Vincent J. Curtis
15 Aug 2016
This morning, the banner headline on Drudge read, “Clinton
Drafts Illegals to Boost Turnout.” The
gist of the story is that the Democrat electoral machine is going to hire so-called
DREAMERs, people who came to America
as children illegally and who remain illegal and cannot vote, to work on a
voter registration drive. Of course,
this is nothing but an inducement to voter fraud. An effort to steal the votes of Trump
supporters.
Trump will blast this effort for what it is. If this were to happen while Ted Cruz or any
other Republican except Trump were the candidate, the media would be
tut-tutting the rudeness, the implicit racism of the charge. An accusation by Cruz of voter fraud would be
offered as yet another reason why this mean man can’t be trusted with high
office. Even Cruz’s supporters would be
cowed into silence.
Not so with Trump.
The media are not going to try to rebut the charge of voter fraud when
Trump makes it because he is already seen as incorrigible, and people have come
to know that Trump is right about such things.
Most of the media don’t get Trump at all. David Catanese of U.S. News and World Report
is a classic case of not getting it.
Catanese appeared as a guest panelist on Fox News’ Special Report on Thursday,
August 11th. Catanese thinks
the Trump has lost the rationality for his candidacy, namely that he was a
winner (this is still August, remember).
Giving his advice to the Trump campaign, Catanese employed a standard
media technique, he gave an unnamed “Republican Strategist, an outsider, not connected
with the Trump circle,” as the source of the advice he was about to deliver,
and which he evidently thought was highly sensible.
The advice was that Trump should go on an O’Reilly diet, and
he should speak only to small groups like the Kiwanis Club in Ohio, and the Home
Builders Association in North Carolina.
Trump needed to get ‘validators’ out there for him to be taken seriously
and for people to believe he had the right temperament. Catanese scoffed at Trump’s remark that he
could afford to lose because then he could have a nice long vacation. The advice was offered as a means of getting
the Trump campaign at least moving the right direction.
Regular panelist on Special Report, Charles Krauthammer has
become far more circumspect regarding Trump lately. He used to be quite open in his disregard for
Trump, but of late concerning Trump he has acted as though he were in a cage
with a lion.
Catanese remarks show why some people are in politics and
amateurs only write about it. What
Catanese’s advice amounts to is that Trump should start campaigning like Bob
Dole, a way in which the Republican candidate loses with dignity and for
reasons the media can relate to, and explain.
The method has the comfort of familiarity.
Trump is speaking to crowds of 15,000 people at a time,
sometimes twice a day. What makes these
15,000 to 30,000 people a day any less ‘validators’ than the worthies of the
Dayton, Ohio, Chamber of Commerce? Trump
is giving the voters the opportunity go and see with their own eyes and
evaluate with their own minds this political phenomenon - without a filter,
without someone else explaining to them what they just saw for themselves.
Last week, Trump accused Barack Obama of being “the founder”
of ISIS. He repeated it several times
for the crowd to get what he had just said.
The media exploded over this remark, which they regard as technically
incorrect. And, technically, it probably
is. But look at the rhetorical effect. Ponder for the moment that Obama fecklessly
allowed ISIS to come into existence and did nothing to try to stop it, even
though he and Hillary were fully informed of what was going on by the
Intelligence community.
What is the more powerful way of expressing the fact that
Obama’s weakness is to blame for the scourge of ISIS, and consequently for the
attacks and murders around the world that were inspired by ISIS? What gets the enormity of that fact across
more effectively, “Obama founded ISIS,” or “Obama stood by and did nothing as
this scourge came into being, and is still doing little to stop it?” And “Why would Obama do this?”
The rhetorician would say the first way because it is short,
simple, and readily understandable. The
second way is wordy, mealy-mouthed, open to interpretation, and lacking in
power. It may be technically more
correct, but lacking in emotional punch.
Everybody listening to Trump knows that the second version
is the technically correct one. But they
are forced to ponder the veracity of the first statement when Trump asserts it. Trump avoids altogether the explosion that
would result if he asked the last question, “Why?”
How is this morally different from saying, “Bush lied and
people died?” John Kerry ran on this
slogan in 2004! There is nothing
Democrats hate more than to have their own methods played against them. The media think it extremely unfair that a
Republican is less than assiduous with the technical facts, and employs techniques familiar to Democrats.
Trump drives the media crazy, in part because he is
by-passing them, and not losing with dignity like Bob Dole.
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