Trump will pivot from race to sex

Steve M. on how Il Duce will run against Hillary.

I think he's forgetting that Trump has already dubbed her "Crooked Hillary" and attacked her for being weak, incompetent, tired, old, and yes, of course, female.

But by no means is he going to rely only on misogynist provocations that he will easily spin, with the help of quotes from single issue feminist supporters, into charges she only cares about "women's issues."

Obama never ran and never worked as "a race man" or "a race leader."

He ran to be president of all Americans and in his presidency, even when dealing with race issues, he has always been about all Americans and the good of the whole country.

Trump is going to go after her as a women's candidate in a sense in which Obama never was a black people's candidate - as mostly or principally though not entirely a women's candidate.

Anyway, this is Steve.

I don't think this is Trump simply refusing to adjust his tone even though he knows he has to make changes as a general-election candidate. 

I think he thinks he is making changes -- but in target rather than in tone. 

If I'm right, his idea of a "pivot to the general" involves a ratcheting up of sexism, directed particularly at Clinton. 

I think his belief is that establishment types are wrong to think this won't work -- after all, they're the ones who said he couldn't get away with describing Mexican immigrants as rapists or calling for a ban on Muslims. 

Trump, I suspect, thinks talk like this is taboo only because of "political correctness," not because it actually is politically counterproductive.

“I haven’t even started on [Clinton] yet," Trump told Jimmy Fallon back in January. 

In March, he said the same thing on Fox & Friends: "I haven't started on Hillary yet. That will be interesting." 

Last week on Fox & Friends, Trump's son Eric said of his father and Clinton, "He’s going to go after her in a way that no one has gone after her before.”

Trump thinks the vast majority of us hate Hillary Clinton, and hate her in a sexist way -- we just won't say in public that we think she's a hag and a shrew and has an annoying laugh and a shouty voice, at least until he breaks the taboo and says it all for us. 

(Also: Benghazi! Monica! Emails!) 

I don't know at what point he's going to realize that "political incorrectness" works best in all-Republican environments. 

I hope that doesn't dawn on him until the night of November 8, 2016.

I hope Steve is right that this will hurt him rather than help in the general.

Personally, I am by no means sure.