Friday, July 22, 2016

Setting Fire to the Ashes

Yesterday I wrote a post stating that Donald Trump needs to mend fences with the many factions that the Republican Party has fractured into in order to increase his chances of winnning the November election.

Having seen his acceptance speech it can only be said that he did the exact opposite.  He burned many bridges to win the nomination and the speech he gave yesterday did nothing to reverse that.

Unfortunately for him his convention speech was the best chance of him starting the process.  He could have began the real campaign for the US Presidency by sounding presidential.  He could have used the speech to reach out to the supporters of the other Republican hopefuls from the primary season.  If he could not bring the actual candidates on board he could at least have begun convincing their supporters that a vote for him was a vote for their values.  He could even have begun the process of expanding his appeal beyond his own supporters and the Republican Party.

He did none of that.  He stuck to the script that got him the nomination.

Time will tell if that was a mistake but my initial thoughts are he seems to believe he can win this election as a one man band and he could be in for a very big surprise if that continues. As well, the next few months are for the Presidency not just for the nomination.  He should have used his acceptance speech as the pivot from the nomination battle to the battle for the Presidency and he did not do that either.

If he loses the election many will point to that acceptance speech as the point at which his remarkable run began to go off the rails.

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