategy for undecided and independent voters: Neither Republicans nor Democrats represent anywhere close to a majority of voters. Independent voters will decide this race. Yet Trump remains focused on his base. He pounds away at illegal immigration and crime — important issues, but not the top issues for independents. That would be inflation, health care and jobs. Trump can’t win without votes from people who don’t like him, but he is doing nothing to get those voters. 

#2: Where’s the vision? Trump has become a collection of whines, insults and living in the past. He has done little to present a positive platform for a second term. His “proposals” are simple declarations. His line at the GOP convention, “We’ll end lots of different things!” says it all. 

#1: Failing on inflation: Inflation has been the top issue for all Americans, especially independents and Republicans. But Trump hasn’t seemed to notice, until recently. His advertising and his speeches barely touch on the topic, if at all. Where are the ads featuring people struggling with the household budget? Farmers and business owners crushed by rising costs?  

Not establishing that inflation is caused by excessive spending and regulation, as well as a plan to address it, has left a policy opening for Democrats for the past year. And now Harris is going to take advantage, with the predictable leftist complaints about excess profits and capitalist conspiracies. Greedflation may be a canard, but at least it’s something. Meanwhile, Trump offers nothing. Well, maybe almost nothing: Trump’s plan is ordering his future Cabinet to figure it out, drill more oil (hard to say where, since American production is near an all-time high) and, of all things, to stop buying bacon.  

Incredibly, Trump did not bring illegal immigration into the equation. Nearly 17 million people may be in America illegally — that’s a lot of extra demand, especially for housing, where inflation has been particularly bad.

Trump and his ramshackle campaign have had Issue Number One on their side for the last two years and have done nothing with it. It is the most striking example of messaging malpractice and political incompetence in decades. And it may well cost him the presidency. 

Keith Naughton is co-founder of Silent Majority Strategies, a public and regulatory affairs consulting firm, and a former Pennsylvania political campaign consultant.