How many times have we heard the same narrative? This is it. Now Trump has gone too far. It was McCain, Megyn Kelly,it was the 2nd debate, the 3rd debate, it was when he made a joke of Ben Carson's belt.
It's always been wrong. Now because he recycled an Urban Legend about Muslims in Jersey City partying this is going to end his campaign. But why? Why is that going to worry his supporters?
So yesterday we had the NY Times and the Washington Post say That's it no more, and again it doesn't seem to matter.
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/11/bruce-barlett-on-missing-point-of-trump.html
Look, it doesn't take a fact checker from Glenn Kessler to show that there weren't thousands of Muslims cheering the 9/11 attacks. But as far as his supporters go, Trump is fine.
He wasn't so much making something up as repeating a crazy rumor that's been around. Who believes this story? The Trump supporters. So in saying he believes it-or even claiming he saw it-jibes with them.
He read from that Washington Post article from 2001. Now, ok that article doesn't quite show thousands cheering. But at this point the conversation gets lost in the weeds. Him reading from that WaPo article will be enough for the base.
As Greg Sargent says, Trump is taking the positing that getting lost in the details is already weak and unmanly.
"As your humble blogger suggested yesterday, the extensive media attention to Donald Trump’s lies — particularly his suggestion that “thousands and thousands” of New Jersey residents cheered the fall of the Twin Towers — might only be helping him with his supporters. In their universe, these fact checks may only confirm that the corrupt national press, which has nothing but contempt for Trump’s supporters, is conspiring to cover up the truths that Trump is heroically striving to bring to light, in order to destroy his effort to save America."
"Now Trump himself is making this point in as explicit a way as you could ask for."
"Trump and his campaign are actively charging the liberal media with covering up evidence that American Muslims did in fact celebrate the 9/11 attacks in great numbers. The Post’s Jenna Johnson first reported on this from Trump’s rally last night in South Carolina"
"Once again: the details don’t matter in the least. In fact, getting tangled up in the details is itself a sign of weakness. That’s what the press wants Trump to do. The media Lilliputians want to use their phony “facts” as so many ropes to tie down this Gulliver-like truth-telling giant and prevent him from making America great again. The national media is complicit in American decline, so of course they will do all they can to suppress Trump’s grand truths about what is causing that decline."
"How much longer can this last? Karen Tumulty offers an answer: At this point, it may be that only GOP primary voters can settle that question."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/11/25/morning-plum-the-liberal-media-plot-to-keep-donald-trump-down/
Thank you. I for one have been a little put off by what Josh Marshall has called the arrogance of many in the press to put themselves in front of the news. I mean to simply decide who's a serious candidate and who's not and to basically not report on aspects of the primary.
"Now Trump himself is making this point in as explicit a way as you could ask for."
"Trump and his campaign are actively charging the liberal media with covering up evidence that American Muslims did in fact celebrate the 9/11 attacks in great numbers. The Post’s Jenna Johnson first reported on this from Trump’s rally last night in South Carolina"
"Once again: the details don’t matter in the least. In fact, getting tangled up in the details is itself a sign of weakness. That’s what the press wants Trump to do. The media Lilliputians want to use their phony “facts” as so many ropes to tie down this Gulliver-like truth-telling giant and prevent him from making America great again. The national media is complicit in American decline, so of course they will do all they can to suppress Trump’s grand truths about what is causing that decline."
"How much longer can this last? Karen Tumulty offers an answer: At this point, it may be that only GOP primary voters can settle that question."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/11/25/morning-plum-the-liberal-media-plot-to-keep-donald-trump-down/
Thank you. I for one have been a little put off by what Josh Marshall has called the arrogance of many in the press to put themselves in front of the news. I mean to simply decide who's a serious candidate and who's not and to basically not report on aspects of the primary.
That is quite arrogant-like Huffington Post's grand gesture of confining Trump to the entertainment section. What's more it clearly isn't working. Trump is not being hurt. The media doesn't have this power to decide who gets to run and who doesn't.
Why not actually just report what's going on?
Mike, this one caught my eye:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cnn.com/2015/11/24/politics/donald-trump-fascism/
I'll be more convinced when more mainstream conservatives start calling him a fascist. However, I do see an opportunity for Trump here: to de-stigmatize the "fascist" label as Bernie Sanders has tried to de-stimatized the "socialist" label.
I could see Trump eventually (March 2016?) saying something like this:
"People are calling me a fascist. A fascist?! Can you believe it? So politically incorrect. What's so amusing to me is that they say it in a negative way... like that's a *BAD* thing!"
[Crowd goes absolutely crazy with cheering and applause!]
Mike, if Trump eventually owns the "fascist" label... destigmatizes it... would you still vote for him? ;^)
Nothing would get me not to vote for Trump in the GOP election.
ReplyDeleteFascism and socialism aren't totally equivalent as in no one ever agrees that they are Fascist.
I do think that these conservatives calling him a fascist probably just elevates him with the base
ReplyDeleteThe reporter point blank asks him is there's a difference between having Muslims register and having Jews register in Nazi Germany. The reporter asks him over and over again. And he only says "you tell me" in response.
ReplyDeleteI wish the reporter would ask him if he thinks it might be necessary for people to wear green crescents when they're out in public so they can be easily identified. There's a good chance Trump doesn't know that the Nazis made the Jews wear yellow stars, so he might fall for it.
I look forward to fascism being totally destimatized in America... to a US where 47.9% of voters openly vote for a fascist in 11/2016. Making fascism more acceptable ... what's the downside??? It'd be a "breath of fresh air," don't you think? ;^)
I'm not sure that I do. LOL.
ReplyDeleteDo I detect a note of facetiousness?
Regarding that reporter, though, that's my point. I don't think there's a silver bullet where someone calls him a racist or a liar and that's it. His numbers tank.
ReplyDeleteHere we go Tom. This is from Bruce Barlett who again nails it:
ReplyDelete"Mainstream wankers have decided to label Trump a fascist, as if his followers give a shit. It's why they support him http://ow.ly/V2FqT "
https://twitter.com/BruceBartlett
Another great Barlett quip:
ReplyDelete"I think the mainstream media downplay Trump's chances because they have never understood just how nuts the wanker party base really is."
Yeah, those stupid "wankers!" ... fruitlessly trying to tear down Trump.
ReplyDeleteMike, I love "fresh air" and the more breaths of it we have the better.
For example, say there's a 0.25% uptick in unemployment before the election.... the general, between HRC and the openly fascist (and wildly popular) Trump, HRC has a "comfortable" lead of almost 2.1% a month before the election, but then Trump starts sounding off:
"Unemployment is skyrocketing people! The Democrats have ruined America... even if you're employed, do you **feel** employed?? That's my point! It doesn't feel like employment does it??"
And say Trump then wins by 0.5%, and starts implementing some real fascist policies. Maybe the Supreme Court and the Capital Building burn down under suspicious circumstances, but Trump using his amazing and strong ability to feel truthiness ... and he identifies the perpetrators as the NY Times, Muslims and elected Democrats... so he needs to take emergency actions against that scum...
... and his poll numbers rise when he does... that would be a REAL breath of fresh air wouldn't it?!?!... no more hiding behind PC taboos (like the constitution... just a piece of paper that weakling ninnys cling to like hand wringing nebbish whiners)... then we could see the REAL face of America Mike!! Unmask it for what it really is. It's be so refreshing! Like many many many lung fulls of fresh air. Get rid of the "PC police" altogether, and let America's true animal spirit fly free!! Let's unmask America and see what we're really all about! Air so fresh it burns!!!
Well let's not have too much fresh air. LOL. By fresh air, I just mean lets see the GOP for what it is, not what the serious pundits pretend it is-a reasonable governing party.
ReplyDeleteNow I think it's very unlikely that Trump wins the general-I'm not sure he wins the primary though there's a real change now.
If he did I doubt it would be any worse than a generic Republican Administration.
I've documented repeatedly for yo that he didn't invent the deport 11 million line-Kaisch ran on the same thing in 2010.
No matter how you game it the Trump Democrat line is seems like the way to go.
Like even Nate Silver said that while a Hillary-Rubio race might be 50--50 a Hillary-Trump-or Hillary-Cruz-race is more ike 75-25.
So it would have to be a true economic calamity-maybe even worse than 2008 to elect Trump.
"I just mean lets see the GOP for what it is"
DeleteI'm all for that. But there's a gray zone in which what it really is can be altered. Like that episode of the Twilight Zone called "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" or maybe more appropriately "The Shelter": in "The Shelter" a false alarm of nuclear war "unmasks" a neighborhood of friends into the ugly selfish homicidal evil savages they really are... or is that really what happens? Maybe that ugly selfish homicidal evil savagery really WAS there, but attenuated to the point of insignificance. Are who the neighbors "really are" revealed, or are their worst aspects heightened and amplified 1000 fold by what they think is impending nuclear doom? I tend to think the latter. It could be that to a certain extent Trump is merely unmasking the GOP for what it is... but perhaps he is also changing what it is by amplifying the bad, breaking taboos and attenuating any remaining decency. You could say that bad was there all along, and you'd probably be correct. However to purposely amplify the bad (for cynical political reasons) doesn't necessarily clarify who they are so much as mold who they are. It's a question worth debating anyway.
Also, any criticism of Trump by Trump's rivals or the Beltway media or liberals can only be good: if his supporters get their "news" exclusively from right wing internet conspiracy theories, fundamentalist lunatic preachers, and extreme right radio hosts, then ALL that criticism of Trump from anyone else only serves to help him cinch the nomination while simultaneously helping doom him in the general.
"Maybe that ugly selfish homicidal evil savagery really WAS there, but attenuated to the point of insignificance"
ReplyDeleteIn this case-things haven't been attenuated pre Trump. See this is my difference. I don''t think the hypocrisy of the establishment GOP protects us from the vileness of their policies in the least.
I don't agree that the GOP base was nice and reasonable and then Trump made them get like this. It was always there. For 50 years the GOP has played this game and finally someone has whether deliberately or not called them out on it.
If Trump weren't in this race, maybe they could have soft pedaled their real feelings on immigration. But though I have said this a number of times you evidetly don't follow me.
Trump hasn't come up with new policies. The 11 million deportations? Kaisch, Mr. Reasonable, ran on the same thing in 2010. So how did GOP hypocrisy attenuate anything?
The difference is that Trump has used a a fire alarm rather than the usual dog whistle. Good. So less will be fooled by who they really are-in the general election.
I follow you: but Kasich didn't get anywhere in 2010. Trump was to the left of the whole GOP field in 2012 when he criticized Romney's "self deportation" idea. The GOP base probably can't even hold self consistent thoughts in their heads right now (today), let alone over the interval from 2010 to 2015. I bet if you polled the GOP base with several separate questions:
DeleteIs Obama an atheist?
Is Obama a Muslim?
Is Obama a Kenyan?
Is Obama an Indonesian?
Is Obama a communist?
Is Obama a fascist?
Is Obama a weak little boy?
Is Obama a ruthless iron fisted dictator?
I bet more than 50% would say "yes" to all of those, even though that would be self contradictory in several ways. The "emergent" representative GOP base voter would be holding multiple contradictory thoughts in his head simultaneously.
I think it's up for debate how much Trump acts to unmask what Republican voters actually are and how much he acts to mold what they are becoming (through amplifying some pre-existing aspects of them and attenuating others). I suspect he does some combination of both.
Now if they could be purely unmasked (without changing them), I think they would be an uglier lot than their politicians have tried to portray... say 2008 and prior. Maybe back to Goldwater (another great unmasker/molder?). However, I think they could very well be in the process of becoming uglier, due, in part, to the influence of their politicians (not just Trump).
I almost always prefer incremental change to revolutionary change. However I do tend to agree with you that under the circumstances a Trump nomination could be the best possible overall outcome in a utilitarian sense of the concept. However, I would be pleased to see some incremental positive change as well (perhaps post-Trump). Positive change in the entire US electorate (not just their politicians).
Let me ask you this Mike: what would incremental positive change in the GOP electorate and political class look like to you? Can you give some specific examples? I'm not asking if you think that's likely, I'm asking what you think that would look like if it did happen.
Kasich didn't get anywhere? He won the Ohio election for Governor. Nor was he a special case.
ReplyDeleteTrue! I don't know what I was talking about... somehow I thought you were referring to a previous presidential election, but clearly none took place in 2010... I just finished looking that up. Lol.
DeleteDo you agree with this Wikipedia write up on it?:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kasich#Immigration
I agree-it says he supported getting rid of the 14th amendment-just like Trump.
Delete"Let me ask you this Mike: what would incremental positive change in the GOP electorate and political class look like to you? Can you give some specific examples? I'm not asking if you think that's likely, I'm asking what you think that would look like if it did happen."
ReplyDeleteLet's be clear. I'm for incremental change too. But the GOP has become a radically anarchistic, Jacobin party.
I've tried to explain my thought process to you. I don't see the GOP itself improving in the short term. It's long since said no to learning or to change.
Even in 2013 they could have turned it around had Boehner had the balls to do something on immigration reform.
But he didn''t because this is not the nature of the GOP.
I've tried to sketch this out before. I think that however exactly this plays out, the party base itself starts to splinter into factions and maybe a certain large group vows to go third party though this probably will not go well.
But the base divided against itself is unable to get many GOP victories enabling the Dems to achieve some things in office. The GOP is the party of opposition, the Dems the party of governance.
The GOP will face some years in the wilderness at least at the national level before they are in any shape to go within 30 yards of the White House.
This is the evolution I see. The party as it's constituted now is hopeless which is why you already see signs of splintering both in the House and in the Presidential campaign.
The incremental change I'm concerned with is not the GOP base but the country which can only progress with the GOP out of it for awhile.
Thanks,
Delete"But the GOP has become a radically anarchistic, Jacobin party."
True, but I still think they are in the process of changing for the worse. Not just being unmasked, but actively in the processing of changing. It's incremental change in the wrong direction, although it's probably unavoidable right now.
If Trump becomes the nominee, and he's openly fascist at the time (I don't think he's necessarily there yet, but I'm extrapolating), then perhaps (just perhaps!) a few of the big GOP donors might actually sit it out.
DeleteI could see Jennifer Rubin (for example) actually endorsing HRC if Trump were the nominee. For fuck's sake, she's already said he's "totalitarian." And she's already stated that HRC is to the right of Cruz and Trump on foreign policy (to the right, being a good thing in her book). I could see Rand Paul and McCain doing the same. Perhaps the WSJ too would endorse HRC. Trump might evolve into such a vile candidate, that a David Vitter type reaction takes place. That would be an incremental improvement in my book, even if it only influences a small minority of GOP voters. Perhaps Sheldon Adleson would refuse his millions, if they'd go towards a Trump campaign. I could see Trump getting into a conflict with Adleson... ...it wouldn't take much for him to fly off the handle and say something antisemitic or insulting towards a donor class guy like Adleson. It's unlikely, but it's far from inconceivable. The ADL (on their website today) seems pretty alarmed by the fascistic tone coming from "some candidates."
Wouldn't it be ironic if in the end, ... if Trump is the official GOP nominee, that the OTHER candidates (except Cruz and Carson perhaps), actually refuse to support him? Lol... Here Fox was trying to trap Trump (w/ the 1st question of the 1st debate) into being the one guy who'd be a backstabber to the GOP should he lose the nomination, when I could actually see the tables exactly reversed (and a majority of the other candidates refusing to support Trump)... should Trump continue on his trajectory towards fascism but simultaneously win the nomination. That outcome would split the GOP into two or more parties I think.
Morning Joe said that if the choice comes down to Cruz or Trump most Establishment would should 'Kill me'
Delete" but I still think they are in the process of changing for the worse. Not just being unmasked, but actively in the processing of changing. It's incremental change in the wrong direction, although it's probably unavoidable right now"
It's good in the sense that they are splintering and so won't be able to win divided against themselves.
That's good for the country which to my mind is the only thing that matters
Yes I do think at least some GOPers might end up supporting Hillary. Many would sit it out
Delete