TLA30_AllPages_RED

Against Clinton, Trump chipped away at almost every
demographic group that had pushed Barack Obama over
the top in 2008 and 2012, Fleischer explained. The largest
inroads were with people who make less than $30,000 a
year.
“These are the people who typically succumb to the
notion that Republicans are the party of the rich, that
Republicans don’t care about you,” Fleischer said.
But there’s a tectonic shift occurring in American
politics, Fleisher said. The two major parties seem to be
slowly trading their electoral bases. “Where previously
the Republicans always, always, always won college
graduates, Democrats are starting to increasingly become
the party that represents college graduates. Where
typically Democrats have cleaned the clocks of Republicans
among the lower income, blue-collar working people,
particularly those with high school degrees, those voters
are increasingly becoming Republican.”
Trump not only cashed in on that shift, he may have
accelerated it, Fleischer said.
But after the election was won and it was time to
actually govern, Trump has found some of the tactics and
traits that served him well on the campaign trail aren’t as
good a fit for the Oval Office. His favorable rating is almost
where it was when he was sworn in, but his unfavorable
rating has risen 10 points.
“The intensity of the opposition to Donald Trump among
the Democratic base is fierce,” Fleischer said. The kinds of
comments that galvanized his base now fan the flames for
his opposition.
As a candidate, part of his outsider motif was to
alienate and antagonize most of the media, which he
continues to do. The concern, Fleischer said, is that the
news media can and will bite back.
Throughout Barack Obama’s presidency, Republicans
complained about how easy the press was on him. The
opposite is true for Trump, he said. The press is way too
hard on him. Even when he deserves criticism, the pile-on
is ridiculous.
If Trump’s presidency were to be depicted on a balance
sheet, it would be divided between matters of policy
and of personality, Fleischer said. On the plus side, the
markets are up, as are consumer confidence and job
growth. The business community knows it doesn’t have to
fear additional regulations and tax hikes, and ISIS is all
but dead.
On the deficit side, “there’s the firing of James Comey,
his failure to immediately denounce the Ku Klux Klan and
Nazis in Charlottesville. The White House staff situation
is a mess, and continues to be a mess, and that’s
disappointing.”
Topping the deficit list would be Trump’s tweets,
specifically “the mean-spirited attacks he’s made on
people,” Fleischer said.
To have an antagonistic relationship with the press and
then to hand them ammunition, it’s not surprising Trump’s
disapproval rating is climbing.
Fleischer’s concern is that if Trump’s relationship with
the press remains caustic, he will never get the due credit
for the things he’s done right.
“If I were a White House aide today, that would be my
biggest worry,” he said. “They don’t need to shake things
up. They need to calm things down.”
When Fleisher left the Bush White House, he decided
to get out of the game while he was on top. “Twenty-one
years in Washington is a long time.” Besides, he added,
“I had to get my children out of Washington before they
became Redskins fans.”
Today, along with his punditry, he operates in a new
arena, literally, through his company Ari Fleischer Sports
Communications.
“When the news leaps from the sports page over to the
front page, that’s my niche,” he said. They don’t need help
with the box scores, with stats, explaining how they kept
their foot in bounds on a great catch. But when there’s a
controversy, that’s where they do.
“It doesn’t have the weightiness or the seriousness of
government but it has the passion of sports, and that’s a
lot of fun and a lot of excitement.”
As for politics, he’ll always be a spectator and color
commentator. He anticipates it will be interesting to see
how Trump the outsider in 2016 adjusts to being Trump
the incumbent in 2020. Win lose or draw, Fleischer says
Trump has brought “let-‘er-rip, genuine authenticity” to
politics.
“People are so sick of perfectly packaged politicians,”
Fleischer said. “I don’t think anybody will go as far as
Trump, and hopefully some of his excesses will be rounded
out, but I think Trump has brought an authenticity to
communications,” and in that way he has already been a
game-changer.
36 Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org TCA 2018