Trump relishes Republican establishment's scorn as Bush and Romney oppose him

As traditional GOP power-brokers defect from party, president welcomes the criticism from the ‘haters and losers,’ US political correspondent Griffin Connolly writes

Donald Trump is running his 2020 campaign as if he's still an outside disruptor and not the incumbent. (Photo courtesy Getty Images) (Getty)

President Donald Trump is deeply divisive, and he knows it.

He has known it for a long time. He even appears to relish it.

“I would like to wish everyone, including all haters and losers (of which, sadly, there are many) a truly happy and enjoyable Memorial Day!” he famously tweeted on 24 May 2015, just three weeks before he announced his candidacy for presidency at Trump Tower in New York City.

It’s the whole ethos of many modern conservatives that if X, Y, or Z liberal thinks you’re wrong, that means you’re doing something right.

So when the New York Times published a story over the weekend ticking off the prominent traditional Republicans who have sworn off supporting the president this November — including former President George W Bush, Utah Senator Mitt Romney, and former Bush Secretary of State Colin Powell — Mr Trump didn’t see it as an attack that could further damage his sinking numbers in the polls.

Instead, he saw an opportunity to galvanise his base of anti-establishment populists whose disaffection with the so-called GOP “establishment” helped propel him to the Republican nomination in 2016 and, ultimately, the presidency.

“The establishment still hasn’t learned the biggest lesson from 2016 — never underestimate the President’s ability to connect with the American people," Trump campaign spokesman Ken Farnaso said in a statement to The Independent.

Mr Trump has attracted record vote totals in GOP primaries so far, and his polling within his party remains steadily strong.

"No amount of establishment grandstanding from the swamp will deter President Trump’s historic movement," Mr Farnaso said.

Mr Trump particularly seized on comments on Sunday from Mr Powell, the retired four-star US Army general who has said he’ll be voting for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in November.

Within an hour of Mr Powell’s CNN interview on Sunday morning, the president branded him “a real stiff” and said he was “very responsible for getting us into the disastrous Middle East Wars”.

Mr Powell served in senior military and diplomatic positions during the Ronald Reagan, George HW Bush and George W Bush administrations and was a chief architect in 2003 of the Iraq War under the erroneous notion Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction.

Twelve hours later, Mr Powell’s CNN interview apparently still on his mind, Mr Trump again tweeted about the retired general, who voted for Barack Obama twice, in 2008 and 2012, and for Hillary Clinton in 2016.

“In his time, he was weak & gave away everything to everybody — so bad for the USA,” Mr Trump wrote of Mr Powell.

“Also got the ‘weapons of mass destruction’ totally wrong, and you know what that mistake cost us? Sad!” the president wrote.

Mr Trump’s open embrace of scorn from the old guard GOP — which he certainly groups in with the aforementioned “haters and losers” (of which there are many) — has indeed never appeared to upset his overall support within his own party’s electorate.

While a poll released by CNN on Monday showed Mr Trump down 14 percentage points to Mr Biden nationally, 88 per cent of the Republicans polled said they approved of the job the president was doing.

But just 37 per cent of independents, who are crucial to Mr Trump’s reelection odds, approved of how he is doing as president, compared to 56 per cent who disapprove.

Mr Trump is counting on strong enthusiasm among GOP voters and Independents that are part of his loyal base to carry him to an Election Night victory.

Polling has shown for months that registered GOP voters are more enthusiastic than registered Democratic voters about heading to the ballot box on 3 November.

Until then, handfuls of former Republican mainstays are likely to continue defecting from Mr Trump’s GOP, as the president’s erstwhile Defence Secretary James Mattis did last week in a letter to The Atlantic denouncing Mr Trump as immature and unfit to hold the office.

Mr Trump and White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany subsequently fired right back at Mr Mattis, with Ms McEnany accusing the retired US Marine general of penning his letter as a “self-promotional stunt to appease the DC elite”.

Sticking it to the establishment. Draining the bipartisan swamp.

He's the incumbent, but Mr Trump still running a campaign as if he's an outside disruptor.

Mr Trump, lest we ever forget, was for decades a businessman with a mind for savvy marketing who thrived in the contrived heat and contentiousness of reality TV.

Friction and teaming up against a common enemy is what he knows.

It’s the same mindset that drove his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, to do things like author a New York Times bestselling book entitled Triggered, or challenge his supporters last year to “trigger” a relative at the Thanksgiving table over a political discussion.

The person who submitted the best moment caught on camera would receive a signed copy of Mr Trump Jr’s book and the Trump campaign’s signature Make America Great Again red hat.

“Have fun!” Mr Trump Jr wrote at the time.