This is getting serious. A few months ago, Michael Avenatti declared himself a contender for president, running on the Democratic ticket. At the time, it was taken as an epic Trump troll, and applauded. Now, Avenatti is saying that he’s serious about running for president and moreover, he’s saying that the current powers that be in the Democratic party don’t know what it takes to beat Donald Trump. The Hill:
“I think they’re out of touch. I don’t think they understand what’s required,” Avenatti said in an interview with The Hill on Monday.
“I think they’re clueless. We’re not living in 2012 or 2008 or 1992 anymore,” he said. “You’ve got to engage in smash-mouth politics if you’re going to beat Donald Trump.”
Avenatti came into controversy most recently during the Kavanaugh confirmation. There are two schools of thought on his introduction of Julie Swetnick’s testimony: one, that it made it too easy for Kavanaugh to declare he was the object of a political smear, and the other, that it was a brilliant tactic, which exposed more fully exactly who Brett Kavanaugh is and what he’s all about. But whichever school you belong to, most agree, that Avenatti is out there on the edge.
“There’s a difference between getting in the gutter and being tough, and I don’t think Michael Avenatti understands that,” Patti Solis Doyle, Democratic strategist and former campaign manager to Hillary Clinton‘s 2008 presidential campaign, said in an interview.
“This isn’t a strategy, this is a spectacle,” she added. “And the spectacle is great for getting a lot of Twitter followers and retweets, but when push comes to shove … what’s he doing for the party?”
“If you get in the gutter with Trump, no one will be able to tell the difference between the two of you,” she wrote. “A three-round mixed martial arts fight between Avenatti and Donald Trump Jr. may be a spectacle to rival one of Trump’s press conferences, but really have we gone that low?”
Avenatti believes Solis Doyle has it wrong and he steadfastly maintains that the only way to beat Trump is to fight fire with fire.
In response, Avenatti took to Twitter: “Establishment Dems like @PattiSolisDoyle are the problem,” he wrote. “They are why we continue to get beat and why we are presently in a fight for the survival of this republic. Their weak approaches are why we lost 2000, lost 2016, never got a Garland vote, etc etc.”
Nobody doubts that Avenatti understands what makes Trump tick and that may be because Avenatti has a lot of the same instincts as Trump, although admittedly he’s the educated and refined of the two. But still, he sure sounds an awful lot like Trump.
“People like Patti and other should back off and stop going after me,” he said, adding that they “see me as a threat.”
“I don’t take shots at any Democrats first,” he said. “I only respond when certain Democrats attack me. If they come after me, I’m going to hit back twice as hard.”
Avenatti is definitely somebody to keep an eye on. After the midterms, candidates will be declaring in earnest and at that time we’ll know a great deal more about exactly what strategy Avenatti intends to employ and to what end. In the meantime, nothing, but nothing must take our eyes off the prize: we need to win back the House on November 6. Nothing else matters.
