Trump's Desperate Pandering To Young Men Is Probably A Dead End

His grifting is too transparent, their propensity to vote remains low, and when they realize the real GOP wants a crackdown on recreational sex the bromance will end.

(Photo by Jon Cherry/Getty Images)

When I launched Off Message a year ago (technically a year ago yesterday) the political outlook in the United States was rather different:

The economy was roaring, but inflation had only normalized for a few months. Donald Trump was comfortable enough in his lead over a visibly fragile Joe Biden that he’d largely receded from view, allowing his record in office and subsequent criminal indictments to recede from public memory. His favorability polling was beginning to improve toward its high-water mark.

We seemed to be on the glide-path to an election that would test whether voters were, for whatever reason, so unenthused about Biden that they’d throw away American democracy to avoid returning him to office for a second term. Depressingly, the answer seemed to be “yes.”

Short-termism was on the march.

Today, Biden is no longer a candidate for president. Kamala Harris, the new leader of the Democratic Party, has soared in popularity, and is leading the race for president. America is now more than two years past peak inflation, but its economy is still growing, making it the envy of the world. The longview is back in vogue. And Donald Trump seems to have realized, late in the game, that he won’t be able to coast to victory by raging hyperbolically about immigration and prices.

Instead he’s making a strange and distinctly Trumpy Hail Mary play: