Prepared Now 🔴Here’s How Trump Has Changed The Game-- As 2020 Campaigns Launch

Donald Trump has shown that he’s perfectly willing to break political rules and carve his own path. For the most part, this strategy has proven successful. So while they may not admit it, candidates on both sides of the party line will spend the next few years replicating his techniques.

The Trump Effect: Campaigning and More

Few politicians or political insiders want to admit that President Trump is anything but lucky. Establishment Republicans don’t like the fact that he was able to infiltrate the party and spark a movement that didn’t fit their historical model for candidacy. Democrats not only disdain his method of rising to power, but also the message he preaches. The media, who receives stiff lashings from Trump on a regular basis, is naturally an adversary as well.

However, in their quietest moments of privacy, even the haters -- of which there are many -- can’t ignore the fact that he came onto the political stage in the summer of 2015 and fundamentally turned modern politics on its head. And while we could investigate numerous issues and practices that President 45 has fractured and rearranged, now’s the perfect time to focus on the issue of political campaigning -- something that the Trump team used to spark a massive wave of support that ultimately carried him to the shores of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Here we are in the first few weeks of 2019, and we’re only months away from a new set of campaigns, debates, and rallies. The 2020 election season will be upon us before we have time to blink and, if you look closely enough, you’ll notice that campaigns on both the left and right will be pulling techniques and methods from what the Trump team did just a few short years ago.

Here are some specific shifts to keep an eye on:

1.   Down With Party Unity

Donald Trump has downplayed the notion that party unity is essential to campaign success. No candidate in history has been more divisive or confrontational. He had controversial nicknames for all of his opponents and wasn’t afraid to call out the Republican Party when he felt that they were out of touch.

While political insiders will still follow the rules, per se, look for some of the fringe 2020 candidates to follow the Trump prescription of candidate over party. Whether it can work again remains to be seen.

2.   Paid Media Optional

When it was all said and done, Hillary Clinton raised $1.4 billion for her campaign. Donald Trump’s team brought in $957 million. On paper, that’s a huge mismatch. But it was how the money was spent that ultimately swung the pendulum into Trump’s favor.

“Trump refused to spend the money required to buy TV and radio time at a level that matched his opponent Hillary Clinton,” CNN’s Michael D’Antonio writes. “Saturation of the airwaves has long been a staple of campaigns. Trump, who prefers social media platforms like Twitter, decided to go directly to his supporters on platforms that cost him nothing.”

Trump was able to show that, for the first time in dozens of election cycles, grassroots-style campaigning still works on a large-scale basis. Sure, he had close to a billion dollars on hand, but with such a significant deficit to the Clinton camp, Trump had to be strategic with how he spent and where he disseminated his message.

In the 2020 campaign season, look for more grassroots campaigning. Social media will obviously play a significant role, but it won’t stop there. Print media could experience a revival of sorts.

“We see plenty of local politicians use flyers and brochures to spread their message,” explains Printing Center USA. “It wouldn’t be a surprise to see national politicians take a more localized approach and canvas key neighborhoods and communities with paper marketing materials that people can hold, touch, and even smell.”

Voters are tired of feeling like they have to go to a big city or turn on the TV to interact with politicians. They want politicians to come to them. Localized, grassroots campaigning makes this happen.

3.   Rallies for the Win

Every presidential campaign has a few images that history will remember it by. Already, the pictures that tell the story of the Trump 2016 campaign are colorful snapshots from his many campaign rallies. It’s believed that he’s held more than 500 since 2015 (many during his presidency) and each is an astonishing and unique melting pot of culture, politics, and adrenaline.

Campaign rallies are nothing new. Candidates have been using them for decades to spark interest and reach the masses, but Trump took his rallies to a totally new level. They weren’t just rallies -- they were boisterous gatherings of thousands who felt like they had a front row seat to an American revolution.

Rachel Gooder of Howard County, Iowa attended one Trump rally and said it left a lasting impression on her.

“He was so easy-going. It was almost like he was talking to us, and not giving a speech,” Gooder told the Washington Examiner. “He would crack some jokes and he was so relaxed. I loved it. Probably one of the best things I've done. It's one of the highlights of my life, just going to that and being a part of it. Watching how people reacted to what he was saying. It gave me shivers. It was just really, really cool.”

Perhaps “really, really cool” is the best way to describe a Trump rally. As opposed to standing still, holding a sign, and politely clapping on cue, Trump rallies consist of jumping, screaming, loud music, and unscripted speeches from a podium that looks like it’s set up for a rock concert, not a political speech.

While career politicians won’t take nearly the same approach in what they say -- lambasting the media, for example, still seems like something most candidates are hesitant to do -- look for many to try and replicate the same emotional high that Trump rallies create. Because if the 2016 election showed us anything, it’s that emotions are often more powerful than substance.

Rewriting the Rulebooks

Donald Trump shattered the natural order that characterized American politics for decades by exuding confidence and dismissing all who told him to act in a more measured manner. In doing so, he proved that it’s possible to be victorious in modern politics without being a career politician and without following a well-rehearsed script.

Some would say Trump’s campaign was inflammatory and over-the-top, but any time his opponents came after him, he doubled down and refused to recoil. And in a world where the average American is tired of seeing public figures apologize to appease virtual mobs and Twitter trolls, it was Trump’s consistency and resolve that ultimately appealed to millions of voters.

Candidate Trump didn’t do everything right, but at the end of a 19-month slog of a campaign, he was able to show that there’s more than one path to the Oval Office. And if the next set of presidential candidates are serious about earning the 2020 nomination, they’ll be forced to account for an entirely new rulebook -- one that was written by a real estate mogul, master marketer, and successful businessman.

On the Shutdown, Trump Played the Odds

The U.S. federal government (more precisely, only one quarter of the government) was shut down for 36 days.  Opinions of this shutdown, as expected, vary.  In the left camp, a victory is celebrated, and in the right camp, the range of assessments extends from bitterness of defeat (the majority) to cautious optimism like "well, we will see who wins" (a minority).

However, an idea that does not occur to anyone to consider is one of Trump's victory, no matter how unusual it sounds.

Why is this view not considered?  Probably because it is based on the emotional background of the conflict – that is, the personal confrontation between Donald Trump and Nancy Pelosi, who is reveling in her newly acquired power.  However, let's ask ourselves: would Trump's position change if, instead of Pelosi, there was someone else?  Hardly anyone could argue that it was Pelosi who determined Trump's political moves.

In other words, would Trump have initiated a partial government shutdown if someone else owned a gavel in the House of Representatives (Republican, Democrat, or someone else – that doesn't matter anymore)?  Of course he would, because his main strategic task is the wall on the southern border – not just a wall as a barrier, but a wall as a symbol of the sovereignty of the country.

To achieve this goal, Trump needs to drive the opposition into a deliberately uncomfortable corner – so uncomfortable that the opposition will begin to seriously think about its strategic role: either stubborn obstructionism or a constructive opposition.

What can make the Democrats do this?  Only public opinion.  The opposition of Trump and Pelosi should be reconsidered from this point of view – not from the standpoint of the opposition of the gladiator Trump and the gladiator Pelosi, but from the standpoint of winning the sympathies of the spectators in the political Coliseum.  Then the idea of Trump's winning immediately moves from the realm of fantasy to the realm of reality.

For about one month, Trump slowly, step by step, squeezed out from the media narrative all the informational garbage not related to the problem of illegal immigration.  In a month, everything suddenly became secondary: North Korea, Syria, economy, trade wars with China, the unemployment rate, and racial problems.  No one is participating in heated debates over the fact that the number of vacant jobs in America has exceeded the number of unemployed.  Few people outside Washington are interested in the vicissitudes of the Mueller investigation.  Except for small fringe groups, no one raises the issue of impeachment.  Everything has faded into the background except the wall.

As a result, Trump skillfully imposed his agenda on America.  As part of this agenda, there came a clear understanding that two ideologies clashed in Washington – one that aims to turn America into a country akin to Venezuela, and the other to build a wall on the southern border.  The tasks set by these ideologies are serious strategic goals, and Trump's achievement is the political equivalent of a successful reversal of the Titanic right before an iceberg encounter.

Thanks to Trump, no one in America is left with any doubt about the actual positions of the two opposing sides.  It is now clear to all American citizens that the Republicans' position is to close the border and open the government, while the Democrats prefer to open the border and close the government.

Trump has skillfully arranged the scenery for the next stage of political drama.  At the same time, he wisely saved his trump card for the final act, either in the form of a declaration of national emergency,or the wall built by the U.S. Army (the law allows this to be done even without the consent of Congress).  Moreover, the Democrats are unaware: for some reason, they consider the partial government shutdown advantageous for them.  If for the Democrats the upcoming 21 days of negotiations with Trump are a sign of their victory, then for Trump, 21 days of negotiations are the gun on the wall, which, according to Chekhov, must necessarily fire in the third act.

Declaring a state of emergency in America is a fairly frequent thing.  President Obama declared national emergencies 12 times, and President G.W. Bush 13 times.  By law, a national emergency may be declared by the president for only one year, but, as a rule, all presidents extend their own emergency declarations and the emergency declarations of their predecessors.

Trump extended all the emergencies declared by Presidents Obama, Bush, and Clinton.  In addition, Trump extended the national emergency associated with Iran, which President Carter had previously declared.  Currently, there are 31 active national emergencies in the United States.  For reference, the U.S. Congress has the right to cancel a declaration of a national emergency, but only if both houses of Congress vote for it with a two-thirds majority.

The Democrats still haven't realized what happened to them.  It seems that none of them read Machiavelli.  After all, they just had to back down and quietly lose a small (only about 0.1% of the U.S. federal budget) political battle over the wall on the border with Mexico, but at the same time save their entire army of supporters, their entire reputation, and their entire political capital that would enable them to confront Trump in the next stage of political struggle.

The Democrats went all in.  What the Democrats have done is worse than a betrayal of American citizens; this is a mistake.

Note that one of the key players, Mueller, understood what was going on and tried to change the course of the news cycle imposed by Trump.  Mueller's photogenic arrest of Roger Stone had stopped the talk about illegal immigration and the wall for a few hours.  However, this did not last long.

In conclusion, let's remind the Democrats about one of the best known of Murphy's Laws: "If everything seems to be going well, you have overlooked something."

Trump's shutdown trap?

Has President Trump suckered Democrats and the Deep State into a trap that will enable a radical downsizing of the federal bureaucracy?  In only five more days of the already "longest government shutdown in history" (25 days and counting, as of today), a heretofore obscure threshold will be reached, enabling permanent layoffs of bureaucrats furloughed 30 days or more.

Don't believe me that federal bureaucrats can be laid off?  Well, in bureaucratese, a layoff is called a RIF – a Reduction in Force – and of course, it comes with a slew of civil service protections.  But, if the guidelines are followed, bureaucrats can be laid off – as in no more job.  It is all explained by Michael Roberts here (updated after the beginning of the partial shutdown):

A reduction in force is a thoughtful and systematic elimination of positions.  For all practical purposes, a government RIF is the same thing as a layoff. ...

Organizations must stick to predetermined criteria when sorting out what happens to each employee.  They must communicate with employees how and why decisions are made. ...

In deciding who stays and who goes, federal agencies must take four factors into account:

1.    Tenure

2.    Veteran status

3.    Total federal civilian and military service

4.    Performance

Agencies cannot use RIF procedures to fire bad employees. 

Update: See also: OMB issues guidance on Reduction in Force layoffs due to partial shutdown

A lot of procedures must be followed, and merit ("performance") is the last consideration, but based on the criteria above, employees already furloughed can be laid off ("RIFed") once they have been furloughed for 30 days or 22 work days:

When agencies furlough employees for more than 30 calendar days or 22 discontinuous work days, they must use RIF procedures.

An employee can be terminated or moved into an available position[.]

This seems to be what was referenced in this remarkable essay written by an "unidentified senior Trump official" published in the Daily Caller, which vouches for the authenticity of the author and explains that it is protecting him from adverse career consequences should the name become known.  I strongly recommend reading the whole thing.

The purported senior official makes the case that devotion to "process" eats up most of the time of federal bureaucrats and is also used by enemies of President Trump's initiatives to stymie the legitimate orders issued by his senior officials:

On an average day, roughly 15 percent of the employees around me are exceptional patriots serving their country.  I wish I could give competitive salaries to them and no one else.  But 80 percent feel no pressure to produce results.  If they don't feel like doing what they are told, they don't.

Why would they?  We can't fire them.  They avoid attention, plan their weekend, schedule vacation, their second job, their next position – some do this in the same position for more than a decade.

They do nothing that warrants punishment and nothing of external value.  That is their workday: errands for the sake of errands – administering, refining, following and collaborating on process.  "Process is your friend" is what delusional civil servants tell themselves.  Even senior officials must gain approval from every rank across their department, other agencies and work units for basic administrative chores.

Then the senior official notes what I have just called the "trap":

Most of my career colleagues actively work against the president's agenda.  This means I typically spend about 15 percent of my time on the president's agenda and 85 percent of my time trying to stop sabotage, and we have no power to get rid of them.  Until the shutdown.

Those officials who waste time and stymie the president's initiatives now are not present because they are not categorized as "essential."

Due to the lack of funding, many federal agencies are now operating more effectively from the top down on a fraction of their workforce, with only select essential personnel serving national security tasks. ...

President Trump can end this abuse.  Senior officials can reprioritize during an extended shutdown, focus on valuable results and weed out the saboteurs.  We do not want most employees to return, because we are working better without them.

Keep in mind that saboteurs cannot be individually identified and RIFed, but they can be included in the layoffs if they meet the criteria above in terms of seniority and service, and they must be given 60 days' notice.  But once they are gone, they are no longer free to obstruct using the "process" as their friend, because they are gone.

You can expect lawsuits on every conceivable point, and I suspect that the definition of "furlough" will be one matter of dispute.

If this was the plan all along, it would explain why President Trump goaded Chuck and Nancy in his televised meeting with them last year, boasting that he would claim credit for the shutdown.  How could they resist a prolonged shutdown when he made it so easy to blame him?

President Trump has proven that he is a "disruptor" who changes the framework of thinking on major issues by refusing to accept the "givens" – the assumptions of how things always have been done and therefore always must be done.

So who is the "senior official"?  I don't know, but I think Stephen Miller is the sort of bold thinker who might volunteer to telegraph the strategy just five days before the deadline.  Give Chuck and Nancy something to think about and probably reject as unthinkable.  Then they can't complain that they weren't warned once the trap is sprung.

Such a mass RIF would be the Trump version of Ronald Reagan firing the air traffic controllers when they went on an illegal strike in 1981.  That was completely unexpected by his enemies, vehemently criticized, and successful.

Among other benefits, it taught the leaders of the USSR that Ronald Reagan was a man whose threats cannot be dismissed as mere rhetoric.  If you think that Xi Jinping, Kim Jong-un, Angela Merkel, and any other foreign leaders would not draw the same conclusion from a massive RIF, then you are kidding yourself.

My theory may be completely wrong, but I pray that it is not.

Hat tip: Clarice Feldman

Monica Showalter adds: Slate of all places has a useful chart on which agencies have the most RIFs on the line.  Surprise, surprise: It's where the bureaucrats most in need of layoffs happen to roost. Update: This is from 2013, but the proportions of furloughed "non-essential" staff likely are similar.