Can Trump sell himself as having two faces?
I wrote about Trump's new digital trading cards here.
As we know Trump's digital cards depict him as anything but a normal person. Yet now he is trying to do exactly that as he tries to appeal to women. At the same time he knows he has to promote his outlandish macho image. This photo is from The NY Times (subscription) article Donald Trump Courts the Manoverse.
At a time of an immense gender gap in politics among young people — women leaning left, men leaning right — the Trump campaign has been aggressively courting what might be called the bro vote, the frat-boy flank. It’s a slice of 18-to-29-year-olds that has long been regarded as unreliable and unreachable, but that Republicans believe may just swing the election this year.
Every four years, campaigns and political analysts slice the electorate into tiny subgroups that they believe may swing the vote. Suburban mothers in Michigan. Retirees in Arizona. Latinos in Nevada. Black voters in Georgia.
But the gender gap is a megatrend spanning across swing states and racial groups. And it is most prominent among young voters. In a series of New York Times/Siena College polls in six swing states this month, young men favored Mr. Trump by 13 points, while young women favored Ms. Harris by 38 points, a 51-point gap.
John Della Volpe, the director of polling for the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School, has found a similar divide in his surveys.
“Young men tell me that they’re thinking about what it means to be masculine, what it means to be grown up,” Mr. Della Volpe said. “Many of them saw Trump as someone who could be their version of masculinity.”
Those potential voters, some voting for the first time, follow Mr. Trump more for his personality than his policies, Mr. Della Volpe said. They see him speaking against political correctness and absorbing waves of attacks, from high-minded criticism and court cases to an assassination attempt.
The question is whether Mr. Trump can lure young men to the ballot box. There is reason for skepticism: New York Times/Siena College surveys show that about a third of young men who say they plan to vote for Trump did not vote in 2020. Young men also report they are less likely to vote than older voters.
Photo from the article:
Check out this excerpt:
Forgoing his usual rallies, the former president had agreed to a special “fireside chat” with Moms for Liberty. To signal how cozy and Oprah-esque this was going to be, a vase of red roses sat on a small table beside his large white armchair and the one occupied by Tiffany Justice, a co-founder of the group.
Before the event, Ms. Justice shared with me her hopes for the encounter. She wanted Mr. Trump to talk parental rights, of course, but she also wanted folks to see a softer side of him: “He’s a dad. He’s a grandfather. He loves his family. We’ve seen him working with his family in politics and business, right? I hope the American people get to know Donald Trump in a little bit of a different way. He’ll get to express his love for his family. I think that’s going to resonate with American voters.”
The article concludes:
It will surprise no one that in Ms. Justice’s tête-à-tête with Mr. Trump, the topic of abortion was avoided like … well, like the former president’s mention of any of his kids not named Ivanka.
Still, there was little Ms. Justice could do to keep Mr. Trump on track. Not that it mattered to anyone in the room. At evening’s end, the crowd inching toward the escalators was buzzing, and I chatted with some women thrilled simply to have been in the same room with their idol.
But as for the rest of America — all those women and men not already sold on the MAGA king — it’s hard to imagine they saw much of anything different in his fireside chattiness. At least not in a reassuring or humanizing direction.
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