Trump campaign and Republicans need to go guerrilla

OPINION:

It’s September, which means the presidential campaign is mercifully in the final stretch. Former President Donald Trump is attempting to stay on message with varying degrees of effectiveness. Republicans are lawyering up. They’re registering voters and encouraging supporters to vote early and by mail. It’s a marked change from 2020.

Vice President Kamala Harris, meanwhile, is talking about “joy” and not much else, cocooned by her staff away from interactions with the press and real people, except for her first big girl interview with friendly CNN anchor Dana Bash and the security blanket of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz in tow.

Whether it has energized voter registration efforts in swing states such as Pennsylvania or a more robust election integrity apparatus, Republicans seem to have learned from some of the mistakes it made four years ago.

Now is the time for them to activate their grassroots in an effort to further define Ms. Harris as not only a radical but a radical failure. It’s time for the GOP to go guerrilla.

When Democrats do this, they stage big marches and riots. They threaten people in restaurants, go to people’s homes, attack candidates’ family members and get tech platforms to suppress information. Republicans don’t need to do that, of course.

What they need to do, at a minimum, is called bracketing in campaign parlance. It’s essentially a counterprotest to candidate appearances. Sometimes, it’s just a bunch of union guys who were “volun-told” to show up and were handed signs blasting the Republican candidate for one reason or another. On other occasions, it’s Code Pink-type zealots and others who scream about racism or the end of the world. No matter the make or model of left-wing demonstrators, Democrats are good at it, and they get covered by the media for it.

The Trump campaign and Republicans need to start doing more of this and get serious about it. Here’s how.

Deploy activation captains in swing states to help organize residents to line motorcade routes and counter Ms. Harris’ events in view of the media at each location. Each group should be provided with large photos or photo collages of those affected by the border crisis, whether due to the drugs or criminals that have been allowed into the country by the Biden-Harris administration.

Others should hold blo-ups of the mug shots of illegal immigrants who have been arrested and the faces of border guards and police officers killed or injured by the crime and border crises. While they’re at it, holding up the faces of the rioters from 2020 whom Ms. Harris helped bail out of jail would make a lot of sense.

Other volunteers should have large posters with the increased prices of everyday goods and services caused by the inflation exacerbated by Biden-Harris spending programs and regulations.

Ms. Harris has flip-flopped on nearly every major position over the last few weeks in an effort by her campaign to pull the wool over the eyes of the American public about her true nature. Socialized medicine, the open border, cutting funding to police departments, radical climate policy, broad opposition to domestic energy production efforts and more. She’s now even quietly walking back her bold price controls regime she announced with such gusto two weeks ago.

The flip-flop label is a powerful one. It worked for President George W. Bush against Sen. John Kerry in 2004, and it can work now. It reinforces Mr. Trump’s contention that Ms. Harris is a phony and a political chameleon attempting to hide her fidelity to some form of American Marxism.

At every event, the Trump campaign should also deploy demonstrators dressed as giant flip-flops. Flip-flop costumes cost less than $100. The message can then be reinforced with “Harris Flip-Flops” signage.

If this all seems old-fashioned and low-tech, it is. But that doesn’t mean it’s not effective. We live in a visual society. Campaigns are visual stories. Creative bracketing and street theater get eyeballs and reinforce key messages.

Sure, wave your American and Trump flags when the former president comes to town. It’s important for people to turn out in droves to support their choice. But when Ms. Harris shows up, it’s an opportunity to make it clear that she can’t hide from the failures and massive human cost of the last 3½ years. The campaign shouldn’t miss that opportunity.

Ms. Harris is guilty of cackling over other people’s misery, failing upward and lying her way through any attempts at accountability. She doesn’t just need to hear that from Mr. Trump. She must hear it loud and clear from voters.

• Tom Basile is the host of “America Right Now” on Newsmax TV and a columnist with The Washington Times.