Losing To Win

Real Clear Politics DC bureau chief Carl Cannon is convinced that Donald Trump's awful June so far is evidence that he knows he is in over his head and that he is secretly trying to self-sabotage in order to get out.

Let’s call this more reflective subconscious entity “Don Trump.”

Donald Trump loves winning and hates losing, while Don Trump knows that running a smart campaign and beating Hillary Clinton means he’d inherit a job he has neither the qualifications nor the temperament to perform successfully. Don Trump wants to lose. He wants this campaign to be over so Donald Trump can go back to doing what he’s good at: promoting his personal brand and counting his money.

To me, that’s the best explanation for the loony “Mexican” judge comments and other unforced errors Trump has made since clinching the Republican presidential nomination. A man who wanted to win this election wouldn’t make these mistakes.

Let’s start with Susana Martinez. As governor of New Mexico, she’s the chief executive in the state with the highest percentage of Latinos in the country, a border state where Trump’s famous “wall” would be built, and a bellwether that Republicans would like to carry in November. She’s the GOP’s most prominent a female Hispanic, two demographic groups Trump has trouble with. So does he woo Martinez and praise her? No. Because she skips his rally in Albuquerque, he throws a tantrum, gratuitously lashing out at her in her own capital.

“We have got to get your governor to get going,” he told the crowd at his event. “She’s got to do a better job. Okay? She’s not doing the job. Hey! Maybe I’ll run for governor of New Mexico. I’ll get this place going.”

This is Don Trump talking. A candidate trying to win wouldn’t have drawn attention to the fact that the governor was skipping his rally, let alone publicly disparage her. A candidate who wanted to win wouldn’t have mentioned her at all. If he did, it would have come out something like this: “Your governor is doing a great job! She endorsed somebody else in the primary, but we’ll get her on our side because she proves that an independent-minded Republican can carry New Mexico—and we’ll do it together in November!”

This of course is making excuses for the people who are desperately trying to nominate Donald Trump as the Republican party's presidential candidate in 2016. As I have said time and again, Trump is not the cause of the GOP's problems, he's merely the symptom of a larger pathology based on a major American political turning to hatred, demonization of the "other", and "Second Amendment solutions" to America's problems.

If Donald Trump supposedly knows he is unqualified, and you know that he's aware of it, what does that day about the millions who voted for him anyway?