Newsletter: Opinion: Don’t expect the Trump campaign to grow up

Good morning. I’m Paul Thornton, The Times’ letters editor, and it is Saturday, Aug. 20, 2016. Congratulations to LAUSD students and teachers on finishing your first week of school, even if it was an unpleasant one.

Here’s a look back at the week in Opinion. (Trigger warning: There’s a lot about Donald Trump.)

By now it’s clear that Donald Trump’s campaign for president doesn’t just suffer from periodic meltdowns. Rather, its default state seems to be one of chaos, interrupted by the occasional adult-sounding speech in which the Republican nominee reads from a teleprompter and stays on message, with the undisciplined flailing resuming shortly thereafter.

And Trump seems intent on keeping it that way (which is great for ratings, as he might say — this week’s most-read Opinion articles online were all Trump pre-mortems). His latest operational shake-up involves the boss at Breitbart News, brought on to run the campaign after overseeing slavishly positive coverage of Trump at the far-right, anti-establishment, conservative site.

This might not win the Republican nominee the election, writes Levi Tillemann and Julian E. Zelizer in a Times op-ed article, but it sets him up nicely to start Trump TV:

Wednesday morning, the candidate confirmed that he was hiring Breitbart News’ combative, far-right Chief Executive Steven Bannon to run his campaign. Word also spread that Roger Ailes, recently ousted from Fox News for serial sexual harassment complaints, was advising Trump ahead of the presidential debates. Meanwhile, Paul Manafort, the controversial political consultant, was demoted.

From the standpoint of someone who is hoping to win an election, this reshuffling doesn’t make sense. Bannon and Ailes have deep knowledge of conservative media and are perfectly calibrated to appeal to Trump’s red-meat base. But they won’t be much help winning over swing voters, and simply don’t have the experience necessary to run a U.S. presidential campaign in 2016. (Ailes counseled Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, but the game has changed significantly since then.) They don’t know how to mobilize voters and they don’t know how to do the grunt work of making sure that a campaign organization is up and running in all the key states.

One possible conclusion is that Trump, who recently acknowledged that he might end up taking a “nice long vacation” after November, has realized he is going to lose. He has therefore recruited Ailes and Bannon to lay the groundwork for his backup plan: a new career as a right-wing media personality. Indeed, Vanity Fair published an article in June suggesting that Trump wanted to “monetize” his success as a candidate by turning his voters into viewers. ...

Instead of joining Fox, we wouldn’t be surprised to see Trump, an aggrieved Ailes and an acerbic Bannon unite to create an alternative media empire — one focused on the same demographic represented at Trump rallies. From his televised throne, Trump could savage the conservative media establishment just as he savaged his Republican rivals in the primary.

And the new empire could well pose a significant threat to Fox. Ailes knows where the bodies are buried at Fox, its personalities and insecurities. Trump could easily win over the demographic that is prone to millenarian fantasies and conspiracy theories — making Fox News look moderate by comparison. Fox News might become the Paul Ryan wing of the Republican media establishment.

» Click here to read more.

Trump talks about a “rigged” election. He should look in the mirror. Trump took his racial dog-whistling on voter fraud in “certain” parts of Pennsylvania to the next level by using his website to recruit “observers” to watch the polls. Election law expert Richard L. Hasen writes that if Trump supporters intimidate voters on election day, the Democratic Party should sue the campaign. L.A. Times

Donald Trump, modern-day Cold Warrior: His promise to screen Muslim immigrants for radical views recalls efforts decades ago to turn away would-be Americans who might have Communist sympathies. Subjecting people to ideological litmus tests and forming a commission to expose extremists would be counterproductive and dangerous, says The Times’ editorial board: “These are frightening ideas. It’s no surprise that they have been proposed by Donald Trump.” L.A. Times

Creating a conservative Supreme Court is no excuse to vote for Donald Trump. Law professors John Yoo and Jeremy Rabkin write in a Times op-ed article that although they wish for a court that favors an originalist interpretation of the Constitution, it’s not enough for them to support Trump, who promises an “unpredictable and unreliable America.” Plus, since Trump is not exactly known for consistency, who’s to say he will make good on his promise to appoint conservative judges? L.A. Times

Donald Trump probably can’t win by “breaking the mold.” Deputy editorial page editor Jon Healey explains why hiring a campaign manager who has worked to destroy the Republican Party establishment might not serve Trump’s interest: “History seems to have proved that candidates win when they do a better job identifying their supporters and getting them to the polls. In years past, that’s been a labor-intensive job; even when your organization is adept at crunching voter data, it still takes a lot of people to make contact with individual voters and make sure they follow through. That’s why large-scale campaigns have been so reliant on their party organizations.” L.A. Times

The silver lining of the Trump campaign: Now we can’t deny our racism or xenophobia. Rosa Brooks thanks Donald Trump for doing America a service: “I’m glad Trump’s brought so much nastiness to the surface, because you can’t fight what you can’t see. … Thanks, Donald. Now please, go away.” L.A. Times

Readers gave most of their attention to Trump. Here’s what they might have missed: Water agencies are (foolishly) lifting restrictions, but don’t hose down that driveway just yet. California shouldn’t need a disaster declaration to fund services for homeless people. With 17 state propositions on the November ballot, voters might just say no. Anabolic steroids might taint Olympic competition, but what they do to the brain is frightening. Medical marijuana proponents won a victory in federal court — for now. An academic “boot camp” for small kids shows how ingrained inequality is in America.

Reach me: paul.thornton@latimes.com