According to reform conservative (or former conservative) David Frum, Republicans in Cleveland were feeling “embattled, defensive, and pessimistic” before the Melania Trump plagiarism story broke. Now, Frum speculated in a Tuesday piece for The Atlantic, “that mood of pessimism must be even grayer,” and since he lays out “ten reasons why Melania Trump’s speech matters and will continue to matter,” he clearly believes GOPers have ample reason to be down in the dumps.
From the article (bolding added):
Suddenly, there is one easy-to-understand incident that encapsulates in one grim joke all this convention’s cavalcade of derp.
…To this point, the Hillary Clinton campaign has been unsure how to attack Donald Trump… How can Trump both be a cynical con man and a dangerous extremist hate-monger? Now at last the script writes itself: Trump as doofus, the guy who went broke running a casino—and can’t even find someone to write an ordinarily competent speech for his wife’s big self-introduction to the American public.
…Trump has just vividly demonstrated that his campaign—never mind the campaign, he himself—have zero skill at crisis management…It’s all a big joke when the crisis in question is a plagiarized speech by a would-be first lady. It won’t be so funny when a President Trump tries to manage a truly life-and-death crisis in the same blundering, dopey, and cowardly way.
…The incident throws a harpoon into the heart of the Trump campaign’s racial politics. Trump’s message: Non-white people are ripping off hard-working white Americans who play by the rules. “They” cheat; “we" lose. Could there be a sharper reversal of that racialized complaint than Melania Trump in her designer dress stealing Michelle Obama’s heartfelt words?
Frum concluded his dirge with this: "Conventions are, among other things, important fundraising opportunities—and as Ken Vogel reports in Politico today, the state of Trump’s fundraising remains calamitous. Even Trump’s own named finance directors are not giving money. That mood of pessimism must be even grayer the day after Melania’s speech than the day before."
