Trump Upends the Rules of the Game

Pol­i­tics

Trump Upends the Rules of the Game

The for­mer president’s high-risk strat­e­gy could pay off big in Novem­ber.

It’s fit­ting that the final phase of the pres­i­den­tial race coin­cides with the begin­ning of the NFL sea­son, espe­cial­ly since the first—and per­haps only—debate between Vice Pres­i­dent Kamala Har­ris and the for­mer Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump has made many Repub­li­cans ner­vous once again about their quar­ter­back.

Trump’s most fer­vent sup­port­ers view him as the biggest win­ner in Amer­i­can pol­i­tics, vul­ner­a­ble only to the oth­er side’s cheat­ing. His most ardent detrac­tors, espe­cial­ly inside the Repub­li­can Par­ty, tend to view him as a los­er in gen­er­al with one flukey win over Hillary Clin­ton that he briefly was on the cusp of repli­cat­ing against a great­ly dimin­ished Pres­i­dent Joe Biden.

I’ve often argued that Trump is best under­stood as the polit­i­cal equiv­a­lent of a gun­slinger quar­ter­back whose tal­ents keep every game close but always runs the risk of turn­ing the ball over at the worst moment. The run­ning about such quar­ter­backs in the NFL is that they always keep both teams in the game.

Both par­ties are count­ing on Trump to keep them in the game in Novem­ber. The for­mer president’s cam­paign is look­ing to draw low-propen­si­ty vot­ers, who skipped out on the dis­ap­point­ing midterm elec­tions or even 2020, to the polls this year. All but two or three of the Repub­li­cans’ vaunt­ed 2024 Sen­ate chal­lengers or can­di­dates for open seats are like­ly reliant on Trump win­ning and hav­ing coat­tails for their own suc­cess.

Har­ris is hop­ing that Democ­rats’ fear and loathing of Trump once again moti­vates them to tu …