The 321: "Buy gasoline"
When they fight, we win, so why not fuel the fight?
This is The 321, a regular column for subscribers to Trippi’s Take.
This is a brief - what are the things I’m paying attention to right now in the world? What data matters? And of course, what should we do with all of it?
Three things I’m paying attention to this week:
Trump’s MO for the past ten (10!) years has been pretty clear. Actually - his MO for his entire life has been clear. Throw out some bullshit, see if anyone bites, run with it. He’s a TV performer at heart. And he knows enough of the American people treat politics as reality TV. And he knows his Republican support in Congress is still terrified of MAGA primary voters. Add all that up and what happens when his Murder Bill is on life support? Alligator Alcatraz. As Joe points out - he’s actually shoring up the chunk of his base (30+%!) that think ICE isn’t going far enough by kidnapping and extrajudicially imprisoning Americans.
The number to watch isn’t the 46 million Americans who are going to lose health care coverage under Trump’s Murder Bill. The number is 2.7 million. And the most important number is one. Why? Yes, 46 million Americans are at risk. Yes, that’s very bad. But in the 29 House districts held by Republicans that are winnable in 2026 - 2.7 million are at risk. That’s 93,000-ish voters per district. That’s friends and neighbors of a voter that could flip the House. And - that one - could be the the one voter. We have to make it personal. Not aggregate.
Trump vs. Elon ain’t over. He was always going to leave the White House. But he’s a prime example of what happens when a Trump policy directly affects someone. The Murder Budget absolutely crushes American EV and solar credits. Tesla’s bottom line is largely funded by said EV credits. This thing destroys a primary income driver for Trump’s richest benefactor. So when Trump says he’s thinking of deporting Elon and Elon’s thinking of retaliation, pay attention. Not because of what two of the least sympathetic humans alive are doing to each other. But because there are chunks of techbro/cryptoidiot voters who actually follow Elon Musk’s words as gospel.
Two pieces of data everyone should understand:
I feel like this is going to be a recurring theme but more bad economic news for Trump. On top of all the consumer data woes: The latest Marist poll has him -14 (39-53) on handling the economy. This means at least 6%, if not more, of MAGA Republicans who voted for him think he’s doing a bad job on the economy. We saw this with Biden: voters can spiral on this. We also saw that they had a media machine dedicated to amplifying bad economic “news”. Can we stay on message?
Another consumer spending trend to pay attention to, per Emerson College: “Thinking about summer vacation plans and spending, 41% plan to spend less money than last year on vacation, 40% about the same, and 19% plan to spend more money on vacation.”
We say this all the time: There is a big lag between bad economic news and voters actually making preferences felt in elections based on said news. Many things have to happen in between the bad news and the changed vote:
The bad news has to be actually seen. Hence the massive MAGA disinformation machine dedicated to dangling shiny immigration objects elsewhere. So Job 1: make sure reality is seen.
Then, it has to be repeated. One story ain’t gonna do it with what we’re up against. Over and over and over. This is Fox News’s bread and butter.
Consumers then start to look at their own financial decisions and make personal spending decisions. “Oh, I have to cut back because of X”. That’s what we’re seeing above - it’s where we are now. 81% of Americans are either not spending more or spending less this summer. That means they intrinsically feel Trump has not improved their economic situation since last summer under Joe Biden.
Now more repetition. Why couldn’t you go on that beach vacation? Why aren’t you buying more Christmas presents? All goes to assigning blame. Perhaps showing all those medical bills could have been paid for by the corporate tax cuts many times over? On and on.
Finally you come to vote preference. Blame has to be cast. Remember, a bunch of vulnerable Republicans are putting their votes on the line for the bill that will increase costs for their own voters. Consistency and repetition are key.
One piece of advice:
Stop viewing internecine Republican drama as entertainment and start viewing it as opportunities. When their house is on fire, buy gasoline.
Look at how well they’ve done fueling the abolish-ICE vs mainstream Democratic voter rift. Or the trans kids rift in the Black and Latino communities. Or the socialist rift in the Latino community. See trends here? They are really, really good at finding and exploiting cracks in a base that too many Democrats take for granted.
But guess what? They live in the mother of all glass houses. When Marjorie Taylor Greene is railing against the Murder Budget or Iran or whatever - pay attention to why. When Trump and Elon fight pay attention to why. And start building the case to go target 5,000 or 10,000 or 100,000 voters in a winnable purple district in a winnable state for long term change.
The Tea Party cost Republicans a Senate majority not too long ago. This all can be done. But let’s go find some gasoline to pour on these fires.
Great focus on what we all need to do. Thanks also for the “new-to-me” word, internecine. Just put that into my vocabulary jungle. Short way to say mutually destructive action like dropping an atomic bomb on each other. Their behavior is an opportunity to attack. (Well, they have never been entertainment to me. Even that Apprentice show never graced my T.V. screen. So sick) I enjoy your weekly “321”. Well written and well informed. Take care.