During the first primetime Republican debate, in Cleveland, Ohio, Donald Trump delivered the same slogans and failed to flesh out positions. While the man is quick and engaging; he came unprepared.
Ideas have not solidified Trump’s success, but a powerful persona, true-blue patriotism and a willingness to put his substantial estate to the service of both. Trump now enjoys more support than he had prior to Cleveland, leading in national polls and in early voting states.
Henpecked though he was by the “Murdoch Media’s” golden goose—Megyn Kelly—Trump demonstrated that he is what his constituency craves: A man in the old mold. Trump is not an excuse for a man who’ll bolt like so many rabbits when a couple of girls get in his face and grab his mic. I allude to socialist-in-Seattle Bernie Sanders (D), over whom two African-American women rode racial roughshod.
When members of the media pontificate that Trump’s ascent reflects the base’s disgust with the establishment, they fail to include themselves in that detested clique.
To befuddle viewers and malign The Base, media even fib about who the establishment is. Steve Hayes, senior writer for The Weekly Standard, a bastion of the Republican establishment, asserted on Fox News that the Koch brothers of Koch industries, big bankers for the Republicans, are not of the establishment.
Central to the media enterprise is a worldview that looks to the state and its stooges as the sole repository of the public good. The idiot’s lantern is monopolized by men and women who’re of The system and for The System. Is there any wonder they are bucking the force of nature that is threatening their equilibrium?
Donald Trump must be observed from the standpoint not of policy, but of someone who could smash apart the political system and send its sycophants scattering to the four corners of the earth.
Trump is making this stagnant political spoils system oscillate. The particles—political and media movers-and-shakers—hate him for it.
So it was that GOPer Jonah Goldberg accused Americans of throwing a tantrum at the politicians and the pundits. The word “tantrum” is meant to demean; it implies a hissy fit; a childish outburst of rage.
The establishment, Republican and Democrat, has a tendency to hunt in packs. Thus did compadre John King of the liberal network CNN offer a variation on the Goldberg theme: “The base wants to break all the glass.” (I hope J. S. Bach forgives the pairing of his sublime Goldenberg Variations with Jonah.) …
Compared to previous debates overrun by Democrat journos, the quality of the journalism, courtesy of Fox News, was outstanding. I’d venture that the true stars of the debate were the ruthless, impartial, analytical Bret Baier, Megyn Kelly and Chris Wallace. Perhaps the indubitably lousy, future Democratic-debate moderators of CNN will rise to the standard set by the Fox News three? Perhaps the left’s Idiocracy will omit, from future debates, bogus questions about bogus constructs that rape reality (such as structural racism)???!!!
The opening question was a brilliant example of strategic showmanship:
Is there anyone on stage, and can I see hands, who is unwilling tonight to pledge your support to the eventual nominee of the Republican party and pledge to not run an independent campaign against that person.
Again, we’re looking for you to raise your hand now — raise your hand now if you won’t make that pledge tonight.
And Trump was magnificent in his response. Honest, too. From there on, it was downhill for Mr. Trump. He delivered the same slogans. He failed to flesh out positions and show understanding. The man is quick and engaging; but he came unprepared.
Rand Paul fell flat in his refusal to tackle the probe about his aversion to neocons. He’s a mean little man, too, although I loved his retort to Gov. Chris Christie on the latter’s eagerness to flout the Fourth Amendment and the governor’s bear hugs for Barack during the Romney campaign. Rand’s emphasis on negotiations in diplomacy was good, too.
Marco Rubio is a slick, smart, personable neocon. But if you want truly nice, then Dr. Ben Carson is lovely. A good man. Naturally, I disagree with him on almost every matter of policy. I just love the self-made, talented, clean-living, non-politician. Dr. Carson is also a beautiful-looking man.
Item: The audience was most certainly not comprised of The Republican Base. It was more establishmentarian.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker: Don’t ask me why, but I tune them out. It’s an automatic response. They are not that intelligent. My mind drifts when they talk. Ditto Jeb Bush. I did love his, “They called me Veto Corleone. Because I vetoed 2,500 separate line-items in the budget.”
Ted Cruz’s performance disappointed greatly—and not because he is not quick on his feet. Cruz is most certainly brilliant. His liberal professor, Alan Dershowitz, said as much. But he angered me when he did not turn the matter of providing jobs for ISIS into a principled point illustrating the role of limited, American government, which is not to lift the world out of poverty:
When I asked General Dempsey, the chairman of the joint chiefs, what would be required militarily to destroy ISIS, he said there is no military solution. We need to change the conditions on the ground so that young men are not in poverty and susceptible to radicalization. That, with all due respect, is nonsense.
It’s the same answer the State Department gave that we need to give them jobs. What we need is a commander in chief that makes — clear, if you join ISIS, if you wage jihad on America, then you are signing your death warrant.
The bankruptcy questions to Trump were excellent; his replies were good, too. He’s the consummate businessman. We knew that.
One expects Huckaubee, who made thoughtful points on Social Security, to deliver a good turn pf phrase:
Ronald Reagan said “trust, but verify.” President Obama is “trust, but vilify.” He trusts our enemies and vilifies everyone who disagrees with him.
As for a Bush talking about the value of life. That would be funny, if it were not so sad. Allow me to quote from “It’s About Federalism, Stupid! (2006)”: “Would that Republicans fussed as much over the many fully formed human-beings dying daily in Iraq [and wherever else they choose to war], as they do over fetuses.”
The best closing lines in the evening Act were these:
HUCKABEE: “It seems like this election has been a whole lot about a person who’s very high in the polls, that doesn’t have a clue about how to govern. A person who has been filled with scandals, and who could not lead, and, of course, I’m talking about Hillary Clinton.”
CARSON: Well, I haven’t said anything about me being the only one to do anything, so let me try that. I’m the only one to separate siamese twins … The the only one to operate on babies while they were still in mother’s womb, the only one to take out half of a brain, although you would think, if you go to Washington, that someone had beat me to it.
THE END.
UPDATE I: COME AGAIN, T. CRUZ.
CRUZ: President Obama has talked about fundamentally transforming this country. There’s 7 billion people across the face of the globe, many of whom want to come to this country. If they come legally, great. But if they come illegally and they get amnesty, that is how we fundamentally change this country, and it really is striking.
A majority of the candidates on this stage have supported amnesty. I have never supported amnesty, and I led the fight against Chuck Schumer’s gang of eight amnesty legislation in the Senate.
Did Cruz really mean to imply that if Hillary ascends to the throne, and a good portion of 7 billion people are granted permission to come to the US legally, that would be OK? That’s the inference from what he said. Crazy.
UPDATE II (8/10): All your fav Republican females with short skirts are feminists. What did you expect from Megyn Kelly? A good wake up for her fans. Still, it’s better that Kelly ask crappy fem-oriented questions of The Donald than the Dem moderators. It neutralizes the latter.
Here are the two fabulous Sisters for Donald Trump. Lynnette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson unleash on Megyn Kelly or “Kelly Megyn, whatever you’re name is”: “Go back to reporting news for Sesame Street,” they recommend.
Working people warm to Donald Trump. He appeals to a good segment of real Americans. The circle jerk of power brokers that is American media, however, lacks the depth and understanding to grasp the fellow-feeling Trump engenders in his fans.
Working people warm to Donald Trump. He appeals to a good segment of real Americans. The circle jerk of power brokers that is American media, however, lacks the depth and understanding to grasp the fellow-feeling Trump engenders in his fans.
THE MEDIA STRUMPETS
Amid sneers about Trump’s “crazy, entertaining, simplistic talk,” the none-too bright Joan Walsh, Salon editor-in-chief, proclaimed (MSNBC): “I look at those people and I feel sad. That is really such a low common denominator. They’re all Republicans … they really don’t have a firm grasp on reality.”
For failing to foresee Trump’s staying power, smarmy Michael Smerconish (CNN) scolded himself adoringly. He was what “Mr. Trump would call ‘a loser.’” Smerconish’s admission was a way of copping to his superiority. From such vertiginous intellectual heights, Smerconish was incapable of fathoming the atavistic instincts elicited by the candidate. Nevertheless, the broadcaster “quadrupled down.” The country would be delivered from Donald by Mexican drug lord El Chapo, who’d scare Trump away.
Campbell Brown, another banal bloviator, ventured that Trump resonates with a fringe and was fast approaching a time when he would, like Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann, “max-out the craziness” quotient.
Trump supporters were simply enamored of his vibe, said a dismissive Ellis Henican.
As derisive, another Fox News commentator spoke about the “meat and potatoes” for which Trump cheerleaders hanker. I suspect he meant “red meat.”
National Journal’s Ronald Brownstein divined his own taxonomy of the Republican Beast: the “upscale Republicans and the blue-collar Republicans.” The group of toothless rube-hicks Brownstein places in Trump’s camp.
Pollster Frank Luntz provides his own brand of asphyxiating agitprop: The little people want to elect someone they’d have a beer with.
A British late night anchor—a CNN hire!—offered this non sequitur: Trump painting himself as anti-establishment and, at the same time, owning hotels: this was a contradiction. In the mind of this asinine liberal, only a Smelly Rally like “Occupy Wall Street” instantiates the stuff of rebellion and individualism. (Never mind that the Occupy Crowds were walking ads for the bounty business provides. The clothes they wore, the devices they used to transmit their sub-intelligent message; the food they bought cheaply at the corner stand to sustain their efforts—these were all produced, or brought to market by the invisible hand of the despised John Galts and the derided working people.)
I know not what exactly the oracular Krauthammer said to anger Trump, but it was worth it: “Charles Krauthammer is a totally overrated person … I’ve never met him … He’s a totally overrated guy, doesn’t know what he’s doing. He was totally in favor of the war in Iraq. He wanted to go into Iraq and he wanted to stay there forever. These are totally overrated people.”
Even media mogul Rupert Murdoch moved in on Trump, calling him an embarrassment to his friends and to the country.
Inadvertently, one media strumpet came close to coming clean about the serial failures of analysis among her kind. Wonkette, or Wonkette Emerita, aka Ana Marie Cox, spoke of “the superfluousness of the media’s predictions and its inability to perform the service of making sense of events.” Like Smerconish, Cox is hoping against hope that the little people are having fun at her expense and “are in some way in on the joke” that is Trump. …
Come the big kiddie debate tonight—if one can call these ridiculously timed performances debates—there are a number of things to watch out for in the Orwellian newspeak deployed by our media strumpets, when putting forth the pontifications, predictions and pronouncements that never pan out:
When these strumpets use the refrain, “Donald Trump will have to do x and y in order to convince people he is a serious candidate,” what they mean is to lay down the conditions he must fulfill for them—media—to take him a wee bit seriously.
The GOP base already takes Trump seriously.
The other thing: Watch out for my new related essay on WND.
Carly Fiorina: I’ve already commented on her high intelligence and wonderful facility with words. She’s very bright (and I say this without agreeing with a single words she says. Wow: I can chew gun and walk, too*).
Lindsey Graham: All roads lead to Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and WAR. Who knew that the senator was 60 and unmarried? Hmm. A little journalistic shoe-leather here could prove delicious.
* To those robotic libertarains who will accuse me of daring to address the politics I reject and despise: I’m not lazy like you. I deal. With reality, that is.
