Does Trump even have a political strategy?

Voters dislike outsiders. Always have, always will. Whatever the jurisdiction — school district, city, state or country — meddling by outsiders tends to incite a backlash.  

This is a basic fact of politics that anyone with any campaign experience knows. One would think President Trump would have learned that after New Jersey-import Dr. Oz failed to defeat John Fetterman in the Pennsylvania Senate race, even after Fetterman’s late campaign debate fumble. 

And that begs the question — did anyone bring up this fact before Vice President JD Vance jetted off to Hungary in an ultimately futile effort to boost Viktor Orban?  

The whole escapade made no sense. Orban was trailing in the polls. Intervening risked humiliation in a loss, which is what happened. How could anyone in the administration think that Vance, who has no family ties nor speaks the local language, would sway the election? Did Orban even want the appearance?

If the idea was to stick a thumb in the eye of the European Union (which desperately wanted Orban to lose), that sure didn’t work. Even worse, Vance went on this fruitless journey in the midst of a major military conflict and interrupted his new job exposing and fighting fraud — something that is actually popular.

In politics, nothing succeeds like success, while losing shows weakness and fuels your opponents. For Trump, the view that he is a winner has been a significant asset for him. That Orbán lost so badly after the high-profile Trump support dents that winner image. 

But the failure in Hungary is not his only political problem. In the past few months, it seems that the Trump administration is not so much pursuing poor political strategy, it’s that it has no apparent strategy at........

© The Hill