An MAGA-only campaign

I agree that Nazi Coachella suggested weakness rather than strength:

Having energized his most fervent supporters, he would send them out to do whatever it took to return him to the White House. That was the idea, at least. But what works in theory does not always deliver in practice, and in practice, Trump’s climactic rally at Madison Square Garden was nothing short of a disaster.

Did Trump have the crowds he wanted? Yes. But that was the extent of his success that night. His overall message was dark, disturbing and as autocratic as you might expect from a man whose top officials have been warning us about his fascistic tendencies. “We’re running against a massive, crooked, malicious leftist machine that’s running the Democrat Party,” Trump said. “They are smart and vicious, they are the enemy within, we must defeat them.”

Overshadowing the crude authoritarianism of Trump’s remarks, however, were those of nearly every other speaker at the podium, who illustrated — each in his own way — the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the MAGA movement. There was, of course, the comedian from Texas who let loose a string of offensive jokes aimed at Blacks and Latinos, relishing the permissive atmosphere. Unfortunately for Trump, one of those “jokes” was an anti-Puerto Rican remark so racist that it galvanized some of the most prominent figures in Puerto Rican cultural life (“This is what they think of us,” Ricky Martin wrote in Spanish to his millions of followers on Instagram) and may have jeopardized the campaign’s standing in Pennsylvania, where hundreds of thousands of Hispanic Americans of Puerto Rican descent live.

There was also Stephen Miller, a former Trump White House adviser and close confidant of the ex-president, who ranted and raved against the idea of the United States as a composite nation forged from many different peoples. “America is for Americans and Americans only,” he said, jabbing the air as he stared out into the cheering crowd.
I’m sure that to some observers, all of this — even the terrible racist jokes — looks like the confidence and resolve of a determined political movement. But I think it’s just the opposite. Far from showing strength, the Madison Square Garden rally showed that however vicious and virulent its leaders and supporters might be, the MAGA movement is a spent and exhausted force, even if it is not yet defeated.

Consider the absence from the stage of anyone in Republican politics who isn’t a bona fide MAGA acolyte. There were no charismatic Republican lawmakers fighting tough races in swing states. There were no popular Republican governors, not even vocal allies like Virginia’s Glenn Youngkin. There were no former rivals, reconciled to Trump’s leadership, like Tim Scott, Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley. And there were no figures of perceived moderation and propriety that, if they were present, could lend credence to the notion that electing Trump would bring some version of stability back to American life.

Instead, the rally showcased an off-putting combination of D-list celebrities, including Dr. Phil and a visibly worn Hulk Hogan, and Trump sycophants, perhaps most notably Elon Musk, who has sunk tens of millions of dollars into the effort to put the former president back in the White House.

A lot of highly informed activists have convinced themselves that base mobilization is more important than trying to broaden your coalition, but this is generally ineffective in practice (there are fewer swing voters than there used to be but they’re extremely important when elections are fought on narrow margins, and sporadic voters are less ideological than regular voters.)

Republicans do have a major handicap in the Electoral College — they can do suboptimal campaigns and still win in ways Democrats cannot. It would be foolish to say that Trump can’t win. But having normie-alienating people throwing red meat to your already engaged voters is not in fact a great closing strategy, and James Comey isn’t about to run through the brick wall this time.