Reed Galen: Democrats play chess while Trump eats coins

As the 2020 presidential campaign enters the post-Labor Day cycle, aspiring Democrats are scrambling to increase the number of their votes and raise funds to qualify for the September debates.

In the meantime, President Donald Trump will ensure that he remains at the center of the latest political hurricane; ready, willing and able to do or say what it takes to stay there.

While they are recovering from a summer filled with Oreos and fried pork chops, the Democrats have forgotten how the race ran at the White House. While they participate in a quadrennial ritual and their policy spells out thousands of words, Trump's game is different: it's not a politics. It's culture, the past and the show.

For decades, Trump has incited public opinion to make strange statements and to make racist stunts. The fact that he is now using them with impunity should not come as a surprise. For his followers, about 30% of the country, his gesture is more than a catnip. he serves as political opioids to the MAGA crowd. He knows that to keep his base close, he must provide their G receivers with a new indignation and Twittersphere's spitting liberals.

In his book on active political measures in Russia, "The Road to Unfreedom", Timothy Snyder explains Trump's antics. Trump is a practitioner (either strategically or because of who he is) of what Snyder calls the "politics of eternity". The President refers exclusively to the past (think "Make America Great Again") Encourage his followers to ignore the future, which is uncertain and uncomfortable, and to focus on the past, when they thought they were better off and, perhaps more importantly, when their caste was dominant.

Trump is able to survive politically because most of this activity is happening virtually – he's everywhere and nowhere. It's a two-dimensional character, words on a Twitter feed, a voice on a phone or a body standing behind the catwalk, seen up close by a few thousand people in the crowd. Trump projects his favorite image.

On the other hand, think of Trump's recent rally in Ohio where protesters interrupted him. Observe the body language of the president and his strange gestures. It moves away from the lectern, indicates the attackers and indicates the desired action.

To counter Trump's political appearance, Democrats must first agree to play the wrong game. Perhaps the least conventional Democratic candidate, Marianne Williamson, reprimanded fellow candidates last month, noting that Trump would not be defeated by better projects. In politics, politics can win people's minds, but it rarely wins hearts. The 2020 Democrat field and their plans are so many tails that move the dogs. They are disconnected from a prospective and positive vision of the future of the country. For all Americans.

To effectively face Trump next year, the Democratic candidate will have to make a difficult double move. First, they must explain to Americans – from Corona, California, to Columbus, Georgia – why they want to be president, what does their leadership look like and what does it mean for the tens of millions of Americans who not only get themselves feel to be left behind, but that data shows that do not follow the technological or economic tides changing at work today.

The second element of the strategy involves something that Trump really hates: being brought back to Earth. When characters like the president (and he absolutely plays a role) come into contact with reality, they rarely succeed. Democrats must find a way to bring Trump's political Icar back to Earth.

None of this is easy, and Trump and his campaign will not sit idly by while their opponents start deciphering the code. But the time has come, if any, to understand why Trump does what he does, overcomes the daily indignation and spectacle that he knows how to keep us busy and does it in three dimensions.

Only then will the country find a new direction next November.

Reed Galen, Park City, is an independent political strategist who has worked for President George W. Bush, Senator John McCain and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. He can be found on Twitter @ reedgalen.