After the latest gaffe around Charlottesville, Trump lost a number of high profile CEO supporters, and the New York Times quickly moved in for the kill.
In its appropriately titled section, “Morning Agenda,” the NYT ran the headline, “Debating Gary Cohn’s Future in Washington.”
Using powerful influence, citing no sources but “the many” business elite, and “several people close to him,” the NYT expertly seeded the idea that Cohn might be next to go.
To those people out there who read the news as “factual” this may appear to be a simple statement of the “truth…”
But to those of us who enjoy watching the wars of propaganda in our society, you see the NYT beautifully using one of Trump’s favorite devices of influence against him—external validation.
In his presidential campaign Trump proved himself an excellent influencer, but the media is proving itself better.
Where Blowing Up People Fails
Trump principally has one approach to winning—a hand grenade.
He’s used to blowing through things, forcing other people to bend, break, collapse, and hand him victory.
His style has made him successful in business, and enabled him to easily thrash his rivals to the big house, but perhaps even he is now seeing the limitations of that stack of grenades he keeps in his kit.
Every warrior knows that if you viciously beat an enemy, you must finish the job. Leaving a wounded and angry enemy left standing is like leaving bear traps all over your house.
Trump had his glory days of blowing up his GOP rivals—as I wrote about in this book—before going on to finish Hillary’s political career.
Blowing up the media in his war of propaganda he earned himself $2 billion in “free” media, but those battles he waged with an enemy he could never finish may come back to end him.
It’s The Same In Washington
Driving through the Republican’s like a blitzkrieg Trump made few friends, and plenty of enemies, in his own party.
It goes without saying he never made friends with the Democrats, and this too is a war he will keep losing.
In Washington it takes two parties to tango, and unless he can actually bring people together, America ain’t getting any greater.
Trump is used to being the boss. To telling people what to do.
And having them do it.
But if he’s to succeed as a “Democratic” leader he must find ways to compromise, be willing to let other people win, be BIG enough to admit when he’s wrong, and to keep looking out for the best interests of ALL Americans, and ALL citizens of the world.
That’s hard to do when you rely too heavily on combative influence.
The Problem With Blitzkrieg
Every powerful fighting strategy has an equally powerful defense.
When the Nazi’s invented the blitzkrieg—the notion of driving an overwhelming force through the enemy line—at first it was unstoppable.
But over time the Allies saw it coming and built a strategy to combat it.
When a boxer overcommits to a right cross and leans too much of their weight through the punch, they leave their jaw hanging out for an upper cut.
And while the Nazi’s were blasting through enemy lines, the Allies let them over-commit, and then circled them from behind…
Force often works, but too much force leaves you exposed from every side.
Death By A Thousand Headlines
None of us can know how this scarily childish game we call politics will play out…
But you can certainly see the man with the target on his back taking on more shrapnel, and still too often saying the wrong things blowing off his own hands.
From the day he stood on that presidential stage Donald has been controversial, yet he has withstood constant attack and won many battles.
But now I’d say, the media is winning the war.