Donald Trump’s campaign has been struggling to maintain a chance at winning the presidential election in the last few weeks. Not only has his support begun failing among the common American people, he has started to lose a lot of his support within the GOP, which can very well cost him the election. Many of those whose support he has lost have had the potential to be powerful and influential surrogates for his campaign, such as John McCain and Condoleezza Rice. What he has been left with is a group of extremists whose support for him is borderline becoming a cult. If someone in his campaign does not come forward as a voice of reason and find a way to reconcile the widening gaps within the Republican Party, Trump will lose this election.
What is Left: The Conspiracy Theorists
Now that Trump has completely abandoned the idea of acting like a respectable candidate, it seems that all he has left to support him are people like Congresswoman Renee Ellmers. She has backed the “rigged campaign” conspiracy, though she seems to be willing to offer no defensible reason as to why it may be rigged. When interviewed by CNN, she pushed back against Chris Cuomo’s requests for proof, making statements such as “You want proof? I’ll give you proof,” then going on to give nothing to substantiate her claim. She is devaluing herself as a reputable public speaker, which is a red flag for someone who is supposed to be a surrogate and will likely be costly to the campaign, as many Republicans now feel there is no surrogate that they can relate to.
Family Sticks Together… Kinda
If there is one group of people that a candidate should be able to depend on, it is their family. While Melania and the Trump children have not denounced their support for Trump, they have in many ways taken a step back. Mo
st recently, Ivanka has come out saying that she is not a surrogate for Trump’s campaign… she is just his daughter. While this might seem innocent, this statement could be condemning for the campaign. Throughout the entirety of the campaign, she has never stated her opposition to being referred to as a surrogate until now. This may cause many people in the GOP to jump ship, considering Trump’s own daughter has begun to disassociate herself from the impeding political loss.
I really like your inclusion of Trump’s relying on conspiracy theories as a central campaign strategy. He’s definitely framed a campaign surrounded by such theories, and a lot of the “evidence” he has against HRC is simply an off-shoot of the many far-fetched tales that conservatives have been spinning about her since the 80’s. Though she is definitely not infallible, it seems that the evidence he has against her is either fabricated or highly-exaggerated, which speaks to Trump’s base as being hardcore fear-mongers and individuals who vote purely from a standpoint of emotion. The more he appeals to this base, the further he seems to push moderates – and all reasonable people, in general – away from him.
Great Post. The revolving door of surrogates has been hard to keep up with at times in this campaign. Surrogates are suppose to establish a baseline for the supports to follow. Trump has made it very difficult for a surrogate to be effective when he is constantly saying things in direct contrast to want his surrogates say. A lot of the time his surrogates states the position better than Trump himself. At which time he usually comes in and says something to devalue the surrogates statement. It is surprising that Ivanka has come out and said that she is speaking as his daughter instead of his surrogate. I wonder if this is to shield her from the media treating her differently than they would treat a candidate’s child. We this campaign is over, I feel there will be a long line of people that tried to be a Trump Surrogate out of loyalty to a party that got burned. This is just another example of how Trump is his own worst enemy in this campaign.
I definitely agree that Ivanka stating her placement as Trump’s daughter rather than a surrogate speaker will slightly impact his campaign over the next couple of weeks. I like how you brought in Trump’s dependency on conspiracy theories as well. He many times throughout this campaign has failed to provide hard evidence for his claims and in many ways, just places ideas in people’s heads without really stating how he came to those conclusions. It makes sense that his surrogate speakers would do the same as well. However, his campaign does need to shift their attention and focus on actual matters that have weight and evidence.