One of his many useful contributions was a definition of strategy, Boyd said "the Strategic Game is one of Interaction and Isolation." What he meant by this was that the key to effective strategy is to attach yourself to as many power sources as possible while detaching your opponent from the same.
Like with his other numerous theories, this applies to much more than just pure warfare theory and comes up a great deal in competitive events like elections. The winner of the contest between Clinton and Trump will be determined by which candidate is able to attach themselves to independent power sources while isolating their opponent.
Here's how they each intend to do it:
The Clinton plan
Hillary's strategy is not terribly different from that of the various establishment figures that went down in flames trying to stop Trump in the GOP primary, although she'll have some major advantages they didn't have.Her messaging seems to be primarily about casting herself as the safe, dependable option for America as opposed to the "risky" or "dangerous" option that is Donald Trump. She's got years and years of experience both in the executive branch as a very involved first lady and the Secretary of State to go along with several years in the US Senate.
She's hoping to rebuild the Obama coalition in November while relying on the Democrat establishment, and Wall Street support. She's also looking to either absorb the #NeverTrump movement, help demoralize it so that it's voter base doesn't show up in November, or neutralize it via a third party candidacy by someone like Mitt Romney or whomever Bill Kristol can cajole into filling that role.
The positives
It seems very likely that she'll have a great deal of establishment support from both sides and also succeed in keeping Trump from attaching himself to establishment centers of electoral power and influence. There were tons of Republicans who voted against Trump in the primary, myself included, and he was successfully cast for many people as a con-man who couldn't be trusted to enact traditionally conservative solutions for the country.Initially, Democrats were also thrilled with Trump's nomination for the chance it offers to rebuild the Obama coalition and drive turnout from unmarried women, black, and hispanic voters. I'm not sure how badly Clinton will end up smashing Trump amongst these demographics but some polling indicates she'll do very well here.
Since both Republicans and Democrats, eager to avoid being attached to evil white males or non-globalist movements, have tended to frame electoral success as being dependent on doing okay in those demographics this has led many people to go ahead and declare victory for Clinton.
The problems
There are a few major problems with this plan. The first is that attaching herself to many of the established powers is a questionable move when there's so much resentment across the country from both parties against those established powers. Hillary may struggle to rebuild the Obama coalition with Sanders stealing away her white voters with his attacks, particularly millennials who helped Obama set turnout records in 2008 and 2012 and aren't excited about a "stay the course" option.The conservative punditry and GOP establishment meanwhile seem to have lost control over most of their voting base and Trump ended up trampling his opposition. He's got the GOP electorate largely unified behind him now, over the protestations of the #NeverTrump movement, and it's not clear if he can actually be detached from enough of those power centers to actually hurt him.
The Trump plan
I recently nicknamed the Trump electoral strategy "the doomsday scenario" in which he does the unthinkable and embraces the GOP's possibilities as the traditional white people party while stealing even some liberal white voters away from the Democrats.That's his plan, to attach himself to those voters fairly directly through his tremendous ability to get his message out via Twitter, manipulating the media, or from grassroots conservatives who are fed up with the establishment wing of the GOP. Across most of the country talk radio has been very good to Donald.
So again that's: Increase the GOP share of the male vote, the white vote, and convince more to vote who felt they had no dog in previous races. When you remember that generally only half the country tends to vote even in presidential elections you can start to see how this could be an effective strategy.
His offensive strategy to disconnect Clinton from sources of power is also interesting and fairly unique. First, he intends to break up the Obama coalition by swiping some of the Bernie Sanders supporters and other working class whites that have been slowly leaking from the Democrats over the last several elections.
His "America first" message and willingness to be flexible in areas where conservatives normally wouldn't budge such as tax increases on the rich, raising the minimum wage, or adopting a defensive foreign policy rather than an interventionist one will likely prove to have more pull with some of these voters than most Democratic (or conservative) pundits will care to admit.
Trump also plans to break up the Obama coalition by demoralizing Clinton-sympathetic millennials with unabashed character attacks on Bill Clinton for his past and on Hillary for "enabling" Bill's interactions with women. Like with Bernie voters, he doesn't need them all to switch sides but if he can steal some or convince others to not even show up to the polls then he'll have done major damage.
Finally, Trump hopes to blunt Clinton's "I'm the safe candidate" appeal to educated, suburban voters (who do tend to turnout in every election) by lambasting her record approving of the Iraq war as a senator and spearheading the Libya regime change as secretary of state. He'll also accuse her of being weak and ineffective during the Benghazi crises and in general look to bully her and make her appear to be anything but a safe bet in a time of national crises.
The positives
There's a strong case to be made that doubling down on being the white people party was always the easiest path to victory for the GOP, particularly in 2016 before another four years of widespread immigration. Convincing more white voters to show up and go with the GOP is an easier path than convincing hispanics, unmarried women, or black voters that Republicans have more to offer them.Trump's plan also matches the nativist surge that is taking place across Western Civilization in response to widespread immigration and stokes the anti-establishment fires that are close to burning down the Republican party and are starting to lick at the Democratic establishment as well.
The problems
Trump's biggest problem is being taken seriously with middle-class suburbanites that are often swing votes in a given election. He's got a case to make as the safer option than Clinton and a much more coherent message to sell (Make America Great Again vs It's Hillary's turn!) but many of these voters seem him as unstable, clownish, or generally unserious.Even though his stated foreign policy is a more defensive posture for the US, the fact that the president has broad powers to enact foreign policy and access to the nuclear codes mean that he'll have to convince voters that when he's in charge of their security he'll actually go about it in a serious, rigorous fashion.
If he can't do that he'll get trounced.
Another problem is if his easy-to-caricature villainous nature and style allows Clinton to do what her own charisma could not do and rebuild the Obama coalition with "gotta stop Trump" fervor.
My own guess is that Trump will win over enough voters to believe he's a serious candidate for the rest of his plan to be successful in enacting the doomsday scenario and preventing Clinton from attaching herself to enough positions and demographics to win.
Her plan is frankly based on several faulty assumptions that I don't think will hold up in the new era of American politics.
At the end of the day, executing a campaign strategy is always about charisma. Go back to the last several US elections and you'll see the more charismatic candidate win contest after contest after contest. Trump is a very charismatic candidate with years of experience in media while Clinton is perhaps the least charismatic candidate I've ever seen run for POTUS.
Trump's strategy is solid and his ability to execute it is stronger than Clinton's, thus he'll probably win.
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