“They don’t have a narrative that they’re comfortable with about how to take down Harris,” said Chuck Coughlin, an Arizona-based political strategist. “He’s grasping around. I think he’s desperately grasping around with his instincts. I don’t think his team has any way to put their handle on this, and so he’s instinctually grasping around for what to say.”
The Trump machine had in recent days begun a multi-million-dollar TV advertising blitz hammering Harris for her record on the border, an issue the former president’s campaign sees as a winner — and portraying her as ideologically out of the mainstream. One ad from a pro-Trump group labeled the vice president a “dangerous San Francisco liberal.”
Harris had even begun defending herself from the attacks, hitting back Tuesday night in Atlanta about her border record, and simultaneously releasing a nearly minute-long video framing her as pro-border security.
But Trump’s comments Wednesday on Harris’ racial background drew some of the biggest gasps from the audience, and provided Democrats with ammunition. During the appearance, Trump said Harris “happen[ed] to turn Black … She was Indian all the way and all of a sudden she made a turn and she became a Black woman.”
Oh, no, it’s having quite an effect on the fanbase. Mostly, they recognize what a losing strategy it is, even if they agree with it.
Just take a look at the old conservative stallwart site, Free Republic: https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/4255438/posts
There’s a few people weakly defending it, but there’s a general tenor of “oh shit, we fucked up”.
Amusingly, there’s a few people saying they should try winning on policy, not race. This after the Heritage Foundation put out a 900+ page PDF with their dream policies, and Americans were horrified by it. Guys, if you could win on policy, you wouldn’t have ever needed Trump.