Summary: The campaign lurches along as a sequence of surprises that hide more of the same. Neither party learns from their mistakes. The Democrats’ convention in Philadelphia show their use of smears and professionally-run spectacles to avoid meeting the challenge posed by Trump’s issues. It might work in 2016. I doubt it will work as a long-term strategy.
The Democrats and their journalist fans report a remarkable convention in Philadelphia. The polls will show the public’s reaction. But there is another story competing for attention, and might overshadow the convention: Trump is an agent of Putin — rapidly mutating into the equally bizarre Trump committed treason story. These follow campaigns to convince us that Trump is Hitler, Trump is a fascist, Trump is an authoritarian, and Trump is a pervert. All flops, during which Trump has gained in the polls.
These demonstrate the desperation of Democrats, attempting to delegitimize Trump and avoid debate of his key issues: immigration, globalization, and populism. So they attempt to make Campaign 2016 a festival of smear and emotions. So far it is not working. It should not work.
More good news. If we avoid getting caught up in the excitement of clickbait news, we can look beneath the news and learn much. The Democrats’ and Republicans’ campaigns show their values and methods — telling us what we can expect from the winner. CounterPunch has provided much of the best campaign analysis, As in this look at Clinton…
“The Humiliation Games: Notes on the Democratic Convention“
By Jeffrey St. Clair at CounterPunch
The big news of the morning was the vindication of a ground-breaking story that Margaret Kidder wrote for CounterPunch several months ago. Buried inside the 20,000 DNC emails released by Wikileaks were documents confirming a tricky financial scam orchestrated by the DNC and the Clinton campaign, whereby money that was meant for state Democratic parties was re-routed to the Clinton machine in order to evade campaign finance laws, thus making a mockery of Hillary’s recent pledge to get the Big Money out of politics.
We published Kidder’s explosive piece on the first of April and it spread like lightning across the Net. …The Clinton machine shifted into attack mode, their default position. The Clinton trolls first started rumors that the story was an April Fools Day prank. When that attack floundered, the Clinton slime operation set their sights on the author. The article was written by Margot Kidder, the actress, they said with misogynistic condescension. You know, Lois Lane. You can’t trust her. She had mental health issues. So much for feminism. This kind of viciousness is standard operating procedure in Clintonworld.
…The Democrats are working overtime to transform the DNC email episode into a story about Russian hackers, Putin and Trump. One Democratic Party flack called it the most outrageous political break-in since Watergate. Anything to divert attention from the scandalous content of the emails. But there’s little hard evidence that Russians were behind the hack.
The confident assertions that the Russians hacked the DNC should remind us that we see so many hacks conveniently blamed on America’s rivals — while experts say that attribution is almost impossible for hacks done by pros.
Conclusions
Campaign 2016 could begin debate on vital issues. Our elites hope that these issues remain suppressed and Clinton wins (Trump is a clown and America’s power structure is backing her). I suspect that events will fulfill their hopes — but the years afterwards will bring even larger and more profound challenges to their rule.
For More Information
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about Campaign 2016, and especially these about the Left’s attempts to divert attention from Trump’s policies…
- Why they lose: the Left tells us that Trump is like Hitler.
- The Left calls Trump an ‘authoritarian’, a false & futile attempt to suppress populism.
- The Left calls Trump a fascist instead of focusing on the issues. It’s why they lose.
- Does Donald Trump have a perverted attraction to Ivanka? Details of a smear.
- Is Trump a tool of Putin? See the story & the debunking.
- A solid leftist shows why Trump might win.
Smartly written. Dark. How long can they keep the issues from being recognized? I suspect the responses will be increasingly severe. And the Counter responses will be…who could have seen this coming? Humiliation? Simply bizarre to watch these unfoldings. The “disconnect” with the Participants is hard to understand but it is very real.
Thx
Campaign 2016 is bizarre beyond understanding. Populists in the GOP reverse long-standing conservative positions — supporting social security, attacking Wall Street, sweetheart trade deals, massive defense spending, and foreign wars.
Meanwhile the Democrats embrace trade deals (Kaine endorsed TPP right before being selected as Clinton’s VP), foreign wars, and Wall Street.
Best of all, the news media describe all of this as quite normal. They find unusual only Trump’s soundbites and hair. It’s as if we’re in an episode of the Twilight Zone.