Summary: Every week Campaign 2016 becomes more obviously Circus 2016, as the latest smear of Trump shows. We must understanding how and why this happened in order to retake the reins of America. Ratings are one reason, the needs of the 1% is another. The second is obvious, the latter is hidden.
A new smear: Howard Stern interviews Trump
Here is a fine example of clickbait journalism in the service of Clinton, from the “objectively pro-Trump” media: “Trump Admits He Found 12-Year-Old Paris Hilton Attractive” by Alana Horowitz Satlin (editor) at the Huffington Post. Congratulations are due to the Huffington Post’s attorneys. It is skillfully written. Here is the text that Alana finds so awful.
Trump: “Now, somebody who a lot of people don’t give credit to but in actuality is really beautiful is Paris Hilton. I’ve known Paris Hilton from the time she’s 12, her parents are friends of mine, and the first time I saw her she walked into the room and I said, ‘Who the hell is that?’”
Stern: “Did you want to bang her?”
Trump: “Well, at 12, I wasn’t interested. I’ve never been into that. I’ve always stuck at that 25 category.”
Stern: “But even at 12 you…”
Trump: “I saw her at 12, she was beautiful. Honestly, Paris gets knocked at a lot, but she is very beautiful.”
Satlin also mentions that Trump “admitted that he had watched her sex tape.” As had millions of other Americans. This was picked up by the liberal echo chamber, such as in People and at Mediaite (“a trusted source on the intersection of politics and media”).
This follows a major theme of the Clinton campaign. There were the widespread stories that Trump has a perverted attraction to Ivanka (see the details of that smear). This use of smears is a signal Clinton move, as when their apparatchik Sidney Blumenthal spread rumors that Monika Lewinsky was “a ‘stalker’ and that the President was ‘the victim’ of a predatory and unstable sexually demanding young woman“.
These smears are not Clinton’s only attempt to convert Campaign 2016 in to Circus 2016 (aiding Trump’s efforts). There was the well-conceived and executed trap set at the debate about Alicia Machado (Miss Universe 1996).
It’s important that we not see issues
Populism powered Trump’s ascent to the GOP nomination. He has since lost that focus, probably due to his indiscipline and political incompetence. Why has Team Hillary focused on Trump’s appearance, outrageous soundbites (e.g., about Alicia Machado and Khizr Khan), his character (e.g., racist, sexist), outrageous smears (e.g., fascist, Hitler, NAZI, pervert), and anything but the great issues of our day?
Clinton prefers to ignore issues because she is smart. Trump is the champion of populism — opposition to massive immigration, unfair trade practices (e.g., the Trans-Pacific Partnership), our futile foreign interventions, and the rapacious mega-banks. Trump has the popular side of these issues, some of which also powered Sanders’ astonishingly successful insurgency (populist and progressive issues overlap, as Molly Ball at The Atlantic described). Clinton is poorly positioned to respond to these, given her fervent support from Wall Street bankers and neocon warmongers (plus the liberal “Responsibility To Protect” warmongers).
That’s not to say that Clinton lacks powerful issues. But the 1% relies on passive, emotional, alienated “citizens”. Engaging them on issues would be self-defeated (much as arming the slaves would have been for the Confederacy). Circus 2016 better suits the 1% — both its Democratic and Republican factions — than would any Campaign 2016.
Circus 2016 requires complicity by another group of Americans. Us. We enjoy the Circus too much to protest the trivia-fest fed us by both campaigns and journalists (including the mindless debates and trivial pursuit fact-checking). We could express revulsion and demand that the candidates debate the issues. America is ours, not theirs. Here is a first step to take it back.
“Do remember you are there to fuddle him. From the way some of you young fiends talk, anyone would suppose it was our job to teach!”
— Advice from Screwtape to his nephew, from The Screwtape Lettersby C. S. Lewis (1942).
by C. S. Lewis (1942).
Other chapters in this series about the Anything But Issues election
- 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.
- Did Trump have a perverted attraction to 12-year old Paris Hilton? Details of a smear.
- The hidden details of the October surprise about Trump’s “sexual assaults”.
- The moral panic about Trump’s assault on Arianne Zucker.
- Consequences for the Republican Party.
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…
- Politics in modern America: A users’ guide for journalists and reformers.
- An anthropologist looks at the narrow choices we’re offered in Campaign 2016.
- The best response to Campaign 2016: anger.
- 2016: a historic unification election for America!
A great book about this serious problem
“Originally published in 1985, Neil Postman’s groundbreaking polemic about the corrosive effects of television on our politics and public discourse has been hailed as a twenty-first-century book published in the twentieth century. Now, with television joined by more sophisticated electronic media — from the Internet to cell phones to DVDs — it has taken on even greater significance. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
— From the publisher.
Trump has frequently helped Hillary avoid the issues he has brought forward. This is not a real progressive politician. Perhaps 2020 will bring us somebody who will be more disciplined about the issues.
Pluto,
“This is not a real progressive politician.”
Yes, Trump is not a progressive. He is a populist. He is nativist and a racist — both defining characteristics of populism, but no longer typical of progressives (as it was in the past – see Woodrow Wilson). Also typical of populism is the national greatness theme, and evocations of national unity.
They overlap, of course. Individually they lack the power to rule. Together they made the New Deal — and reforged America.
I ended that too soon!
“2020 will bring us somebody who will be more disciplined about the issues.”
I share your hope. But it will only happen if we work at it, starting on Nov 9. Otherwise 2020 will again see us whining that the choices are unworthy of our awesomeness.
You often remark that the American people have lost the will for self-government. Indeed, we seem to have lost even the concept; all we understand is Hooray for Our Side. I’m not sure whether this is an unintended result of changes in media and modes of social interaction, or an effective, decades-long plan to divide and conquer.
In a way I’m glad Hillary made her “basket of deplorables” comment—it really brings our political dysfunction into focus, though neither she nor many others seem to see it.
There will always be some outliers—people with whom we just can’t live, or who have notions too idiotic to take seriously—but democracy only works if we respect our fellow citizens and honor their experience and their concerns, even if ours are very different, and even though finding compromises that work for everyone is a tremendous challenge.
When democracy becomes *just* majority rule—Ha! Ha! We won! Suck it, chumps!—it dies. While we treat politics like a football game, the masters of the art are ruling for the benefit of no one but themselves.
Randy,
Nicely said. I agree on all points. Esp the “football game” analogy — that fits our politics in many ways.