Has Trump's Campaign Proven 'Nothing Matters?'

The media still has learned nothing from its failures:

"It’s become fashionable to claim that Trump is showing that “nothing matters” in campaigns, but Jonathan Bernstein argues that the positions and flip flops that Trump is adopting actually do matter, and are taking a real toll on his standing"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/06/29/happy-hour-roundup-891/

The first and foremost problem with this is Trump is losing and badly. How does this shows 'nothing matters' or that he's' Teflon?

The media was wrong about Trump's chances in the primary-they were way to pessimistic. They were to pessimistic about Brexit-though I sort of was myself on that one.

Now they are too optimistic about his chances in the general. First hint: follow the polls not your intuition.

You can argue about causation: why exactly is Trump losing but there's no doubt that he is. So how can you definitively claim that his candidacy proves that flip flopping doesn't hurt, etc?

There was this absurd piece-which Bernstein calls out which argues that unlike John Kerry, Trump is not hurt by flip-flopping.

"Many in the media seem to be having some difficulties comprehending just how badly Donald Trump is doing, and how unusual it is for the Republican Party to be so resistant to their own presidential nominee."

"Alan Rappeport and Maggie Haberman have a perfectly fine piece in the New York Times today listing the many issues on which Trump has flip-flopped. But the preface is bizarre: They compare Trump to Secretary of State John Kerry in his 2004 run for president, and claim Kerry was destroyed by charges of flip-flopping while Trump “has so far avoided much harm” from switching positions on core issues of public policy."

"For the record: Kerry lost narrowly to George W. Bush, a fairly popular sitting president. Trump is currently falling about 7 percentage points behind Hillary Clinton, even though she appears to be quite unpopular herself -- perhaps because Trump is the most unpopular major party presidential nominee in the polling era. And while Kerry had solid backing from Democratic Party actors in 2004, practically every prominent Republican seems to have come down with a severe case of needing-to-wash-their-hair the week of July 18, rendering them unable to make it to Cleveland for the party’s convention."

http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-06-29/trump-s-flip-flops-are-taking-a-toll

I do agree the media is doing a poor job of assessing how badly Trump is doing. Often you'll hear: well she's just winning by 5 points which is piratically a tie.'

Hillary's lead is always averaged down. This morning the Quinnipiac poll was hailed as a 'dead heat' even though she has a two point lead in it-the average is actually 7 now.

But Obama won by 5 in 2012 and it was a near landslide in terms of the electoral college.

If she wins by 7 this will be in line with Obama's lopsided 2008 win. With all these normal Red States becoming tossups, maybe she can win by slightly more even.

By the way, even this irks me a little. Jennifer Rubin:

"Trump on Muslim ban: Fooled ya!"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2016/06/29/trump-on-muslim-ban-fooled-ya/?

Her overall post here is good. But how exactly did he fool us? What I mean is this seems to assume he didn't mean he would do a Muslim ban as he''s now 'flip flopped.'

But I think where he really fools 'us' is if we buy into the idea that he's ruled out the ban. All he has really done is reframed it. 

Now he tries to justify it as just banning immigration from those countries with Islamic terrorism-which just happen to be Islamic. 

But is this an actual change in policy? Of course not. 

My theory of how you interpret Trump. 

1. Take him at his word. Don't divine for him that 'He probably is only fooling.'

2. If he has taken multiple positions assume the accurate one is the worst one. 

He has to pay the price for his deliberate 'uncertainty.' Voters can't vote for someone who won't tell them what he'll do until after he's President and he does what he will do. 

In any case, much of the 'flip flops' are just reframing the issue. 

For instance on the minimum wage, people get very confused-as is his intent. But in truth he's said:

1. Wages are too high

2. He doesn't know how workers get by on $7.25 an hour

3. He wants to eliminate the federal MW.

I'd argue that none of this is actually a contradiction, he's just reframing his position and too many seem to fall for it.