“Palin Is A Loser—But A Potentially Useful One”: Sarah Palin Backs Donald Trump, Murders Irony
Failed reality-television star Sarah Palin joined former reality-television star Donald Trump in Ames, Iowa, on Tuesday evening, not for a taping of Celebrity Apprentice or a casting for Dancing With the Stars, but to endorse him as the next president of the United States.
Dressed in a black overcoat and blue tie, the GOP frontrunner walked onstage at Iowa State University and gripped the lectern stamped with his name. “Wow, look at the press out there! They must think that a big event’s gonna happen today,” he said. “Wow! That’s a lot—it’s like the Academy Awards!”
He freestyled for 30 minutes, about his poll numbers and how Big League he wins, before welcoming a bedazzled Palin with a hug and a kiss on the cheek. He called her “a spectacular person” and said her endorsement was “very special to me.”
Trump stood off to her left and looked on as she spoke, his arms dangling awkwardly at his sides. He smirked.
“Heads are spinning,” Palin began. “This is gonna be so much fun!”
Searching for meaning in this spectacle is like trying to find enlightenment in the ball pit at Chuck E. Cheese. And the jokes, well, they write themselves but they’re not very funny, which, in a sense, is the key to Trump’s success in the Republican primary—and, perhaps, life in general.
Trump persists because he defies parody. He, like Palin, is in on the joke that is his public persona. The difference is he’s better at telling it than any lowly scribe or comedian. And he tells it not with a device as obvious as self-deprecation but with subtlety in his every decision, minor or Yuge, in his official capacity as The Frontrunner for the Republican Presidential Nomination.
Which is where Palin comes in.
“No more pussyfooting around!” she shouted. “He’s going rogue left and right, man, that’s why he’s doing so well!”
Once governor of Alaska, Palin’s own road to caricature began when she joined Trump foe John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign as his running mate.
Her tinny-voiced performance as a vice-presidential candidate was, at turns, erratic and self-destructive. By Election Day, it was difficult to distinguish between the real Palin and the version of her performed by Tina Fey on Saturday Night Live.
For a time after McCain’s defeat, Palin enjoyed her status as an in-demand conservative star, too rogue to be tamed by the establishment elite. But her shtick, complete with props like Big Gulps and Dr. Seuss books, seemed to grow tired. TLC canceled her reality show, Sarah Palin’s Alaska, after just one season. Palin sightings on cable news occurred with less and less frequency. A CBS News poll from January 2015 found that 59 percent of Republicans didn’t want her to run for president in this election.
To borrow a phrase from The Donald, Palin is a loser—but a potentially useful one, like conspiracy-monger Alex Jones, who was welcomed into Trump’s orbit in December.
Trump associates with sideshows and freaks as if to run on hot coals before the American public and media, who are left covered in sludge and scratching their heads. Unlike almost every politician before him, he is never tainted by these associations. No failed governor or tinfoil hat-wearing radio host or white supremacist making robocalls on his behalf can reflect poorly on his character, perhaps because we suspect he has none.
Trump befriended Palin before his formal foray into Republican politics began. In 2011, they were photographed eating pizza together in New York City—with forks. In August, Palin interviewed Trump, by webcam, for the right-wing One America News Network. He told her he liked her and her family “so much.”
There is overlap among their lackeys, too. Trump political director Michael Glassner previously served as chief of staff to Palin’s political action committee, and Trump’s spokeswoman, Katrina Pierson, was endorsed by Palin in 2014 when she ran for Congress in Texas.
Roger Stone, a longtime Trump confidant who worked on the campaign until August, said Trump only stands to gain from Palin’s public embrace.
“She is popular with evangelicals who dominate the process,” he told me. “Also blots out sun for [Ted] Cruz.”
At the very least, Trump loses nothing after Tuesday’s Big Show. At most, he starves Cruz—his central rival—of much-needed media coverage with two weeks to spare until the Iowa caucus. Unlike his other threats, like Ben Carson, Cruz has proved impervious to Trump’s put-downs. Despite weeks of Trump questioning Cruz’s citizenship, Cruz has hardly moved an inch in the Iowa polls, where he was beating Trump as recently as two weeks ago. As of this writing, Trump stands just a percentage point above Cruz in the Real Clear Politics polling average in the state.
Aiding Trump’s cause is Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, who, sparring with Cruz over ethanol, said Tuesday that he hopes the Texas senator is defeated.
As surreal as Tuesday’s performance felt at times, it was guided by a certain logic. Even Palin, who flailed her sequined arms in the air for the crowd, equal parts pep and menace in her voice, sounded a nuanced battle cry. “You ready for a commander and chief who will do their job and go kick ISIS ass?” she screamed at one point.
But then she explained her plight, and the plight of all Trump true believers.
“Trump’s candidacy: It has exposed not just that tragic ramifications of that betrayal of the transformation of our country, but too, he has exposed the complicity on both sides of the aisle that has enabled it, OK?” she said. “He’s been able to tear the veil off this idea of the system, how the system really works.”
In Trump, Palin sees a leader—one who won’t be pushed off to the corner like she was. “We need someone new who has the power and is in the position to bust up that establishment,” she said.
She complained that establishment Republicans are as much to blame as the Democrats, and in their effort to thwart Trump, they have maligned all of conservative America.
“Funny, haha—not funny,” she said, seemingly out of nowhere. “But now what they’re doing is whaling on Trump and his Trumpeters, ‘Well, they’re not conservative enough’—Oh my goodness gracious, what the heck would the establishment know about conservatism?”
She said she, Trump, and those like them were “right-winging, bitter-clinging, proud clingers of our guns, our god, and our religions, and our Constitution.”
“Doggone right we’re angry,” she said. “Justifiably so!”
She said Trump could be trusted because “he builds things, he builds big things, things that touch the sky, big infrastructure, things that put people to work.”
And when President Obama leaves office, she said, she hopes he heads back to Chicago. He’ll “be able to look up and there, over his head, he will be able to see that shining, towering Trump Tower. Yes, Barack, he built that and that says a lot! Iowa, you say a lot being here tonight supporting the right man who will allow you to Make America Great Again!”
By: Olivia Nuzzi, The Daily Beast, January 19, 2016
“St. Joan Of The Tundra”: The Inevitability Of Palin’s Endorsement Of Trump
Notwithstanding the howls of pain and rage from supporters of Ted Cruz, Sarah Palin’s decision to endorse Donald Trump for president makes perfect sense when you think about what she has distinctively represented in the Republican Party. Yes, she’s a “conservative” in the sense of standing for maximum confrontation with Democrats and constantly accusing the party Establishment of acts of betrayal. But no, there’s nothing particularly ideological — or, for that matter, intellectual — about her approach to politics or issues. She represents almost perfectly the passion and resentment of grassroots cultural-issues activists. When John McCain vaulted her into national politics, she was known for two things other than her gender: She was a “walk the walk” role model for the anti-abortion movement, thanks to her small child Trig, and she had taken on the “crony capitalist” GOP Establishment in Alaska and won. Thus she was a fellow “maverick” with Christian-right street cred and a “game-changing” identity.
The remarkably widespread belief that Palin lost the 2008 presidential election for her party is even more far-fetched than the hope that she could win it. And so the many fans she made in that campaign developed — with a lot of help from Palin herself — a deep resentment of all of the Democrats, Republicans, and media elites who belittled her. In a very real sense, she was the authentic representative of those local right-to-life activists — disproportionately women — who had staffed countless GOP campaigns and gotten little in return (this was before the 2010 midterm elections began to produce serious anti-choice gains in the states) other than the thinly disguised contempt of Beltway Republicans. And after 2008 she generated a sort of perpetual motion machine in which her fans loved her precisely for the mockery she so reliably inspired.
Unfortunately for those fans, St. Joan of the Tundra was never quite up to the demands of a statewide — much less national — political career. So she opportunistically intervened in politics between books and television specials and widely broadcast family sagas, mostly through well-timed candidate endorsements. It’s striking, though not surprising, that Palin is now endorsing the nemesis of one of her most successful “Mama Grizzly” protégées, South Carolina’s Nikki Haley, on the turf of another, Iowa’s Joni Ernst.
But in many respects, the Trump campaign is the presidential campaign Palin herself might have aspired to run if she had the money and energy to do so. Her famous disregard for wonky facts and historical context is but a shadow of Trump’s. His facility with the big and effective lie can’t quite match Palin’s, who after all convinced many millions of people in a Facebook post that the Affordable Care Act authorized “death panels.” And both of them, of course, exemplify the demagogue’s zest for flouting standards of respectable discourse and playing the table-turning triumphant victim/conqueror of privileged elites.
Conservatism for both Trump and Palin simply supplies the raw material of politics and a preassembled group of aggrieved white people ready to follow anyone purporting to protect hard-earned threatened privileges, whether it’s Social Security and Medicare benefits or religious hegemony. So it’s natural Palin would gravitate to Trump rather than Cruz, who’s a professional ideologue but a mere amateur demagogue. The endorser and the endorsee were meant for each other.
By: Ed Kilgore, Daily Intelligencer, New York Magazine, January 19, 2016
“What A Guy!”: Donald Trump’s Plan To Defeat Hillary Clinton Is Even More Delusional Than You’d Expect
The human brain has a magnificent capacity to adapt to bizarre circumstances and rationalize them as normal. Donald Trump’s chances of winning the Republican nomination — which even his skeptics (like me) now regard as plausible, and many consider likely or even inevitable — has caused a reconsideration of his standing with the public. Yes, polling data would suggest Trump is wildly unpopular with a solid majority of the public and would probably lose soundly. But polling data does not account for other, uh, factors imagined by Trump’s supporters, who now present their case to the media. “How Donald Trump Defeats Hillary Clinton” is the headline of a Politico story, and possibly the least convincing electability argument ever published in a mainstream publication.
The author, Ben Schreckinger, cites numerous arguments for why Trump would fare better than you think. Here are the most entertaining ones:
- Black people love him. “If he were the Republican nominee he would get the highest percentage of black votes since Ronald Reagan in 1980,” says Republican pollster Frank Luntz. “He behaves in a way that most minorities would not expect a billionaire to behave,” adds another pollster.
More likely, the Republican candidate to arrest the party’s deep decline among African-Americans is not going to be the candidate who spent his own money to whip up public demands for the execution of five African-Americans for a rape they did not commit, and who publicly questioned the legitimacy of President Obama’s birth certificate. It is true that Trump does not behave the way minorities would expect a billionaire to behave, or, for that matter, the way white people would expect a billionaire to behave. You could expect a billionaire not to act like a racist buffoon. Trump’s non-stereotypical behavior does not necessarily give him special political appeal to the targets of his demagoguery.
- He has a brilliant plan to make Latinos stop hating him. “Trump minimizes his losses with Hispanics by running Spanish-language ads highlighting his support for a strong military and take-charge entrepreneurial attitude, especially in the Miami and Orlando media markets,” the story explains.
That’s all it takes! Just some Spanish-language ads in Miami and Orlando talking about the military and having a take-charge entrepreneurial attitude! Why didn’t Mitt Romney think of this?
- He’ll use Bill Clinton’s affairs against Hillary. Trump, continues Schreckinger, uses a weapon he has already begun to deploy: “He draws the starkest possible outsider-insider contrast with Hillary Clinton and successfully tars her with her husband’s sexual history.” Schreckinger allows that Trump running as a candidate of sexual propriety would be “audacious.” But there is also the problem of whether this tactic could succeed. Hillary Clinton’s popularity reached its highest level ever during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, which suggests that voters are unlikely to punish her for being victimized by her husband’s infidelity.
- Trump will draw “extraordinary levels of working-class white voter turnout.” Somehow, though, all of this excitement he creates among voters who love Trump will not also excite countermobilization among voters who hate and fear him.
- If Republican pollsters can frame the election in a controlled setting, they can make voters agree. This part of the argument has to be read in its entirety to be believed.
[Sam Nunberg, a former Trump aide] asked women in Connecticut who opposed marijuana legalization who they respected more: a politician who is also charitable and a world-renowned businessman, father and grandfather or an “Elderly woman who not only openly allows her husband to have affairs but tries to silence the women.” The figure with the favorable abstract framing of Trump beat the figure with the negative abstract framing of Clinton by more than 20 points, according to Nunberg.
Well, okay. Likewise, if you asked some voters if they prefer a small-business owner who rose from poverty in an immigrant community over a bearded trial lawyer who murdered hundreds of thousands of Americans, they would report that they indeed believe John Gotti would make for a better president than Abraham Lincoln.
- Women can’t resist Trump. “He’s a masculine figure and that will attract women to him,” adds Nunberg. “It’s their dirty little secret. They like Donald Trump.”
Yes, Trump treats women with extreme levels of contempt, unashamedly valuing them entirely on the basis of their sex appeal, including his own daughter. But, hey, women obviously love him, as evidenced by the fact that they keep marrying him. The attraction will surely apply to voting as well. Women will feel drawn to him irresistibly. They may even want to vote against Trump, but they will find themselves physically unable to pull the lever for Clinton.
If you’re scared that Trump can win the election, you probably shouldn’t be.
By: Jonathan Chait, Daily Intelligencer, New York Magazine, January 19, 2016
“Why The Republican Field Is Incapable Of Challenging Trump”: No Candidate Is Grounded In Authenticity And Truth
Tying in to what Martin just wrote about the Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy, I’ve long felt that, even though the GOP has put up a large number of candidates this time around, the quantity doesn’t make up for the lack of quality.
A general consensus seems to be forming after last night’s debate that Republicans are in the phase of resigning themselves to a Trump candidacy. I’m seeing that noted in a variety of places. For example, Jonathan Chait, Greg Sargent and Steve Benen all have pretty good round-ups on that sentiment. While I was watching the debate last night, I had a growing sense of how the lack of quality in the field has enabled the ongoing dominance of Trump.
For all of his faults (there are too many to name, so don’t get me started), one of the things that Donald Trump is pretty good at is having a nose for hypocrisy as well as the ability to locate and exploit the weaknesses of others. One of the reasons his attacks work is that they usually contain a twisted sense of truth. The example that springs to mind from last night is that he outright called Jeb Bush “weak.” In a field where bullying is assumed to demonstrate strength, that’s pretty spot on.
Part of the reason why none of the current candidates can effectively challenge Trump is that there is not one of them who is grounded in authenticity and truth. For example, one of the things Jeb has become known for in this campaign is saying something and then having to call it back or revise it 3 or 4 times before he’s done. Everyone knows that Rubio is simply spouting lines that he has practiced and rehearsed. As we saw last night, Christie can hardly speak without lying. These days all Carson seems capable of is rambling incoherently. And Cruz is the closest thing we have to a sociopath in this race (with Carly Fiorina running a close second) – twisting his agenda to appeal to the lowest common denominator. The one candidate who exudes even a hint of authenticity is John Kasich. But all he seems to be able to do is flail his arms around, talk about his record, and extol the virtues of trickle-down economics.
In order to take on a bully like Trump you have to look him in the eye and stand your ground confidently – without prevaricating or attempting to out-bully the bully. In order to do that, you have to know what you believe and be able to articulate it authentically. Short of that, Trump will find the opening and exploit the hell out of it.
None of these candidates can do that because what the Republican Party is about right now is all a farce based on fear-mongering and out-dated policies that have proven themselves to be a disaster. They’re putting on a show and Donald Trump is making that obvious to everyone by simply putting on a bigger show.
By: Nancy LeTourneau, Political Animal Blog, The Washington Monthly, January 15, 2015
“The Last Stage Of Grief”: From ‘Panic’ To ‘Acceptance’ On Trump?
For much of 2015, one of the most commonly uttered words in Republican circles was “panic,” as in, “irritation is giving way to panic” among GOP insiders “as it becomes increasingly plausible” that Donald Trump might win the Republicans’ presidential nomination.
But NBC News raised an interesting point this morning about the stages of grief.
[H]ave we finally reached the last stage, acceptance? Now none of this means that Trump is going to win the GOP presidential nomination. But it does mean that he’s become much more acceptable to Republicans than we ever thought possible; that he’s indelibly shaped the GOP contest in his own image; and that he’s in firm control of this GOP race.
I feel like this is the first week of the entire cycle in which I’ve seen and heard a growing number of Republicans reach this point. National Review’s Rich Lowry noted this week, for example, that from his conversations, the GOP establishment’s mood on Trump is “moving from fear/loathing to resignation/rationalization.” (MSNBC’s Chris Hayes added soon after that he’s heard the same thing.)
Jon Chait flagged examples of others making similar comments. The Daily Caller’s Matt Lewis quoted a Republican source saying, “On the ground? Everyone literally is getting resigned to Trump as nominee.” Ari Fleischer, the former press secretary in the Bush/Cheney White House, said he now gives Trump a 60% chance of winning the party’s nomination.
Slate’s Jamelle Bouie added this morning, “[I]nstead of brushing Trump aside, Republican elites are learning to love the Donald and accept him as a potential nominee, or at least a candidate they can work with.”
Try to imagine commentary like this from, say, August. It would have been almost unfathomable.
This is not, by the way, a prediction saying I think Trump will be the nominee. A grand total of zero votes have been cast – the Iowa caucuses, which Trump may very well lose, is still 16 days away – and there are all kinds of questions we don’t know the answer to, not the least of which is whether the frontrunner’s backers will actually show up when it counts.
My point, however, is that we appear to have entered a very different, largely unexpected stage in the race: one in which Republicans stop obsessing over when Trump will collapse and start accepting the idea that maybe, just maybe, he won’t.
The “stages of grief” framework is admittedly a bit of a cliche, but NBC’s First Read may be onto something here. Republicans were initially in denial (“Come Labor Day, Trump will be an unpleasant memory”), which led to anger (“This guy is going to tear the party apart and hand Congress to Democrats!”). Soon after, there was some bargaining (“What can we do to elevate someone from the establishment ‘lane’?”), followed by plenty of depression (“I’ve seen the latest polls and I need another drink.”)
The fifth stage is acceptance. Watch this space.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, January 15, 22016
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