That same month, Jonathan Chait offered a similar take at New York magazine. In “Why Liberals Should Support a Trump Republican Nomination,” he argued that liberals should favor Trump primarily because “he would almost certainly lose” and because “a Trump nomination might upend his party,” assertions that clearly echo the Team Clinton strategy. He also claimed that “a Trump presidency would probably wind up doing less harm to the country than a Marco Rubio or a Cruz presidency.” And, he continued, “it might even, possibly, do some good.” Just one month later, Chait made a hasty 180-turn in his follow-up piece “Donald Trump Poses an Unprecedented Threat to American Democracy.”
Last November, Slate’s Jamelle Bouie insisted that “Donald Trump is actually a moderate Republican,” the “median Republican” who, in stark opposition to the other GOP candidates, “stands at the center” of the party and was notable for his ability to be reasonable and to attract unique pockets of voters within the Republican base. Then, just yesterday, Bouie determined that Trump is actually not a moderate Republican but rather a racist demagogue and white nationalist whose supporters deserve no empathy.
These stunning feats of rhetorical backtracking are somewhat dizzying, and it seems that they began, among progressive writers and pundits as well as within Clinton’s campaign, as more people began to realize that Trump could win the nomination. But no one seemed to realize, especially in the closing months of the general-election campaign, that Trump had a decent chance to win the presidency, too. If Clinton and her staff had been able to see the future, no doubt they would’ve shifted their strategy quite a bit.
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