Trump’s strategy is no longer about winning – it’s just about airing old grudges
T he deeply divisive campaign for the US presidency has descended into an ugly conflict over whether Republican Donald Trump or the husband of his Democratic challenger has treated women worse.
Mr Trump’s White House bid is sinking fast as the row over Hillary Clinton’s husband, former president Bill Clinton, continues. But the attacks are being overshadowed by allegations that Trump kissed and groped women without their consent. Now his campaign is openly signalling that it will spend the election’s final month going over Bill Clinton’s marital affairs and unproven charges of sexual assault, as well as Hillary’s unverified role in intimidating the women involved.
The ‘New York Times’ and the ‘Palm Beach Post’ have reported stories about three women who alleged Mr Trump had inappropriately touched them. Separately, a ‘People’ magazine reporter wrote a first-person account of being attacked by Trump while interviewing the businessman and his wife Melania.
The stories come less than a week after the publication of a 2005 video in which Trump boasted of using his fame to kiss and grab women.
In an interview, the soap opera actress who also appears in the recording said Mr Trump’s comments were offensive. But Arianne Zucker, speaking on NBC’s ‘Today’, said she was not shocked, given “that type of personality”. She said that is “probably why it doesn’t mean a lot to me”.
The revelation of the video last Friday prompted a flood of Republicans to revoke their support for Mr Trump, with some even calling for him to drop out of the race – though a handful of GOP officials have since switched back to supporting him.
Clinton adviser Jennifer Palmieri
said the latest revelations match “everything we know about the way Donald Trump has treated women”.
Mr Trump’s campaign denied the reports and threatened to sue the ‘New York Times’ if it does not retract its story.
Taken together, the revelations about Mr Trump and his counterprogramming about Mr Clinton have plunged an already rancid campaign to new lows.
The real estate mogul has also aggressively suggested that Ms Clinton not only needs to be defeated in November, but also “has got to go to jail”. His campaign is also facing questions about ties to Russian interests accused of hacking Democratic groups, as well as the hacking of a top Clinton adviser’s emails.
For Mr Trump, the cumulative effect of his brazen strategy appears to be a collapse in the key battleground states he needs to win in November. What was already a narrow path to the 270 electoral college votes needed for victory is virtually indiscernible unless there’s a significant shake-up in the race between now and November 8.
Rather than trying to make up ground by shifting attention back to issues such as trade, the Republican campaign appears to be moving swiftly to make Mr Clinton’s past a centrepiece. Building on Mr Trump’s decision to bring three Bill Clinton accusers to last week’s presidential debate, the Republican nominee is expected to have the women appear with him on stage at rallies and do television interviews.
His supporters are also confronting Ms Clinton with the accusations about her husband. Multiple Clinton rallies were interrupted this week by hecklers shouting “Bill Clinton is a rapist.”
Earlier this week, right-wing radio host Alex Jones offered to pay anyone who can be heard on television shouting about the former president and wearing a “Bill Clinton rape” T-shirt.
Mr Clinton never faced any criminal charges over the allegations and a lawsuit over an alleged rape was dismissed. He did settle a lawsuit with one of the women who claimed harassment.
The Trump campaign’s hope is to showcase the decades-old accusations to young voters, particularly women, who may not have been old enough to remember the controversies that dogged the Clintons in the 1990s.
And if the campaign cannot get them to vote for Mr Trump, the person briefed on the plans said the goal is to convince young voters to stay at home and depress turnout, which would likely hurt Democrats.
Former Trump senior adviser Michael Caputo said the businessman’s only way to win is to “go nuclear” on the Clintons.
“There’s no way Trump can do anything positive to earn back women,” Mr Caputo said. “The only way he can stave off the bleeding is to drag them into parity.”
But it’s unclear whether Trump’s strategy is even aimed at winning the election. Increasingly, his campaign feels like an opportunity for long-time Clinton opponents to air decades’ worth of grievances about the Democratic power couple on the biggest stage in US politics.
Trump’s informal adviser Roger Stone has long encouraged him to make Mr Clinton’s alleged assaults and the way his wife treated his accusers a centrepiece of the campaign. Steve Bannon, the campaign’s chief executive, ran ‘Breitbart News’, a right-wing website that promotes conspiracy theories about the Clintons.
Ms Clinton, who is on pace to become America’s first female president, has tried to stay above the fray. She has yet to respond directly to Trump’s decision to resurrect accusations about her husband.
During rallies in Colorado and Nevada, Ms Clinton appeared to be looking at how to heal America’s divisions if she is elected, pledging she would be a champion both for her supporters and those who do not vote for her. “I know how important it is that we stay focused on the concerns that people have, not on the demagoguery and distraction,” she said.