Donald Trump has not had a good week. His campaign manager got charged with assault. He faced blowback for incredibly ill-informed comments about American foreign policy and nuclear weapons. He’s falling like a stone in the polls in Wisconsin, making it likely that he will suffer a decisive defeat next Tuesday. His net unpopularity is at record levels for a mainstream presidential frontrunner if not likely nominee. And, he also said something very, very stupid about abortion that he had to walk back. Though the last item may seem to be no more important than the others, I’d argue that it was actually a critical mistake that could mark the turning point of this election. Though stopping Trump from winning the Republican presidential nomination is still a long shot, if it became a bit more likely this week, it was because of his statement about punishing women who had abortions — not his threats aimed at Heidi Cruz, Corey Lewandowski’s hijinks, or even his incredibly dangerous ignorance about foreign policy.
How is that possible? It’s because the abortion flip-flop was perhaps the first instance during his magical presidential run when he didn’t get away with being Donald Trump. Instead of the “winner” that can do anything and pay no price, Trump not only further depressed his already dismal favorability numbers among women, he had to resort to sniveling excuses about being misled by his questioner or the burden of answering so many questions. In other words, he looked like a loser.
Talking heads and pundits have pondered the reason why so many people like Trump ever since he started soaring in the polls last summer. The oft-repeated answer is that they like his ability to say whatever he is thinking — no matter how factually incorrect, outrageous, or offensive — and get away with it. In an era when the deadening effect of political correctness has stifled debate and made it hard for ordinary people to discuss issues without having to worry about being considered out of step with the culture, Trump is in that sense a breath of fresh air. He has been the voice of a simmering resentment against the powers that be, even if none of us – including those applauding Trump — are always sure about who exactly fits into the category of the dreaded establishment that needs to be put in its place.
But while Trump has reaped the benefits of tapping into that anger, we also need to recognize that one essential aspect of it has been that last part. Unlike everybody else who must bow to the media and toe the line, Trump doesn’t apologize or backtrack. But not this time.
The remarkable aspect of the aftermath of his assertion that the law should punish women who had abortions is the way his fans sought to mitigate the damage on social media. Instead of the usual defiance and commitment to defending misleading and offensive statements or outright falsehoods, this time we got the sort of weak excuses that we heard when other candidates got in trouble, whether it was Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, or Ben Carson. We were told they should be graded on a curve or that their mistakes were mitigated by the hardships or the unfairness of politics. It made them look weak and that was a fair evaluation of their predicament. But now Trump is playing the same game and it undermines his narrative of “winning,” as well as the notion that he can say things others can’t. The abortion comment wasn’t just embarrassing proof that he is a liberal pretending to be a conservative. Nor was it an example of Trump saying stupid things because that’s what he thinks voters want to hear. It was the tipping point after which no one can pretend that Trump is immune to the conventional laws of political gravity.
Trump on abortion reminded me of the way Sarah Palin collapsed under scrutiny in the fall of 2008 once she stopped speaking from scripts and had to answer questions from unfriendly journalists. Up until that point, Palin looked like a conservative populist that could not only appeal to the right but also transcend that demographic. But after flunking her primetime audition, she became a narrow, bitter, and divisive figure with a strong fan base but without the broad appeal that Trump has demonstrated.
Of course, Trump is a much savvier performer and a tougher individual than Palin. Unlike her, he had decades of being a rich celebrity seeking to manipulate the press to prepare him for the national spotlight, and he’s made the most of it. But, like Palin, the foreign policy interviews with the Washington Post and the New York Times, as well as the events of the last week in which his campaign looked more like a reality show than a presidential juggernaut, demonstrated that he is out of his depth in seeking the White House. Even his fans have started to sense it as they lamely try to justify the unjustifiable in ways that seem more reminiscent of the desperate actions of those who backed Trump rivals that have since fallen by the wayside.
That doesn’t mean they’ll abandon him. To the contrary, “My Trump, right or wrong,” has been their motto from the start and enabled them to stick with a candidate that is pretty much always wrong and utterly disconnected from, if not unfamiliar with the principles that his followers claim to support. But his run of primary victories was built on his ability to get beyond that core group of supporters. His appeal to primary voters that were willing to overlook his shortcomings was, in no small measure, the function of a belief in that “winner” personality. That was fed by the notion that Trump was willing to hit harder than any Republican had in recent memory while never giving an inch.
That aura, as well as the notion of his electability, was swept away in the last week as his negatives have hit record levels. Can that turn the tide in the GOP race? At this late date, the answer is probably not. He may be able to shrug off a defeat in Wisconsin if he can answer it with victories in New York and other northeastern states later in the month. But there’s no doubt that the moment in which he can loom over both political parties as a colossus that can’t be tamed is over.
Instead of the unbeatable Donald Trump that can do anything, he is now in the category of a Sarah Palin; a sectarian figure that can inspire devotion from a niche of supporters — and in Trump’s case, it’s a large enough niche to win pluralities in GOP primaries — but one that is so despised and reviled outside of that narrow demographic that this renders them toxic in a general election. Trump fans, like Palin’s devoted following, will never run out of excuses for their man and blame his defeats on his establishment foes or the media. But they must understand that he is a person for whom the rest of the country will never be willing to make allowances. Like her, he will be worshipped by his acolytes but be relegated to the status of a national joke and/or embarrassment to everyone else.
That ought to give food for thought both to the voters in the remaining Republican primaries as well as those GOP delegates that will be asked to put him over the top at the Cleveland convention if he falls short of a majority.