Trump’s Campaign Is Falling Apart — And It’s All His Fault

Former President Donald Trump’s campaign to retake the White House is falling apart — and it’s all his fault.

It’s true that Vice President Kamala Harris’s supplanting of President Joe Biden provided Democrats with a reason to live again. And it’s true that most of the media has spent the entirety of Harris’s nascent campaign boosting it.

But it’s also true that Harris’s skyrocketing poll numbers were no inevitability.

A few weeks ago, everything was turning up Trump. He showed enough restraint to let Biden collapse in on himself at their debate. He was beating the incumbent in nearly every national and swing-state survey. He survived an attempt on his life thanks to a coincidental, last second turn of his head.

His path back to the Oval Office seemed clear. Now it’s been obstructed — not by Lady Luck, but himself.

Every blown lead begins with an act of arrogance; picking Senator JD Vance (R-OH) as his running mate was Trump’s.

Vance had a number of built-in disadvantages and no proven record of political success. He’s prevailed in one GOP primary — entirely on the strength of Trump’s endorsement — and one red state general election in which he ran behind every other Republican candidate. His views on economics and foreign affairs divide the party, and he’s waged cultural war in what has to be the least appealing, most braindead manner possible: “Children are good,” is an effective message, “May God damn the cat ladies,” is an off-putting one. Guess which one the Republican vice presidential nominee has opted for?

Nevertheless, Trump picked Vance because he has the zeal of a convert. While the Hillbilly Elegy author once compared his boss to Adolf Hitler, he has turned into his most submissive sycophant. The temptation of having a loyalist who owed him one by his side proved too alluring for Trump, so Vance go the nod over those who would have actually offered the ticket some sort of electoral boost, such as Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) or Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA).

His selection of Vance was not the final nail in his campaign’s coffin. But if it’s emblematic of how he’s going to make the case for himself and prosecute the one against Harris, he is indeed doomed.

The Trump campaign teased a new, sober Donald in the aftermath of the attempt on his life. Yet his behavior in recent days has been completely devoid of self-discipline or strategic thinking. His speech at the Republican National Convention was a meandering mess instead of the clear and concise address it should have been. His lack of focus is betrayed by his rants against Fox News on Truth Social. And worst of all, he seems to have no idea how to land a blow on Harris, an eminently weak candidate with no shortage of vulnerabilities.

Harris is the no. 2 in command in a historically unpopular administration. “Border czar” or not, she failed miserably in her enumerated task of stemming the flow of migrants into the country. During her first run for the presidency she ran as some kind of pseudo anarcho-communist, calling for the abolition of private health insurance and the implementation of the Green New Deal while flirting with the disbandment of ICE and marginal tax rates of up to 80%. It hardly got better once she flamed out of the race; remember that time she called on ordinary Americans to donate to a bail fund for the rioters and looters burning businesses to the ground in Minnesota? Guess what the press’s defense of that is: That she didn’t put her own money where her mouth is. Brava, Madame Vice President, truly you are a profile in courage and inspiration to us all.

With all of that material to work with, what is Trump attacking her over?

Oh yeah, this:

If you’re wondering why the former president thinks this is some kind of own, recall that at the National Association of Black Journalists conference on Wednesday, Trump attacked Harris for supposedly fabricating the fact that she is Black in addition to being of Indian descent.

“She [Harris] was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn’t know she was black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn black. And now she wants to be known as Black,” mused Trump. “I respect either one, but she obviously doesn’t because she was Indian all the way. And then all of a sudden she made a turn and she became a Black person.”

The goal: To win control of the executive branch of the most powerful nation on Earth.

The plan: To pretend not to understand what “biracial” means and hope a majority of the country follows your lead.

Asinine doesn’t do it justice.

So if Trump continues down this path and loses a winnable election, don’t trust those on the Left who wax poetically about Harris’s virtues or those on the Right who bellyache about the media bias.

It’s all on him.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.