“Fox News Created The Trump Monster”: The Billionaire Egoist Is The Creation Of The Network Now Trying To Destroy Him
Okay, so as I write these words, someone could be about to release a post-debate poll showing exactly what establishment Washington, which now apparently includes even Fox News (!), yearns to see a poll show—that Donald Trump has tumbled, and that the new leaders in the GOP field are the comparatively sober Jeb Bush and John Kasich, along with maybe Carly Fiorina, since everybody seems to be swooning over her now. Maybe it’ll happen.
But what in fact did happen is that we got this NBC News-Survey Monkey poll showing Trump still ahead and Ted Cruz and Ben Carson vaulting into second and third place, respectively. It’s an online poll, and I know we’re supposed to question its methodology (which the pollsters explain here, if you’re interested). So I’m not going to sit here and swear by it. But on Monday, two other post-debate polls came along showing that Trump is still going strong. So the results are interesting enough, and they track closely enough with other anecdotal evidence that’s made its way to my inbox, that it’s certainly worth asking: What if Trump is still clobbering the rest of the GOP field?
If he is, we’re at a very interesting politico-cultural moment: The moment when, to a sizeable portion of the GOP electorate, Fox News stopped being their warrior and instead became just another arm of the lamestream media. If that’s true, everything we’ve known and assumed about our political divide is now moot, and we’re flying totally blind. The Republican Party has unleashed furies it can no longer remotely control.
First, here are the numbers, if you haven’t seen them. Post-poll, Trump went to 23 percent, according to NBC. That’s actually a gain of one statistically insignificant point, but reflect on this: He gained that point even though poll respondents said by a huge margin that he lost the debate (29 percent called him the loser; next closest was Rand Paul at 14 percent). Ted Cruz gained seven points, going from 6 to 13 percent. Ben Carson gained three points, moving from 8 to 11 percent. Marco Rubio stayed flat at 8 percent, and Jeb Bush and Scott Walker, the other “first-tier” candidates, finished in the cellar, losing three points each.
So add it up. The Tasmanian Devil candidate who’s obviously tapping into deep right-wing anti-establishment anger and the two other most extreme candidates combine for 47 percent. The two who in my view you can reasonably call quasi- or comparatively moderate, Kasich and Bush, combine to hit 9 percent.
All right, though, enough on the polls. Maybe enough time hasn’t elapsed for Trump’s Megyn Kelly comments to truly sink in with the Republican electorate. But here’s the anecdotal materials that suggests he’s still on the rise. First, which candidates were most heavily Googled during the debate? Huh. What a coincidence. It was Trump, Carson, and Cruz. The biggest single Google moment by a mile came during Cruz’s first remarks (“If you’re looking for someone to go to Washington, to go along to get along, to get—to agree with the career politicians in both parties who get in bed with the lobbyists and special interests, then I ain’t your guy.”) Carson scored well while talking terrorism and during his close, and Trump throughout.
Here’s a little more. I was on Fox on Sunday, on Howard Kurtz’s show. Every time I finish that show, I have 30 or so tweets in my feed. Usually, the tweeters are angry at me, for the obvious reasons. But Sunday, they were mostly mad at The Blaze’s Amy Holmes for her robust defenses of Megyn Kelly and attacks on Trump. This tweet, while more polite than most, is representative of the argument. Trump isn’t perfect, but lay off him already. Fox screwed up. And most of all: Don’t tell us what to think!
We’re used to this kind of rhetoric when conservatives volley it in the direction of The New York Times and CNN. But what are we to make of it when the target is Fox?
Two things. First, if I’m right about this and other polls back all this up, this process is officially beyond anyone’s ability to predict. Ignore all “surely this will finally start Trump’s downfall” stories, and all positive Jeb! stories. And is Cruz soon-to-be first tier? I admit that I sure missed that. I didn’t think he registered a heartbeat in the debate. It’s hardly remarkable that I was wrong about something, but most commentators pretty much dismissed Cruz, too.
And Carson! It’s not like he comes out of nowhere. They’ve been selling his first book by the truckful in Christian bookstores for years, and for gosh sakes, Cuba Gooding Jr. played him in a movie. But normally that would translate into a respectable sixth or seventh place. If he’s really doing better than that, something important has changed. And don’t ignore what an extremist he is: In his more recent book, which I actually read, he sincerely questioned whether citizens who pay no net income tax should have the right to vote—“Serious problems arise when a person who pays nothing has the right to vote and determine what other people are paying.”
The second thing we’re to make of this is that Fox and the Republican Party have created this new reality. When you spend years nodding and winking and yuk-yuking about the President’s birth certificate, how can you be surprised when the guy who has repeatedly demanded to see it turns out to be really popular with your base? You promote a politics that attacks women not merely for having abortions but for wanting to use contraception, and then you’re shocked when your hard-shell voting base turns out not to be overly offended by remarks like Trump’s?
Indeed Roger Ailes recognized all this when he decided to make nice with Trump on Monday. In the first instance Ailes did it because Trump has leverage, and The Donald’s threat not to go on his air meant a heavy hit in the ratings department. Ailes was also certainly feeling the blowback from his core audience–the kinds of tweets I alluded to above. And beyond all that, somewhere deeper down, Ailes knows that Fox made Trump, politically, and that the two are made for each other.
The Republican Party and Fox permitted and encouraged Trumpian vitriol for years. All that talk over the years about birth certificates and Kenya and terrorist fist-jabs (remember that one?!) and the moocher class and the scary brown people and all the rest of it…all of it created a need for a Trump, and for other Trump-like candidates, to flourish. Now it threatens to overtake them. If they’re wondering who created Trumpism, I have someplace they can look. The mirror.
By: Michael Tomasky, The Daily Beast, August 12, 2015
“Find A New Trump Card”: Insulting The Media And His Fellow Candidates Will Only Get The Donald So Far
Donald Trump is leading in the national presidential polls – nearly doubling his closest rival Jeb Bush, according to the latest Real Clear Politics average. He is also outpacing the field in inappropriate comments. It is time for Trump to add some new cards to his deck.
Earlier this summer, the real estate mogul made disparaging remarks about Sen. John McCain’s military service, questioning his heroism because he was captured. Other Republican candidates quickly denounced Trump’s statement and defended the former prisoner of war.
Trump’s latest outrageous comments came as a result of last Thursday’s Republican presidential debate as Trump criticized debate moderator Megyn Kelly’s line of questioning, which included asking him about previously calling women “fat pigs,” “dogs,” “slobs” and “disgusting animals.” Talking with CNN’s Don Lemon on Friday evening, Trump said, “She gets out and she starts asking me all sorts of ridiculous questions. You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever. In my opinion, she was off-base.”
On Saturday morning, Trump clarified that “wherever” was referring to her nose, not her period. But his comment led many, including rival candidate Carly Fiorina, to criticize Trump for his inappropriate remark, and RedState’s Erick Erickson disinvited him to a weekend RedState Gathering.
Trump, of course, responded in kind with personal attacks against those who criticized him. He called Erickson a “total loser. Fiorina was his target Sunday, when he tweeted, “I just realized that if you listen to Carly Fiorina for more than ten minutes straight, you develop a massive headache. She has zero chance!”
In a sense, the events of the last week show that the debate and primary process is working. Trump’s comments give the American people the chance to learn more about his views and his temperament under pressure, as he seeks one of the most high-pressure jobs in the world. The next president certainly should be able to answer tough questions without getting rattled.
Trump and his defenders claim that he is the latest victim of our overly politically correct culture, and that the country’s problems are too large to worry about petty insults and offenses. But Trump has done little to demonstrate that there is any substance to his candidacy – evading the opportunity to offer specifics or policy proposals that he would bring to the White House.
For Republicans, Trump’s campaign is a distraction in what is otherwise an encouraging early primary. Last week’s debates featured a roster of impressive candidates – including four senators, the governors or former governors of some of the most populous states in the nation (including Texas, Florida and New York), the first woman CEO of a Fortune 50 company and a neurosurgeon.
For those who looked past Trump’s reality TV sideshow, the debates offered the beginning of a serious policy discussion about how to address the nation’s problems, from our lagging economy to health care reform to the threat of international terrorism. There are some disagreements among the candidates, and Republicans benefit from seeing those differences on display.
It is easy to understand why many voters are sick of Washington politicians and eager to embrace a blunt, populist candidate who promises big changes. But if The Donald is going to stay in the race, he needs to find a new trump card – leaving the personal attacks and name-calling back at “The Apprentice” set.
By: Karin Agness, Founder and President of The Network of Enlightened Women; Thomas Jefferson Street Blog, U. S. News and World Report, August 10, 2015
“Obama Vs The Republican Cavaliers”: Defending A Long Bipartisan Tradition Of Negotiating Even With Adversaries We Deeply Mistrust
If you wondered why President Obama gave such a passionate and, yes, partisan speech on behalf of the Iran nuclear deal Wednesday, all you had to do was tune in to the Republican presidential debate the next night.
Anyone who still thinks the president has any chance of turning the opposition party his way after watching the candidates (or listening to Republicans in Congress) no doubt also believes fervently in Santa Claus. In fact, the case for Santa — made so powerfully in “Miracle on 34th Street” — is more plausible.
The candidates gathered together by Fox News in Cleveland suggested that the hardest decision the next president will face is whether killing Obamacare or voiding the Iran deal ought to be the first order of business. All who spoke on foreign policy sought to paint the “Obama-Clinton” international strategy as “failed” and “dangerous.”
Obama does not need any private briefings on how Republicans are thinking. He realizes, as everyone else should, that there’s only one way to save the Iran accord. Republicans will have the votes to pass a measure disapproving it, and he needs to keep enough Democrats on his side to sustain his veto.
He also knows that he is in an ongoing battle for public opinion over a very big issue. In broad terms, this is an argument over whether the foreign policy of George W. Bush, with its proclivity toward unilateral military action, or his own approach, which stresses alliances and diplomacy, is more likely to defend the United States’ long-term interest.
The president was not wrong when he said that “many of the same people who argued for the war in Iraq are now making the case against the Iran nuclear deal.” And in light of the language used by Cleveland’s Cavaliers of Unilateralism, it was useful that he reminded Americans of the run-up to the Iraq invasion, when “those calling for war labeled themselves strong and decisive, while dismissing those who disagreed as weak — even appeasers of a malevolent adversary.”
Lest we forget, in September 2002, shortly before the midterm elections, Bush dismissed Democrats who called for U.N. support before U.S. military action in Iraq. “If I were running for office,” Bush said, “I’m not sure how I’d explain to the American people — say, ‘Vote for me, and, oh, by the way, on a matter of national security, I think I’m going to wait for somebody else to act.’ ” Now that’s partisan.
In foreign policy, the past isn’t even past because we have not resolved the debate over how to use U.S. power that opened after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. In a June Gallup survey , Americans were as split as ever on whether the war in Iraq itself was a mistake: 51 percent said it was, 46 percent said it wasn’t. Among Democrats, 68 percent said it was a mistake; only 31 percent of Republicans did. Independents split much like the country as a whole.
Those who counsel Obama to be more conciliatory toward Republicans in defending an agreement that could block Iranian nuclear ambitions for at least a decade (and probably more) are nostalgic for a time when many Republicans supported negotiated settlements, saw containment policies as preferable to the aggressive rollback of adversaries and were committed to building international alliances.
Such Republicans still exist, but there are not many of them left in Congress. And we should have enough respect for the party’s presidential candidates to believe that they mean what they are saying when, for example, one of them (Scott Walker) insists that “Iran is not a place we should be doing business with,” while another (Jeb Bush) declares that “we need to stop the Iran agreement, for sure, because the Iranian mullahs have . . . blood on their hands.”
Obama is defending a long bipartisan tradition of negotiating even with adversaries we deeply and rightly mistrust, the prime example being the Soviet Union. For now, the consensus across party lines in favor of such diplomacy is broken. Many of us would like to see it restored, but the evidence of Obama’s time in office is unambiguous: Friendly gestures won’t win over those determined to block his policies.
In the short run, Obama simply has to win enough votes for his Iran deal. For the long run, he has to convince Americans that his measured approach to the world is the safest path for the country. Defending this view aggressively is no vice.
By: E. J. Dionne, Jr., Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, August 9, 2015
“What It Says About The Republican Base”: There Is No Liberal Donald Trump Because Liberals Don’t Need A Donald Trump
Talking about Donald Trump can be an exhausting and pointless exercise: no sooner does he say or do one outrageous thing than he follows it up with another (the latest being an appalling and viciously misogynist menstruation-based jab at Megyn Kelly, giving Erick Erickson the excuse he wanted to disinvite Trump from the RedState gathering.)
But Trump isn’t really that interesting for his own sake. Trump’s candidacy is of interest because of what it says about the Republican base and about American conservatism itself. I’ve been hammering lately on the theme that conservatives are in such a cultural defensive crouch that they’re not seeking a policy leader so much as insurgent cultural one.
But the focus on Trump has also helped hide a fundamental lack of seriousness in the entire Republican firmament, a point effectively noted by Paul Krugman:
For while it’s true that Mr. Trump is, fundamentally, an absurd figure, so are his rivals. If you pay attention to what any one of them is actually saying, as opposed to how he says it, you discover incoherence and extremism every bit as bad as anything Mr. Trump has to offer. And that’s not an accident: Talking nonsense is what you have to do to get anywhere in today’s Republican Party.
For example, Mr. Trump’s economic views, a sort of mishmash of standard conservative talking points and protectionism, are definitely confused. But is that any worse than Jeb Bush’s deep voodoo, his claim that he could double the underlying growth rate of the American economy? And Mr. Bush’s credibility isn’t helped by his evidence for that claim: the relatively rapid growth Florida experienced during the immense housing bubble that coincided with his time as governor….
The point is that while media puff pieces have portrayed Mr. Trump’s rivals as serious men — Jeb the moderate, Rand the original thinker, Marco the face of a new generation — their supposed seriousness is all surface. Judge them by positions as opposed to image, and what you have is a lineup of cranks. And as I said, this is no accident.
Pundits keep pretending that Donald Trump is a media creation–a charlatan and entertainer who is crashing the otherwise serious political party to generate headlines. But he wouldn’t make those headlines without having an enormously popular appeal to the Republican base, which pundits attribute to general frustration with the political system on both sides of the aisle.
But that’s just not true. If it were true, then the Democratic Party would be just as susceptible to a liberal version of Trump. But it’s not. It’s hard to even imagine what that would look like.
The reality is that mainstream Democratic positions also happen to be broadly popular positions already without the need for demagogic bluster. Left-of-center positions tend to be based on science and a more complex, nuanced understanding of social problems. Even more importantly, liberals in the United States promote solutions that have already been shown to work elsewhere in the world. In terms of party divisions Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders simply present a more rhetorically forceful version of those positions, and where their opinions differ from centrist Democrats (especially on, say, Wall Street), their takes tend to be backed up by history and economics, and to have the support of the majority of Americans.
Once again, it’s important to note that both sides don’t, in fact, do it when it comes to political extremism. American conservatism has gone far, far off the rails. Donald Trump’s successful candidacy is only the latest–but far from the only–proof of that.
Liberals don’t have a Donald Trump because we don’t need one. Even liberal populism is a doggedly rational, evidence-based, internally consistent and broadly popular affair. Populist conservatism is anything but.
By: David Atkins, Political Animal Blog, The Washington Monthly, August 8, 2015
“A Hater’s Guide To The GOP Debate”: Rubio Will Rise And Trump Will Inevitably Fall
Well, that was kind of like watching a basketball game that had 10 teams. But hey—the questions were good. They were surprisingly tough. But were they evenly tough? That’s an interesting question. Let’s take a quick look at who was asked what, among the four top candidates. I kept track.
Donald Trump was asked eight questions, about: why he wouldn’t back the GOP nominee (which he of course brought on himself by volunteering that he might not); all the names he’s called women; what his evidence was for saying that Mexico is “sending” us its rapists; why he used to support single-payer; his four bankruptcies; why he was once pro-choice; whether his tone is appropriate in a president; the Iran deal.
Jeb Bush was asked six questions, about: dynastic politics; his previous Iraq faux pas; Common Core; his 4 percent growth pledge; being on that Bloomberg board (an abortion question); did he call Trump a “clown,” “buffoon,” or “asshole.”
Scott Walker (seven questions): the Wisconsin abortion bill that makes no exception for the life of the mother; his path-to-citizenship flip-flop; what more we could be doing with our Mideast allies; Wisconsin’s poor job growth; the Iran deal; police shootings; cyber war.
Marco Rubio (six questions): lack of experience; immigration; Common Core; how he’d help small businesses; what Megyn Kelly thought was his support for rape and incest exceptions for abortion; about God and veterans.
Lots of people seem to think that Rubio had a strong night. I would submit to you that the question list helps explain why. They lobbed a few massive softballs in his direction. For example, both he and Bush were asked about Common Core. But whereas to Bush this was a challenging question, because he’s swimming against the GOP tide on the question, to Rubio it was just, as a Senator, what do you think of what Governor Bush just said? The immigration and small-business questions were totally teed up. And God and veterans? They might as well have asked him if he loved his mother (which he answered anyway; he does).
The other top-tier candidates all got tougher questions. Seven of Trump’s eight questions could fairly be called confrontational or at least challenging. Five of Bush’s six were the same; maybe all six. Three of Walker’s seven. And just one or at most two of Rubio’s. And even those were only mildly so. The lack-of-experience question, for example, was an obvious set-up for him to launch into his future shtick, which he plans on making his main line of attack against Hillary Clinton should he be the nominee.
Now I’m not suggesting that there’s some Murdoch-orchestrated conspiracy here to elevate Rubio. Moderating a 10-candidate debate is probably a really hard thing to do. They surely drew up at least 20 questions for each candidate, knowing that they could only get to some of them, and of course they had to make sure that the questioning was evenly distributed. It’s a high-pressure gig, and the three of them—Kelly, Baier, and Wallace—did pretty well overall.
But it is a fact that they didn’t hit Rubio with any gotcha questions. Two possibilities spring to mind. They could have asked him about his hard-line Cuba position, which isn’t supported even by Cubans in Florida themselves, except those aged 65 and older. And if they’d really wanted to zing him, they could have brought up that hearing where he seemed to think that Iran and ISIS were allies and John Kerry had to explain politely that they weren’t.
In contrast, it seemed clear that they wanted to rake Trump over the coals. The opening question, about whether they’d all support the GOP nominee, was obviously aimed squarely at him, and he obliged them by affirming that no, he would not. Well, Trump’s the front-runner, and the front-runner should get tough questions. And Trump was pretty bad. He clearly didn’t prepare much, he wasn’t funny (and he can be), and he didn’t manage at all to do the one thing he really should have done, which was to say something, just one thing, that was substantive, that showed he had a surprising command of policy, so that the talking heads afterward would have been forced to say, “Hey, that Donald, give him credit, he showed us something new tonight.” He showed nothing new.
Bush was…okay. His task was to be the one who seized on any Trump stumble to communicate to people: See, I’m the real front-runner. But he never really did that. Walker was kind of a blank until almost the very end of the debate, when he pulled out that line about how Russia knows more about Hillary Clinton’s emails than the United States Congress.
As for the second tier: John Kasich probably had the best night. At least he managed to get an audience of conservatives to applaud the fact that he attended a gay wedding. That’s what a home-court advantage will do for you. But his saying that God’s unconditional love for him meant he should love a potentially gay daughter was the right way to do it.
And yes, I’m kind of surprised that I’m 860 words into this column and haven’t mentioned Ted Cruz. Now there’s a guy who needs a lot more than 60 seconds to find his rhythm.
Bottom line: Trump drops, Rubio gains. But the most interesting figure, even though he is personally quite boring, is Bush. When will he demonstrate that he actually deserves to be the one getting all these millions of dollars raised for him? He’s just a bet by moneyed class, not because of what he is, but because of what he isn’t (not Trump, not extremist). He wasn’t bad enough that any of the money people are going to panic. But if it were my money, I’d be shopping around.
By: Michael Tomasky, The Daily Beast, August 7, 2015
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