Democrats and activists punish Trump for a new strategy: ignore him



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Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who once was one of President Trump's biggest opponents on Twitter, does not engage the president these days, even after he attacked the Massachusetts Democrat, her husband and her beer . Trump did not participate in this year's Golden Globe Awards, a difference from the last two years where he has been repeatedly criticized on the stage. A satirical cable show about it has been canceled. A group of simple Democrats in the House refused Trump's invitation to lunch at the White House on Tuesday

Trump, who recently wanted to be alone in the White House, is recently in a situation where he has rarely been in recent years: Ignored.

His political stamp was guided by an infallible ability to incite others to engage in combat that is beneficial to him. The metric he is concerned about is the possession of ratings of television and national attention, more than polls or anything else.

So, what happens when, instead, he comes up against something of a shrug of shoulders?

dictate the national coverage and frame the debate of the day. And it provides a preliminary model of how presidential candidates in the presidential election could attempt to treat him in 2020, forcing him essentially out of a conversation they want to have with the presidential candidates. voters.

The former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Julián Castro, who announced his 2020 campaign on the weekend, mentioned Trump only by the way. Senator Kamala D. Harris of California, on a reading tour that served as preparation for a possible presidential campaign, rarely spoke to Trump unless asked.

"My goal, if I went running," Harris said recently. MSNBC, "it would not be Donald Trump."

Trump spent a large part of his presidency under an inescapable presence. On TV. On the first pages. He is surrounded by commentary on football games and Grammy Award winners, as well as a presence at conversations around bus stops and potluck dinners in churches.

"The main activity of Donald Trump, from his arrival in the paternal society until his young age president, was seeking attention," said Michael D Antonio, biographer of Trump and author of The Trump Truth Book It was as if he did not exist if he was not noticed. The lack of relevance is, in my opinion, more painful for him than failure. "

He criticized his opponents by nicknames and long provoked instinctive reactions among Democrats who struggled to balance their indignation with his attempts to propose an alternative.

" In 2016, the theory was that … it was okay to focus on Trump because what he was saying was so disqualifying that it could be vanquished to recall how offensive he was, "said Brian Fallon, Democratic Consultant and Hillary Clinton campaign spokesman "Obviously this did not work."

As president, Trump will never be totally irrelevant. face up, the Democratic candidates began trying something new in 2018: they stopped talking about Trump so much, and they realized that the more they talked about him, the more disengaged the voters were. They could win more easily against moderate Republicans in lower-income neighborhoods if they avoided focusing on him, and Democrats would not really need to remember why they were angry with him.

Only 11% of Democratic ads in the last month of the year. the November elections mentioned Trump, according to data collected by the non-partisan group Kantar Media / CMAG and cited by USA Today.

"Being just anti-Trump is not enough to win the Democratic nomination and will not be enough to win" In 2020, said Guy Cecil, president of the Democratic Action PAC Priority Priorities USA Action . "Democrats must tell their own story and share a forward-looking vision of where they want to take the country."

The anti-Trump candidates – the lawyer Michael Avenatti and the activist Tom Steyer, who spends millions to advocate for the dismissal of Trump – have decided not to run for the nomination Democrat. Kirsten Gillibrand, a senator, said that other candidates or potential candidates had only briefly mentioned Trump before moving on to something else.

"I'm not afraid of him, nor his vulgar language and his name." (DN.Y.) said in a video accompanying Tuesday's announcement of his candidacy for the presidency. "What this president does is inhuman and immoral." She then highlighted her record in the Senate and her efforts to promote women's rights and protect first responders of 9/11.

Warren embodies one of the most radical changes of his era. focus. Previously, she frequently sought to communicate with Trump, arguing with him on Twitter and pointing out his willingness to part with him as one of his main strengths.

In launching her campaign this month – and trying to trace the story of her life – she almost completely eliminated Trump from her lexicon. She recorded a video of herself in her kitchen, drinking a beer and offering one to her husband (who refused). Trump criticized her, but she only mentioned it once during her multi – day trip to Iowa.

"I think we need to talk about our affirmative vision," she told reporters last weekend, to the question of why she was not there. raising his former leader Nemesis. "I'm ready to fight, everyone knows it. . . . I've talked about a serious policy here in New Hampshire and that's what I will continue to do. "

These challenges will become increasingly difficult, especially as Democrats get closer to general elections."

"Democrats should not neglect the lessons of 2018," said Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster who claimed that a certain level of combat with Trump would be necessary. "Mid-way, it was to defeat Republican candidates in Congress, and 2020, to defeat Trump himself."

One of the Democrats' challenges is to demonstrate that "no one is going to win." they can capture the imagination of the public without invoking Trump.

"I think one factor is decisive. people will watch is, who. . . can cultivate a separate media ecosystem of Trump? Said Fallon. "Who has the ability to hold media attention other than launching attacks against Trump? Which is intrinsically interesting and convincing? Can Trump lob attack them without being caught in the quicksand because of that? Because it's a good indicator to know who can resist the [chaos] which will be the 2020 general election. "

Linda Sarsour, a co-founder of the Women's March, said that the event of this weekend would unveil a heavy policy "Women's Agenda" to highlight the points on which the Democratic House could focus in 2019 and what presidential candidates could discuss in 2020. Although Trump has been a major goal in previous marches, she said, the president's daily outrage has become a smaller and smaller part of the debate. discussion.

"I do not even pay attention to the president anymore; I focus on what needs to be done, "said Sarsour. "I do not go down into the rabbit's hole of distraction; I do not care if he ordered hamburgers for people in the White House. I am executive orders, because I want to know what we are going to sue for him. "

Anthony Atamanuik, a comedian best known for his imitation of Trump, saw his Comedy Central show canceled after the last of his 23 episodes aired in October

.The decision stems, he said, from the combination of network anxiety about overtly political programming and Trump's fatigue among viewers.Actresses also struggled to find the right balance with Trump, both to satirize events close to the satirical and to find something new to say.

"I think there is a general fear of making fun of him gives him oxygen," he says. "He says the same I could say word for word what he said for two or three years, at one point we ran out of comments. "

David Weigel contributed to this report.

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