Faulty reasoning signals

• Confirmation Bias - 12.2% (107 hits)
• Anchoring Bias - 7.6% (67 hits)
• Availability Heuristic - 5.7% (50 hits)
• Representativeness Heuristic - 5.9% (52 hits)
• Hindsight Bias - 2.1% (18 hits)
• Overconfidence Bias - 5.4% (47 hits)
• Framing Effect - 1.1% (10 hits)
• Loss Aversion - 0%
• Status Quo Bias - 0%
• Sunk Cost Effect - 0%
• Optimism Bias - 0%
• Pessimism Bias - 5.8% (51 hits)

Article text

Trump is keeping his war chest from Republicans

I get a lot of things wrong—but never when I’m predicting that President Donald Trump will screw over his own party.

“Trump prepares to squander his midterm war chest,” read the headline on a story of mine from February, when Democrats were freaking out over the $483 million he had amassed.

My argument was simple: Trump would spend that money purifying his party of his critics and promoting the worst candidates in Republican primaries.

In other words, Democrats didn’t have much to worry about.

That money would never be spent against them.

And that’s exactly what’s happened over the past five months.

Trump has done an impressive job booting incumbents who failed his loyalty test—despite many of them actually being pretty loyal to him, like Texas Sen.

John Cornyn—and reshaping Republican primaries to his liking.

But helping out Republicans actually win their general elections?

Trump is utterly disinterested.

While Trump uses his considerable megaphone to attack Democrats, “some Republicans wish he would just spend the over $350 million sitting in his war chest, the MAGA Inc. super PAC,” Politico reported on Monday.

Assuming Trump hasn’t done much fundraising since February—and I don’t recall that he has—that means he’s burned through roughly $133 million of his original war chest, largely attacking fellow Republicans.

“We didn’t leave our most powerful missiles on the ships when we were trying to crush Iran.

Money is the political equivalent in politics,” Politico quoted a Republican “lobbyist and donor,” too afraid of Trump to speak on the record.

“The electorate’s mindset on the economy is normally locked in stone by Labor Day after a summer of backyard conversations and paying for summer vacation gas.

… Now is the time to sell the message—America 250, the world loves America, the Democrats are crazy left again, and we sealed the border.”

The military analogy is a weird choice, given that Trump lost in Iran and quite literally surrendered.

But the political point is correct.

Voter attitudes tend to harden over the summer.

By Labor Day, campaigns are mostly fighting around the margins and building turnout operations.

Persuasion becomes much harder.

Republicans, however, don’t seem to have a compelling message, anyway.

They still think “America 250” is a political winner.

Trump is still calling Democrats the “crazy left,” a line that’s long since lost whatever punch it once had.

And “the world loves America”?

World Cup fans may indeed be having a great time in Seattle, Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Kansas City, and other blue cities that conservatives despise.

Those fans are not exactly flocking to Trump country.

Meanwhile, MAGA Inc. isn’t spending.

“MAGA Inc., hasn’t spent directly on a race since March, when it spent $17,900.88 to support Rep.

Clay Fuller’s campaign for his House seat in Georgia,” Politico reported.

“Since then, it gave $560,000 to MAGA KY, which was spending to support Rep.

Thomas Massie’s (R-Ky.) challenger, who won, and it has paid other fees like for consulting.”

“Consulting”—ha, ha.

Oh, you just know millions are going into his own grifts.

“What makes you think they’re going to spend?

We’ve been waiting for the cavalry,” Republican strategist Matthew Bartlett told Politico.

“Every day matters about shaping sentiment and ideas … are you even actually going to be playing?”

Oh, Trump will be playing, all right.

He’s just playing his own game.

You don’t make an estimated $2.2 billion while serving as president by putting other Republicans first.

As far as Trump’s political spending goes, much of that money will instead bankroll his midterm “convention,” arguably the most absurd political idea he’s come up with yet.

He’ll likely burn millions of dollars dragging vulnerable Republicans onto a stage beside him while his approval ratings remain underwater, all while he hopes to recreate the attention of a presidential nominating convention.

It won’t.

But that’s beside the point.

The convention is designed to put Trump—not Republican candidates—at the center of the campaign.

Democrats can’t believe their luck.

There’s another revealing detail in Politico’s article.

The outlet reports that MAGA Inc. isn’t expected to make major spending decisions until after that convention, scheduled for Sept.

9.

As one White House official explained, donors “may want plans right now, but we all know this is the president’s party and he’s going to make the strategic decisions … He’s on his timeline.”

Here’s another prediction: Very little of that money will ultimately be spent helping Republicans this fall.

And if Trump does open the wallet, expect much of it to flow toward propping up Ken Paxton in Texas—a Senate race Republicans would’ve likely locked down by now if Trump hadn’t stabbed Cornyn in the back.

This isn’t just partisan speculation.

A person “close to the White House” told Politico, “I tend to believe he’s not going to spend it on other races and other folks, but I hope I’m wrong.”

Trump doesn’t care about the Republican Party.

He likely knows Republicans are in serious danger of losing one or both chambers of Congress.

Yet, when faced with a choice between spending hundreds of millions to help other Republicans or finding ways to keep that money serving his own interests, the decision isn’t difficult.

Trump has been making that choice his entire political career.