Opinion | Trump Can Win on Character - The New York Times
By: Rich Lowry (nytimes)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Aug. 26, 2024Credit...Damon Winter/The New York Times
By Rich Lowry
Mr. Lowry is the editor in chief of National Review.
With the defenestration of Joe Biden and the ascent of Kamala Harris, conventional wisdom has gone from asking, "How can Donald Trump lose?" to "How can he win?"
It's basically a tossup race, but a successful Harris rollout and convention, coupled with a stumbling Trump performance since Mr. Biden's exit, have created a sense of irresistible Harris momentum.
As usual when he falters, Mr. Trump is getting a lot of advice from his own side.
For as long as Mr. Trump has been in the ascendancy in the G.O.P., he will go off on some pointless tangent, and Republicans will urge him — perhaps as they hustle down a corridor of the U.S. Capitol — to talk about the economy instead of his controversy du jour.
A close cousin of this perpetual advice is the admonition that Mr. Trump should concentrate more on the issues in this campaign. Neither recommendation is wrong, but they are insufficient to make the case against Kamala Harris.
Presidential races are won and lost on character as much as the issues, and often the issues are proxies for character. Not character in the sense of a candidate's personal life but the attributes that play into the question of whether someone is suited to the presidency — is he or she qualified, trustworthy and strong, and does he or she care about average Americans?
Presidential races, in this sense, are deeply personal; they usually involve disqualifying the opposing candidate, rather than convincing voters that his or her platform is wrongheaded.
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'Laugh-out-loud funny': Experts guffaw as Times op-ed asserts Trump can win 'on character'
Kathleen Culliton 3-3 minutes 8/26/2024
A New York Times headline has political pundits rolling in the proverbial aisles with an assertion about Donald Trump's best bet on winning in 2024.
Rich Lowry, editor of the conservative National Review, argued in a Times op-ed that Trump should ignore the advice of many Republicans and bombard Vice President Kamala Harris with accusations of weakness.
The column had the headline: " Trump can win on character ."
"From the headline* to the analysis to the strategy," replied Georgetown Law professor Josh Chafetz , "this op-ed is laugh-out-loud funny."
Chafetz was not the only reader of note to raise an eyebrow at Lowry's claim that Trump could slow Harris' surging momentum if only he hit the brakes on policy-based attacks and revved up a more personal campaign message.
“Presidential races are won and lost on character as much as the issues, and often the issues are proxies for character,” Lowry wrote.
"Everything has to be connected to the deeper case that Ms. Harris is weak, a phony, and doesn’t truly care about the country or the middle class."
That Trump, the billionaire son of a real estate tycoon who was found guilty of falsifying business records , should so target Harris, a former prosecutor and daughter of a cancer researcher and economics professor , did not impress readers such as University of Pennsylvania geophysicist Professor Michael E. Mann .
"This is what lowlife Rich Lowry (editor in chief of the odious National Review) and the New York Times have both been reduced to," Mann wrote. In a follow-up post Mann admitted to knowing Lowry personally and added, "He's an a------."
Health economist Eric Feigl-Ding also opined the Times was scraping the bottom of the editorial barrel.
"This is a completely real NYT oped headline," he wrote. "The @nytimes has sunk to a new low."
Other readers resorted to jokes.
Dmitry Grozoubinski likened Trump to a villain in a James Bond-based video game from the 1990s.
"Trump couldn't win on character even if the election were Goldeneye 64 and we let him play Oddjob," replied the former Australian diplomat.
"I actually agree that Trump can win on character," political commentator Anand Giridharadas added. "All he has to do is time travel and unborn himself."
character and trump
that does not compute
He could be called quite the, character, but Trump is more like a fictitious character in a non fiction reality where alternate fax have been machine gunned out gunning the actual ones for far too many of the asses that make up Trumps' ignorant masses of cult chored who have received far more than a fare Cher of allowances that should have remained not aloud, for their support leaves Death(and Life) Not Proud, asz they drag down our country with the least respected potUS EVER, as he thinks he be clever by spreading the hate and pseudo raptured apocalypse not now, asz 45 was back stateside riding his bone spurs and avoiding his own personal Viet Nam that potentially lurked in the crotch of all the females out on the prowl asz that Cat Scratch Fever would make he and Ted Howl at the Bark at the Moon while chomping off bat heads for a bit, then trying to get to third base and grab a little tit, but walked, cause kool Aid Pitcher balked , and then smashed through that legendary Mexico paid for wall that should not be built at all, asz tails pulled tall and lean are every where to be heard buiy the herd, just not seen, unless ob
www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com /2024/08/that-joke-isnt-funny-anymore
That joke isn't funny anymore - Lawyers, Guns & Money
Paul Campos 3-4 minutes 8/26/2024
The New York Times decided to give Rich Lowry column space to discuss how Donald Trump should make “character” the central issue of the 2024 presidential campaign. That sounds like the premise for an Onion article, but behold:
In other words not “character” in the sense of “character,” but “character” in the sense of . . . what are we talking about here exactly?
Wait a second, are we talking about Donald Trump here?
Because here’s my highly scientific rating of how Donald Trump ranks in regard to this attributes among the 45 men who have been president of the United States:
Is he qualified for the office?
Donald Trump is by far the least qualified person to hold the office of president of the United States who has been elected to it, by a mile. For example, the only two other presidents not to hold elective office before ascending to the White House were Grant (won the Civil War) and Eisenhower (won World War II). Trump hosted The Apprentice .
Is he trustworthy?
Trump is by far the least trustworthy person ever to be president. Again, there’s a huge gap between him and the runner-up for this honor. I mean compared to Trump even Richard Nixon has got soul.
Is he strong?
Trump is by far the weakest person ever to be president. He is a whining toddler in the form of a large adult. He is a physical coward who hates personal confrontation so much that he always dispatches his minions to do something as simple as firing an underling (ironic!).
Does he care about average Americans?
Trump is dead last among presidents in caring about average Americans, because he’s dead last among presidents in caring for other human beings, whether average or exceptional. He is a narcissistic sociopath, who is no more capable of even pretending to care about anybody else as he is of swimming the English channel.
In other words, Lowry’s column is the most extreme form of gaslighting, and the NYT’s willingness to print it illustrates the extent to which the people who run the paper are either actively hoping that Trump wins, or failing utterly to meet their responsibilities to the historical moment, or some horrifying combination of this grim comment on their own characters.
Maybe in the interest of not being sued by Lowry or Trump The NYT trusted it's readers to
A: Laugh out Loud
B: share their own sense of humor
or
C: continues the Board's outrageous policy of publishing some extreme bullshit to offer it's readers a break from their normally democratic realistic left leaning stories about everything?
I prefer
Trump, character is the ultimate oxymoron.
And, interestingly, Trump is the ultimate moron.
Yeah, no. Trump’s personal life definitely isn’t going to do him any favors. There are a lot of people in jail with more respectable personal lives.
Absent the insane fact that he somehow got elected in 2016, I can’t think of anything in his past that makes him qualified - in a competency sense - to be president.
Fuuuuck. I’m still waiting for him to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it. I’m also waiting on his “terrific” replacement for Obamacare. And of course, there were many other undelivered - or straight up broken - promises .
If anyone trusted him before, he is no longer worthy.
was NEVER worthy, as he has been a lying POS his entire life.
His documented LIES were over 30,000 as 45, and his A whole campaign is where he expects US to make base camp, as in base camp pain, and it does. It pains to listen to the miscreant maniacal mental midget as he blathers out hate to stoke the division that he enjoys to fear monger his little girls and boys, who somehow still buy in on what Trump has only sold, and it has gotten so fckn OLD !