Perhaps Trump Is Not A Political Genius After All

Former RNC Chairman Michael Steele had a few things to say yesterday about the rise of Donald Trump:

“This is all part of the process,” [Steele] said. “This has to happen. This confrontation with ourselves.” That confrontation involves the GOP realizing that it has itself to blame for the destructive rise of Trump. “[I]n large measure, we laid down the metrics and pathway for Donald Trump to emerge and to arise the way he did,” Steele said. “He understood the GOP better than the GOP understood itself.” 

Until very recently, I also was of the opinion that Trump displayed intellectual prowess in recognizing that the stage had been set for a nationalist candidate like himself to easily seize control of the Republican Party. Sure, Trump has since pissed it all away by acting like a complete dick, but at least he was the only person in the GOP who correctly read the pulse of a Republican Party that was growing more radicalized by the day.

Indeed, over the last few weeks, I wondered how it was that Trump -- the political genius who recognized that the GOP base would gleefully embrace hate -- was a complete moron in other areas involving politics, such as the need for a ground game, the need to not say stupid shit, and the need to pivot into the General Election.  I thought that perhaps Trump was like the Dustin Hoffman character in Rain Man, who was really good at counting cards but was not an excellent driver.

Then I read Michael Moore's piece on Alternet today, and now I am starting to think that Trump won the nomination not because he is a political savant, but because he pulled a Homer Simpson and succeeded despite idiocy.  Moore, citing inside information, said that Trump decided to run for president merely to get a better deal with NBC and with absolutely no thought of winning the nomination:

With no campaign staff, no 50-state campaign infrastructure — neither of which he needed because, remember, this wasn’t going to be a real campaign — and with no prepared script, he went off the rails at his kick-off press conference, calling Mexicans "rapists" and "drug dealers" and pledging to build a wall to keep them all out. Jaws in the room were agape. His comments were so offensive, NBC, far from offering him a bigger paycheck, immediately fired him with this terse statement: "Due to the recent derogatory statements by Donald Trump regarding immigrants, NBCUniversal is ending its business relationship with Mr. Trump."

Trump was stunned. So much for the art of the deal. He never expected this, but he stuck to his plan anyway to increase his “value” in the eyes of the other networks by showing them how many millions of Americans wanted him to be their leader. He knew, of course (and the people he trusted also told him) that there was no way he was actually going to win many (if any) of the primaries, and he certainly would not become the Republican nominee, and NEVER would he EVER be the president of the United States.

The rest is history. But wouldn't it be hilarious if the death of the Republican Party was caused, not by a political mastermind who was great at reading the mood of the Electorate, but by a Reality TV Star who was simply trying to get a better deal?