You're Fired: The Perfect Guide to Beating Donald Trump - Hardcover

Begala, Paul

 
9781982160043: You're Fired: The Perfect Guide to Beating Donald Trump
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 1982160047 ISBN 13: 9781982160043
Verlag: Simon & Schuster, 2020

Inhaltsangabe

Donald Trump became famous bellowing, “You’re fired!” on TV in a make-believe boardroom. Now, millions of Americans want to yell it right back at him—but Trump has seemed to almost defy the laws of political physics. Paul Begala, one of America’s greatest political talents, lays out the strategy that will defeat Trump and send him and his industrial-strength spray-on tan machine back to Mar-a-Lago.

In You’re Fired, Paul Begala tells us how Trump uses division to distract from the actual reality of his record. Distraction, he argues, is Trump’s superpower. And this book is Kryptonite. In it, the man who helped elect Bill Clinton and reelect Barack Obama, details:

—The special weapons and tactics needed in the unconventional war against this most unconventional politician
—How to drive a wedge—or, rather, a pickup truck—between Trump and many of his supporters, especially blue-collar workers and farmers
—Where the votes to defeat Trump will come from, and how the Rising American Electorate can catch Trump flat-footed
—How Democrats can run on issues ranging from Coronavirus and healthcare to the economy, as well as climate change and Trump’s long-term plan to dominate the federal judiciary
—There is one chapter called simply, “This Chapter Will Beat Trump.” Find out why Begala is so confident and what issue he says will sink the Trumptanic

Full of memorable advice and Begala’s trademark wit, You’re Fired focuses on the lessons we can learn from the party’s successes and failures—and the crucial tools Democrats need to beat Trump.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Paul Begala was a chief strategist for the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign. He served as counselor to the president in the Clinton White House, where he coordinated policy, politics, and communications. He was senior adviser to the pro-Obama Super PAC that played a critical role in reelecting Obama in 2012. He is the author of five books, including Is Our Children Learning?: The Case Against George W. Bush; It’s Still the Economy, Stupid; Buck Up, Suck Up...and Come Back When You Foul Up (with James Carville); Third Term: Why George W. Bush Loves John McCain; and Take it Back: Our Party, Our Country, Our Future (with James Carville). Begala is a CNN political commentator and an affiliated professor of public policy at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy. Paul earned both his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Texas. He and his wife live quietly in Virginia with their four sons and a German shepherd. (Okay, so they don’t live too quietly.)

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Chapter 1: Mea Culpa CHAPTER 1 MEA CULPA
What I Got Wrong in 2016

Everyone got 2016 wrong, so I am in good company. But that is small consolation. Here’s what I got wrong the last time, and how to avoid repeating this fatal mistake in 2020.

I forgot Bill Clinton’s First Law of Politics, taught to me a quarter-century ago by the smartest political mind I’ve ever known: elections are about the lives of the voters, not the candidates’ lives. When we were mired in scandal—either real or manufactured—Clinton would inevitably look at me and say, “If we make this about the voters’ lives instead of mine, we will both be better off.”

I knew this in 2012. I was an adviser to the pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA. We had voluminous research on Romney, and one thing was clear from the jump: he is a man of good character. Fine. (Also, great hair, which sent Carville and me into jealous fits.)We weren’t interested in attacking his character. My experience in campaigns against people like George H. W. Bush (another man of upstanding character with whom I had important political and policy disagreements) had taught me that attacks on issues are far more effective than personal attacks.

With character attacks ruled out, we decided to define Romney as a rapacious financier who had gotten wealthy in part through business deals that sometimes hurt the middle class. As the top man in the private equity firm Bain Capital, Romney played a role in scores of deals. Some of them, truth be told, were terrific. Great companies like Staples owe their existence in part to Romney and his firm. But this was a campaign and he was the opponent. We didn’t mention Romney’s good deals. We figured he’d do that.

But there were other deals, like the paper plant in Marion, Indiana. Bain had bought a paper plant, loaded it with debt, drove it into bankruptcy, then laid off all the employees, canceled their health care and pensions, and left the town a desiccated shell. We sent a camera crew to Marion. We interviewed a carpenter from the plant named Mike Earnest. (I know: somewhere Charles Dickens is smiling.) Mike told his story: one day the boss told him to build a stage on the shop floor; the new owners were coming to town and wanted a team meeting. So, Mike and the boys built that stage, and Romney’s suits stood on that stage, closed the company, and laid off every worker. Mike, who truly was earnest, looked in the camera and said, “I didn’t know it at the time, but when I was building that stage, I was really building my coffin.” GOP strategist Frank Luntz called it the most effective ad of 2012. Barack Obama won a second term. (In truth, he would have won without me or our ad; he is that talented. But I am proud to have played a small role in his winning a second term.)

But when 2016 came around, I took my eye off the ball. This time around, our super PAC took as its mission electing Hillary Rodham Clinton, someone I have known and loved for more than a quarter century. And her Republican opponent, Donald Trump: well, I could not stand him.

I was so shocked by Donald Trump’s sewer-level character that I could not avert my eyes. Look! He’s saying POW John McCain (R-AZ) was not a hero, because he was captured. Look! He’s mocking a reporter’s physical disability. Look! He’s bragging about grabbing women by the… well, you know.

We made ads about those outrages. Our first ad—I loved it—featured people, mostly women, wearing T-shirts bearing various pictures of Trump, unsmiling, often mid-shout. They lip-synced while the audio track repeated some of Trump’s most odious vulgar comments: “There was blood coming out of her eyes, there was blood coming out of her… wherever.” A man has his arm around a woman (presumably his partner) and looks on in astonishment as she mouths these words of Trump’s: “Does she have a good body? No. Does she have a fat ass? Absolutely.” A young father stands with his daughter and lip-syncs as Trump’s distinctive voice says, “If Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.” A white-haired woman throws her hands up in anger as Trump’s bellow comes out of her mouth: “And you can tell them to go [BLEEP] themselves!”

We ran another ad, designed to shock the conscience of the electorate—especially Christians. The ad featured a girl in Columbus, Ohio, named Grace, who was born with spina bifida. We see a photo of her as a newborn, with tubes coming out of her. Then as an infant, sleeping peacefully, with a simple wooden cross next to her in her crib. Finally, we see her as a child, shooting hoops from her wheelchair. The ad then shows Trump mocking the physical disability of a journalist. Even years later, it is appalling. Grace’s mother says, “The children at Grace’s school know never to mock her. And so for an adult to mock someone with a disability is shocking.” Grace’s father, his eyes heavy with disappointment, says, “When I saw Donald Trump mocking someone with a disability, it showed me his soul, it showed me his heart. And I didn’t like what I saw.”

Spoiler alert: Trump won white evangelicals by an astonishing 80–16 margin, narrowly breaking the record held by George W. Bush, who is an actual, honest-to-goodness born-again Christian.

We attacked Trump for paying zero dollars in federal taxes. Trump’s response, “That makes me smart.” He also did better than Romney with voters making less than $50,000.

We attacked his racist rhetoric about immigrants: “They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists.” “We’re going to have a deportation force.” Trump got 1 percent more of the Latino vote than Mitt Romney had in 2012.

We attacked his misogynistic comments, including his infamous Access Hollywood remarks. “She ate like a pig.” “When I come home and dinner’s not ready, I go through the roof.” “I moved on her like a b—h.” Trump won just 3 percent fewer female voters than Romney.

We attacked his racist remarks, including his refusal to disavow former KKK leader David Duke: “I know nothing about David Duke, I know nothing about white supremacists.” “Oh! Look at my African American over here!” “You’re living in poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs.” Trump exceeded Romney’s percentage of the African American vote, albeit by a measly 2 percent.

In a particularly poignant ad, we featured former Indiana governor Joe Kernan, who, like John McCain, was a POW in Vietnam. The ad featured Trump denigrating McCain: “He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured.” In a soft but steely voice, Kernan says, “What Donald Trump said about members of our military who have been captured is a disgrace,” and as he shakes his head, the war hero Kernan says, “He’s unfit to be president.” Trump defeated Hillary...

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Verlag
Simon & Schuster
Erscheinungsdatum
2020
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1982160047
ISBN 13 
9781982160043
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Auflage
1
Anzahl der Seiten
368
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