Taking Down Trump 2.0 - Rule 3

One of the keys to beating Trump? Convincing other politicians that bucking Trump is in their self-interest and personally beneficial.

As we continue to adapt the rules from Taking Down Trump to the tasks of opposing and defeating the second Trump administration, we come across a very timely imperative for the battles that are suddenly upon us in the wake of the inauguration (more on that in the latest episode of the podcast).

Can we use the New York AG’s playbook to fight Trump’s new barrage of executive orders and looming legislation?

One of the core lessons of the Trump University story is how it’s possible for deeply flawed politicians to be vehicles for defeating Trump — back then, it was the New York AG at at the time, Eric Schneiderman, who was by all accounts self-absorbed and obsessed with his own status and future political ambitions. In other words, he was like most politicians. And yet those of us in the AG’s office who refused to let go of the Trump prosecution and insisted that it move forward — because of the overwhelming evidence of systematic fraud and illegality — managed to convince Schneiderman to take action.

How did we do that? It was not by appealing to the better angels of his nature but to his most opportunistic impulses — and this is a lesson we all need to carry forward immediately in opposing the incipient Trump agenda.

In short, meet politicians where they are rather than where you want them to be. What they care about most is re-election and power and status. Don’t appeal to their patriotism, their sense of duty, or their supposed values or convictions or ideological principles. Don’t appeal to their hearts or any sense of caring for their constituents in any altruistic way. Don’t appeal to the heart at all but to the head — to a pure cost-benefit analysis.

Does the political benefit of fighting Trump exceed the political cost of fighting Trump? That is the question. Change that calculation, and you will change their minds.

And let’s be realistic. This question is not just about calculation — it’s about raw decibel levels, about whose message is being transmitted and received the most loudly. If Trump is able to turn up the noise and threat level to make a politician fear a primary challenge, then it is our job to be as noisy and annoying and persistent in making that same politician fear a general election defeat — with negative press and social media and non-stop phone calls and confrontational town halls as far as the eye can see and the ear can hear.

Let’s see how this could work in practice. For an example, we can look at North Carolina’s senior senator, Thom Tillis, who is up for re-election next year. The Tarheel State happens to be a major exporter, #14 out of the 50 states, adding $42.2 billion to the state’s economy. Canada is their largest customer, followed closely by China and Mexico. Over 116,000 manufacturing jobs in the state rely on exports, including in chemicals, machinery, transportation equipment, computer and electronic products, and electrical equipment. North Carolina is a major agricultural exporter too, #1 in the US in broiler meat, #1 in tobacco, and #3 in pork. And 87% of the exporting businesses in North Carolina are small to medium-sized businesses with fewer than 500 employees.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) at a North Carolina company cutting a long piece of plastic with a pair of comically oversized scissors. Politicians take credit for bringing jobs — and they get wrecked for casting votes that lose those jobs.

So what do we think would happen to North Carolina’s economy and jobs if there were suddenly 25% tariffs on everything from Canada and Mexico, and 10% on everything from China — thus leading to retaliatory tariffs from those same countries, slapped on those North Carolina exports? For Tillis, a vote for tariffs could be a vote for his own political suicide.

Of course, Tillis has other problems. The MAGA base dubs him “Traitor Thom” for even occasionally having some bipartisan discussions — and there has been talk of Lara Trump, who grew up in North Carolina, challenging Tillis. Even if he can sidestep such a challenge (perhaps getting lucky and having Lara Trump run for governor of Florida instead, as Ron DeSantis is term-limited), Tillis may then have to face off in the general against Roy Cooper, the very popular, recently term-limited Democratic governor of North Carolina.

None of this is easy, in other words. There are no guarantees that the political calculation will push Tillis to oppose tariffs. Instead, my point is that there is a strong argument to be made to someone like Tillis — or to any Republican representing anything but a deep-red constituency — and that we cannot simply look at the Republican majorities in Congress as monolithic. There are always points of malleability if you know where to look, and these can shift even the most skeptical or shaky of political players into one that is willing to buck Trump if it will mean helping himself.

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Next up in Taking Down Trump 2.0, we will examine how Trump’s over-reliance on outsourcing may be an Achilles heel not just in legal proceedings but also in the political realm.