Response to Those Missing Strawberries

(See: Just Above Sunset: Those Missing Strawberries)

Please don't stop me if you've heard me say this before, but the reason the Republicans have a "Trump problem" is that he's so rich, he doesn't think he has to listen to them.

When you're really rich, you don't have to pay attention to losers, with the word "loser" being used here in the sense of "anybody but me, especially some bunch of mucky-mucks I've publicly humiliated on numerous occasions."

Josh Marshall sees the problem manifest itself here:

There’s a Politico story out today about how the RNC gave him the names of twenty big GOP donors to call. He got bored or frustrated and stopped after calling three. And this comes after deciding that he actually doesn’t need to raise a billion dollars.

I'm guessing that Trump has never held down a regular job, working for anyone other than his father or himself, someone who could order him to do something he doesn't want to do. I'm also guessing he never had to do the dirty work of actually raising money. He always found some way of getting money other than asking anyone for it, which is somewhat demeaning, especially for someone who has too much pride to put himself at anyone else's mercy.

Remember that fund-raising thing for the veterans? That was relatively easy, with him pledging a million of his own money -- saving him from begging it off of someone else -- and getting another pledge of another million from some other friend of his. That's two million, with no pressure to cough it up any time soon, since the point was to provide a high-minded diversion to some debate he decided to skip.

And it's not like he pulled a Jerry Lewis, staying up twenty-four hours, concluding with a tearful collapse on stage. Donald Trump would never lower himself to doing the sorts of things one has to do to raise pledges for more than that paltry six-million dollars.

In a word, Donald Trump seems to be a bit of a lazy bum.

Another problem with having a rich guy for your candidate is that he has so much money, he feels he can get along without the people who know how to do things he doesn't know how to do. Here's Josh Marshall again:

Trump now needs to operate with and collaborate with people who will face real electorates in November. They know a modern presidential campaign requires $1 billion dollars of funding. They still know it does after Trump insists it only requires $50 million. No one outside the Trump fact bubble believes that. 

(Does that $50 million cover the down-ticket? God, I hope not! I'd love to see us win back the Senate, and maybe even the House.)

Another related problem is that, because of his life experiences, he doesn't feel the need to make anything a group effort, that he can just do everything himself.

Our country is at least arguably a democracy, which means ultimate power is vested in the people. You can't approach our governance with some "leader" saying, "Listen, everyone: Get behind me. But if you don't, leave me alone. I can do this by myself!" To be effective, you will have to use the "It takes a village approach" (remember that?) that assumes that, no matter what happens, we're in this together.

And by "people", I don't mean the total number of eyeballs, divided by two, that see more than fifteen minutes of a so-called "Reality" TV show. Certain people need to be reminded that there is a big difference between so-called "Reality TV" and actual "Reality", and that being that only one of them is real.

Remember reporter Ron Suskind, quoting a Bush White House source who later turned out to be Karl Rove, who accused reporters like Suskind of living, blissfully, "in what we call the reality-based community"?

"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

(By the way, where the hell is Karl Rove today? Has anybody heard from him?)

While later events proved Rove wrong, Trump never got the memo. He may not realize it but he's still operating on outdated assumptions.

That's why I think that when all those state delegates are in there, changing the rules, they should consider adding one that says that, from now on, no candidate can run for president on the Republican ticket if he self-funds his own campaign.

In other words, they should hang a sign: "No billionaires need apply!"

Not that I really want to be giving advice to the GOP, but no worries, they never listen to me anyway.