I am old enough to remember Donald Trump deriding Republicans as ‘losers’ during the 2016 presidential campaign. Remember? He was going to teach the GOP how to win. Instead, the opposite happened: Republicans taught Trump how to lose.
Once Trump reached Washington, he tossed aside the populist policies that won him the presidency and adopted the agenda of Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell. He filled his administration with retreads from the George W. Bush Administration and now he, reportedly is being advised by Karl Rove.
“While Rove’s role is both informal and unpaid, the longtime establishment Republican consultant has been in periodic contact with White House senior adviser Jared Kushner and campaign manager Brad Parscale, the news outlet said. The report comes after President Trump is said to have recently met with his political advisers at the White House to discuss his polling and fundraising figures with Rove in attendance, according to the New York Times‘ Maggie Haberman.”
I never understood why Rove is considered a competent political strategist, let alone a brilliant one. In 2000, if it weren’t for a few hundred votes from overseas and a Supreme Court decision, Al Gore would have won the presidency. Rove was so confident that George W. Bush was going to win that he had him spend the last days of the campaign in California.
In 2004, Rove did deliver a victorious campaign by using the issue of same sex marriage to drive up the social conservative vote. However, two years later Republicans went on to lose control of Congress under his strategic leadership. His effort to build a permanent Republican majority resulted in higher debt and a further expansion of the federal government while minority voters still avoid the GOP like the plague. One successful election does not make one a political genius – at least not in my book.
