;)
The Commentariat -- October 24, 2016
Afternoon Update:
"The Election Is Rigged, So Don't Bother to Vote." Sincerely, DJT. Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "It's hard to suss out whether Trump's 'the vote is rigged' message is already tamping down the enthusiasm of his base, but in ABC's new poll, the number of Republicans who reported being likely to vote fell seven points since the Post-ABC poll released earlier this month.... Trump is...relying heavily on strong turnout from a group of voters that generally doesn't turn out that much...Telling them instead that the vote is rigged and, implicitly, that their votes may not count seems like the exact opposite of what he should be doing." ...
... Akhilleus: Trump's primary calling card has been his contention that he is a business and organizational genius on an order rarely seen, that there is nothing he can't fix. The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. He's going Chapter 11 on his own campaign. This guy is so incompetent, he can't even do what is most necessary to win, GOTV. His big idea is to imply that votes won't matter. Loser or idiot? You make the call.
How to Make a Much-maligned Institution Even Scummier. David Cloud of the Los Angeles Times: "Short of troops to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan a decade ago, the California National Guard enticed thousands of soldiers with bonuses of $15,000 or more to reenlist and go to war. Now the Pentagon is demanding the money back. Nearly 10,000 soldiers, many of whom served multiple combat tours, have been ordered to repay large enlistment bonuses -- and slapped with interest charges, wage garnishments and tax liens if they refuse -- after audits revealed widespread overpayments by the California Guard at the height of the -- wars last decade." ...
... Akhilleus: The Bush Cheney Debacle keeps on screwing Americans. Hey, if the Pentagon is demanding that soldiers who signed up to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan pay back sign up bonuses, why can't those soldiers demand that the Pentagon give them back their legs, arms, eyes, and mental health they forfeited to make George W. Bush forget that he was a deserter?
Early Voting in Nevada Goes to Democrats. James Hohmann of the Washington Post: "The media tends to focus on the lack of enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton relative to President Obama, which is real, but a few thousand more ballots were cast in Nevada on Saturday -- during the first day of early voting -- than during the kickoff day four years ago, when there was a similar flurry of activity to propel Democrats to the polls. And that was before Air Force One touched down yesterday afternoon."...
... Akhilleus: Block parties for Voto Latino, door to door canvassing, hitting the unions and the churches, Getting.Out.The.Vote. This is how it's done, Donnie, not whining about how it's all so unfair and screaming "rigged election"! Another example of how he does business. He shoots his mouth off but the only action you'll see is him trying to grope strange women. But this is yet another reason anti-democratic Confederates want to kill expansion of electoral opportunities like early voting.
*****
Presidential Race
Gary Langer, et al., of ABC News: "Hillary Clinton has vaulted to a double-digit advantage in the inaugural ABC News 2016 election tracking poll, boosted by broad disapproval of Donald Trump on two controversial issues: His treatment of women and his reluctance to endorse the election's legitimacy. Likely voters by a vast 69-24 percent disapprove of Trump's response to questions about his treatment of women. After a series of allegations of past sexual misconduct, the poll finds that some women who'd initially given him the benefit of the doubt have since moved away. Fifty-nine percent of likely voters, moreover, reject Trump's suggestion that the election is rigged in Clinton's favor, and more, 65 percent, disapprove of his refusal to say whether he'd accept a Clinton victory as legitimate. Most strongly disapprove, a relatively rare result. All told, Clinton leads Trump by 12 percentage points among likely voters, 50 to 38 percent, in the national survey, her highest support and his lowest to date in ABC News and ABC News/Washington Post polls. Gary Johnson has 5 percent support, Jill Stein 2 percent." -- CW ...
... Nate Silver: "The problem for Trump is that taken as a whole, his polls aren't very good -- and, in fact, they may still be getting worse. An ABC News national poll released on Sunday morning -- the first live-caller poll conducted fully after the final presidential debate -- showed Clinton leading Trump 50 percent to 38 percent. Clinton's 12-point lead in that poll is toward the high end of a broad range of results from recent national polls, with surveys showing everything from a 15-point Clinton lead to a 2-point Trump edge. But the ABC News poll is interesting given its recency and given why Clinton has pulled so far ahead in it -- Republicans aren't very happy with their candidate and may not turn out to vote.... Overall, Clinton's chances of winning the presidency are 87 percent according to our polls-only model and 85 percent according to polls-plus." -- CW
Anne Gearan of the Washington Post: Hillary Clinton spent "a full day in North Carolina on Sunday, with stops in the Raleigh-Durham area and in Charlotte. Recent polls in the battleground state place her between one and four percentage points ahead of Trump.... Clinton is concentrating much of her efforts in the state on addressing predominantly African American audiences, including at churches and at historically black universities such as St. Augustine's, where she spoke Sunday." -- CW
Alexander Burns & Amy Chozick of the New York Times: "Hillary Clinton moved to press her advantage in the presidential race on Sunday, urging black voters in North Carolina to vote early as Republicans increasingly conceded that Donald J. Trump is unlikely to recover in the polls. With a strong lead in national polls, Mrs. Clinton has been pleading with core Democratic constituencies to get out and vote in states where balloting has already begun. By running up a lead well in advance of the Nov. 8 election in states like North Carolina and Florida, she could make it extraordinarily difficult for Mr. Trump to mount a late comeback. On Sunday, Mrs. Clinton appeared at a church in Raleigh, N.C., with mothers who have lost children to gun violence or clashes with the police. Addressing the congregation, she sounded like a candidate looking past the election to a presidency in which she would have to address a deeply divided nation." -- CW
If I had my life to relive, I'd do it all again. But this time, I'd be nastier. -- Jeannette Rankin, first female member of Congress, shortly before she died at the age of 92
Isaac Arnsdorf of Politico: "Hillary Clinton told [Tim] Kaine one of the reasons she felt a connection with him was because his faith, his missionary service in Honduras and his Jesuit education matched with her Methodist upbringing, the Virginia senator told Chuck Todd on NBC's 'Meet the Press' on Sunday. 'Hillary Clinton's feeling about faith and about Catholicism in particular is most demonstrated by the fact that she asked me to be a running mate,' Kaine said. 'That is the most direct evidence about what Hillary thinks about Catholics.' -- CW
Isaac Arnsdorf: "Tim Kaine said Sunday he's concerned about the proposed merger of AT&T and Time Warner, suggesting a Hillary Clinton administration might be skeptical of the deal if she wins the election. 'I share those concerns and questions. We've got to get to the bottom of them,' the Virginia senator told host Chuck Todd on NBC's 'Meet the Press.' 'Less concentration, I think, is generally helpful, especially in the media.' Clinton hasn't commented on the deal but has previously called for strong regulatory scrutiny of major mergers." -- CW
Rebecca Morin of Politico: "Robby Mook said Sunday that the women accusing Donald Trump of sexual misconduct have not been in contact with Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. 'These accusations are not coming from our campaign,' Mook, Clinton's campaign manager, told CNN's Jake Tapper on 'State of the Union.' When pressed by Tapper, Mook said there has not been any contact 'that I'm aware of.'" -- CW
Isaac Arnsdorf: "Democratic operatives aren't inciting violence at Donald Trump rallies, a senior Clinton campaign strategist said Sunday in response to last week's sting videos by Project Veritas. The two subcontractors shown in the videos have resigned, and there aren't other people doing the same thing, Joel Benenson told George Stephanopoulos on ABC News' 'This Week.' Benenson said the person who released the footage, James O'Keefe, has doctored his videos in the past to cast people from Planned Parenthood and NPR, among others, in the worst possible light." -- CW
Katie Glueck of Politico: "Donald Trump on Sunday insisted that he remains competitive in the polls, particularly with women, even as a host of recent surveys show the Republican nominee's numbers plummeting. Trump kicked off a rally in Naples, Fla., by bashing polls as 'inaccurate,' especially the myriad results that show him struggling with women." -- CW
Rebecca Savransky of the Hill: "... Donald Trump on Sunday slammed Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta. 'This guy Podesta is a nasty guy,' Trump said Sunday evening during a campaign rally in Florida, echoing an insult he hurled at the Democratic presidential nominee during last week's debate. 'Man, I wouldn't want people speaking ... about me behind my back. But he said "bad instincts." Bernie Sanders said about Hillary Clinton, "bad judgment." So, she's got bad instincts, she's got bad judgment,' the GOP nominee continued, quoting from emails allegedly stolen from Podesta's email account and published by Wikileaks. 'You take a look at all of the harm and all of the things she's done, it's a mess.'" -- CW
Andrew Kaczynski of CNN: "Just four years ago, Donald Trump took a drastically different position on what is now his central issue: deporting undocumented immigrants in the United States.... Asked about his views on immigrant labor, Trump said, 'You know my views on it and I'm not necessarily, I think I'm probably down the middle on that also. Because I also understand how, as an example, you have people in this country for 20 years, they've done a great job, they've done wonderfully, they've gone to school, they've gotten good marks, they're productive -- now we're supposed to send them out of the country, I don't believe in that..., and you understand that. I don't believe in a lot things that are being said.'" -- CW
Jenna Johnson of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump's campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, a longtime Republican pollster, admitted Sunday that her candidate is currently losing to Democrat Hillary Clinton." -- CW ...
... David Edwards of the Raw Story: "CNN host Jake Tapper on Sunday reminded Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway that she had been against her bosses 'rigged' election claims in April before he paid her to to start defending them. On Sunday's State of the Union, Tapper noted that there was 'no real evidence' to support Donald Trump's claim that the election is being 'rigged' against him. 'Back in April when you were working against Donald Trump, when you were working for Ted Cruz and advising his super PAC, you had some tough words for Mr. Trump when he was lashing out at the time against the system being rigged,' Tapper told Conway before refreshing her memory with a video clip. 'We hear from the Trump campaign, the rules change, it's not fair,' Conway had said in April. 'He can whine and complain all he wants that he didn't know the rules.' 'Is this a pattern with Mr. Trump?' Tapper wondered. 'If he starts losing, he starts lashing out and calling the system corrupt and calling it rigged?' 'We love watching that clip together,' Conway quipped." -- CW
Brian Beutler: "... the bleakest possible scenario for Republicans isn't that Trump loses badly and refuses to admit defeat. It's that he rejects the notion that a fair election is even possible with him on the ticket, and announces he's boycotting it. His supporters, only a small fraction of whom would have refused to vote for Trump turncoats down the ballot, stay home en masse instead.... He would think of it as a final demonstration of power and vindictiveness, bringing his political career, his stewardship of the Republican Party, to a maximally destructive conclusion.... The Democrats take back the House. This is, I should stress, probably not going to happen." CW: I could live with that.
Doyle McManus of the Los Angeles Times: "There's a pattern in Trump's behavior whenever he's asked to make a promise -- a pattern of coy evasiveness honed, presumably, in his years as a real estate mogul. He pulled the same stunt a year ago when Republicans asked for a pledge to support whomever became the GOP nominee. Trump said no, then yes, then rescinded his promise. The suspense didn't end until he won the nomination himself. This time, though, the stakes are much higher. If Trump continues to tell his followers that the election system is 'rigged' and accuses Hillary Clinton of stealing the White House on Nov. 8, the result could be months of chaos and years of bitterness." -- CW
Julia Ioffe in Foreign Policy: "When Trump accuses others of what he's doing himself -- or what the Russians are doing on his behalf -- I hear Vladimir Putin's voice. When Trump talks about regulating the 'dishonest' press or about jailing Clinton, these echoes become deafening.... Trump is trying his hand at another Putin trick: if you can't inherit the land, sow it with salt.... It wasn't hard for Putin to destroy democratic institutions that had been around for less than a decade. We are lucky to have roots deeper and stronger than that. But it doesn't mean he can't poison the soil they grow in for a long time to come." -- CW
E. J. Dionne: "To compare what Gore did in the aftermath of the contested 2000 election with what Trump is doing is like analogizing a fire marshal investigating the cause of a blaze to an arsonist.... Gore's call to George W. Bush after midnight conceding the race actually showed how much respect he had for the electoral process. It was only after news organizations withdrew their calls of Florida for Bush, depriving him of an electoral-college majority, that Gore decided a recount was called for. To this day, many Democrats view the Supreme Court's 5-to-4 decision abruptly halting recounts and awarding Florida to Bush by 537 votes as partisan and even lawless. Yet despite this, and even though Gore won the national popular vote by more than 500,000, he nonetheless conceded with exceptional graciousness. 'What remains of partisan rancor must now be put aside,' Gore said, publicly congratulating Bush and urging the country 'to unite behind our next president.'" -- CW
They Have Great Respect for Women. Mallory Shelbourne of the Hill: "Several Trump campaign staffers attended a strip club with news staffers from multiple television networks the night before the Las Vegas presidential debate, according to a report in Page Six. The report claims that Trump senior communications director Jason Miller and two other campaign advisers attended Sapphire Las Vegas Strip Club with employees of CNN, ABC, and NBC." -- CW
Kevin Drum offers instructions in how to write a Clinton e-mailgate story. He's fed up with them. ...
... CW: Drum's how-to manual seems a little arduous to me. It requires a bit of reporting. Also, it's limited to just e-mail scandals. So let's expand that:
A. If you're as lazy as I am, try the Burns Plan: 1. Scan the papers till you find a story about something bad a Democrat did, or something bad that happened to a Democrat. Any Democrat will do; obscure Congressional staffer is good. (If you're an internationalist, you can use the same tack by substituting "foreign dignitary" for "Democrat," but American readers tend to like American-based stories better, especially if they involve some easy-to-understand sleaze.) 2. Make up a connection between the obscure Democrat/dignitary & Hillary. Hell, they've probably met; there may be a photo-op. 3. Print it.
B. If you're as lazy as Donald Trump is, say, "People tell me __fill in conspiracy theory__."
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Cleve Wootson of the Washington Post: "The Las Vegas Review-Journal became the first major newspaper to endorse Donald Trump for president this election season, stating that, while the candidate has flaws, he'll bring needed disruption and change to Washington.... The paper was bought by Sheldon Adelson last year, a major Republican donor who is also another billionaire linked to casinos." -- CW
She literally has the smile on her face of every woman that's been talked over by a man who has no idea what he's doing. -- Sara McAlpin, a Republican woman describing Hillary Clinton at the last debate ...
... Michelle Goldberg of Slate: Republican women feel their party has betrayed them. Why are party leaders defending Trump instead of them? -- CW
Congressional Races
"Issa Was Trump Before Trump." Edward-Isaac Dovere of Politico: "Laughing as he spoke..., [President] Obama said he couldn't believe that [Rep. Darrell] Issa [R-Calif.], now locked in the hardest race of his career, had sent out [a] mailer, which brags, 'I am very pleased that President Obama has signed into law the Survivors' Bill of Rights -- legislation I cosponsored to protect the victims of sexual assault.' [The mailer includes a picture of President Obama.] 'That is the definition of chutzpah,' Obama said, adding later, 'that is shameless.'" Issa has called Obama "one of the most corrupt presidents in history, [said] he should be impeached and question[ed] whether he was telling the truth about his birth certificate...." -- CW
Gutless Joe. Julie Davis of the New York Times: "President Obama on Sunday savaged Representative Joe Heck, Republican of Nevada, for failing to reject Donald J. Trump earlier in the presidential race, seeking to tarnish Mr. Heck and other Republican candidates across the country by association with a standard-bearer he called indecent and unfit for the presidency. Speaking at a high school [in North Las Vegas] as he began a three-day campaigning and fund-raising trip, Mr. Obama portrayed Mr. Heck, who is in a competitive Senate race that could determine control of that chamber, as having helped enable Mr. Trump's rise by endorsing his breed of divisive politics. Only now, with Mr. Trump's campaign foundering, is Mr. Heck willing to abandon him, the president said." -- CW
Paul Krugman: "Everyone who endorsed Mr. Trump in the past owns him now; it's far too late to get a refund. And voters should realize that voting for any Trump endorser is, in effect, a vote for Trumpism, whatever happens at the top of the ticket. First of all, nobody who was paying attention can honestly claim to have learned anything new about Mr. Trump in the last few weeks.... You can ignore all the efforts to portray Mr. Trump as a deviation from the G.O.P.'s true path: Trumpism is what the party is all about.... The modern G.O.P. is Mr. Trump's party, with or without the man himself." -- CW
Gubernatorial Races
Reid Wilson of the Hill: "A new round of surveys in states electing governors this November show Democrats poised to pick up seats and gain some ground on Republicans in governors' mansions. Democrats were initially uncertain about their chances to make strides at the gubernatorial level, given the number of conservative states -- Missouri, West Virginia and Montana among them -- the party had to defend. But the recent polls have given them a reason to be more optimistic." -- CW
State Legislatures
Monica Davey & Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Obama, who has endured gridlock in Washington as Republicans in the states took direct aim at his vision and legacy, is stepping in to assist more than 150 state legislative candidates, by far his biggest effort to bolster local Democrats since he took office. 'You are going to see a level of engagement down to the state representative level that I don't think you've seen too many presidents engage in,' said David Simas, the White House political director.... Republicans effectively control 68 of the nation's 99 statehouse chambers, compared with 36 at the start of 2010. For years, Democrats complained that Mr. Obama and his political operation paid too little attention to the health of the party, and during his tenure, more than 800 Democratic state lawmakers have been voted out of office, among the worst losses for the party under any president in more than 100 years." -- CW
Other News & Views
Eric Lichtblau of the New York Times: "For the first time since the days of poll taxes and literacy tests a half-century ago, the Justice Department will be sharply restricted in how it can deploy some of its most powerful weapons to deter voter intimidation in the presidential election. Because of a Supreme Court ruling three years ago, the department will send special election observers inside polling places in parts of only four states on Election Day, a significant drop from 2012, when it sent observers to jurisdictions in 13 states.... The pullback worries civil rights advocates, who say that Donald J. Trump's call for his supporters to monitor a 'rigged' electoral system could lead to intimidation of minority voters at polling places." -- CW
Eric Levitz of New York: "If you are a median, full-time American worker, then congratulations: Your inflation-adjusted weekly earnings hit an all-time high in the third quarter of this year, according to new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics...[O]ver the past 18 months, America has seen rising weekly wages amid low unemployment, with paycheck growth powered by a tight labor market that bestows bargaining power on workers -- and a global oil glut that provides them low inflation. That sunny BLS data comes one month after the Census Bureau's annual report found that household-income growth hit an all-time high in 2015.... Now, economic growth is still tepid. Inequality is still massive. Many homeowners remain underwater on their mortgages.... Still, there is a dissonance between the economy's recent performance and the common view that 2016 -- even more than 2012 -- is an election in which an angry electorate longs for a change in executive leadership." --safari
Elaine Woo of the Washington Post: "Tom Hayden, the preeminent 1960s radical who roused a generation of alienated young Americans, became a symbol of militancy by leading riotous protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, and added Hollywood glamour to his mystique with an activist partnership and marriage to film star Jane Fonda, died Oct. 23 in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 76. Mr. Hayden's wife, Barbara Williams, confirmed the death to the Associated Press but did not provide an immediate cause. He had heart disease and was hospitalized for a stroke in 2015." -- CW ...
... Hayden's Los Angeles Times obituary, by Michael Finnegan, is here. -- CW
Way Beyond
Annals of Journalism, international edition. Michael Safi in the Guardian: "Unlike in 1999 (the last time India and Pakistan went to war), this most recent ramping up of tensions between the two is being beamed into Indian homes on dozens of 24-hour news channels, most barely a decade old.... But the eagerness of many networks in the past weeks to assume a war posture has sparked soul-searching among some Indian journalists over the direction of the country's fast-growing, but still relatively young TV market. 'Journalists have come to see themselves as warriors,' says Shekhar Gupta ... of the India Today Group.... The man often credited with bringing what has been dubbed the Fox News style to India is Arnab Goswami, an spectacled Oxford graduate whose debate programme, The Newshour, is often lampooned, but easily commands the country's largest English-speaking audience.... On the Hindi news networks, whose ratings are more than fifty times larger than their English counterparts, the dynamics are much the same." --safari
On the other side of the Atlantic, the Guardian is live-blogging the beginning phases of the week-long dismantling of the notorious "Jungle" refugee "camp" (more like a slum) in Calais, France, home to around 7,000 refugees awaiting a ticket to the UK. This is in the context of a week-long police demonstration against the government of François Hollande for a lack of proper resources and support. Alain Juppé, the current favorite to win the presidential nomination, has even proposed renegociating the Le Toquet accord and pushing the border back to Kent in the United Kingdom, so the UK would have to deal with the asylum-seekers (the Brexit vote wasn't supposed to change this arrangement). Hopefully things go smoothly.--safari
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Reader Comments (10)
Some other good news. Huff post notes the Hillary has been endorsed by more than 80 newspapers, Donald by 4. I wonder who rigged the 4.
Marvin,
That's just more evidence to the mouth breathers that the whole thing is rigged by those mysterious "elites" in favor of that murdering harpy, Hillary Clinton. It couldn't possibly be the result of their choice being not only the least qualified, but also the most dangerous and ignorant candidate to ever vie for the presidency. They are totally unable to see what is clear to everyone not swimming in the Kool Aid. Reminds me of a character from an old Warner Bros. cartoon. He accepted delivery of a large box because he read the label "G, U, N, P, O, W, D, E, R as "Rhode Island". The outcome was obvious.
They are unable or unwilling to recognize , as even many Republican editorial boards have, that the choice in this election is between a sentient, eminently qualified candidate and a mad dog.
@Marvin: Well we know who was responsible for the fourth paper endorsement; the other three are not from major papers but from small town papers. When we see the actual listing of the papers that have endorsed Hillary along side Trump's four it's striking. When Trump looks at that same listing he sees what? A rigged system? the bravado "Everybody loves me––I tell you folks––I'm deeply loved," only applies to those Trumpy chasers, not from the Paper Chasers.
After reading Julia Ioffee's piece in Foreign Policy it reminded me of something Jessica Mathews said about the large number of foreign policy experts that have come out against Trump and for Hillary because they believe the next president will confront perhaps the most dangerous international environment and the most broadest and most intimidating set of challenges to US foreign policy since at least the end of the cold war and arguably longer. Topping that list is a toxic relationship with Russia.
Many other countries are taking notice of what is going on in this country and are frightened. This does not bode well for us or for them. It's dangerous and if Trump makes waves about the election somebody better stop him straightaway; maybe Kellyann who can shift her loyalties as easily as we shifted on the old typewriters––swish––a new sentence, just like that. Someone once said she could talk the legs off a table. Me thinks she has run out of legs and that table has just collapsed.
I didn't get a chance yesterday to respond to Marie's excellent piece on "getting the joke". Thinking about the fact (and it is a fact) that hating others, sticking it to them, burying them, getting even, screwing with anyone you dislike or who refuses to kowtow to you, are staples of the Trump family, and how so much of the way Donaldo sees the world--inferior races and people (especially women) who must be kept in their place and kicked hard if they don't go along--was learned at the feet of Trump père, I was reminded of a notion passed on by the English poet Philip Larkin:
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
This is probably true, to an extent, of all of us. The saving grace in most cases is that we got a lot more than faults and a good "fucking up" from our mums and dads. If we were lucky, we got love, and a sense of balance in the world. Trump got hate. And a taste for revenge. His self love he probably got on his own. I'm not sure if narcissism is a trait that can be passed on but the Trump kids offer at least one example in support of that theory.
Also, I'm not sure how much of a liar Trump's dad was, but I'm pretty sure he conveyed the sense that nothing mattered if a Trump did it, as long it meant money and power, and truth, when it matters, is extremely relative. Very likely Trump senior was a good example of the parents of which Larkin wrote.
Unfortunately for us and the nation, Trump's daddy neglected to follow the rest of Larkin's advice:
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.
I guess the joke's on us.
(Excerpts from "This Be the Verse")
In Trump World:
Truth is relative, when it matters at all, or when it can even be divined.
So Little Dracula, on one of the Sunday morning gasbag extravaganzas, sniffed that his daddy would accept the results of the election "if they were 100% fair". Also, everyone is out to get the Great Donald, and they're all liars, and VERY unfair to Trump.
Ahhhh.....okay kids, break out the Trump lexicon and dictionary and let's all look up "fair":
Fair: adverb meaning Trump wins. Any outcome in which a Trump does not win, or even ties, is, ipso facto, not fair.
Clear? In Trump World truth may be relative (when it even exists) but outcomes are never relative and must always redound to the greater glory of the Trumpies.
Steve M at NoMoreMisterNice makes some good points on the need for a Trump reckoning by the media after the election.
You hoid dat right, buddy! Whad I said was: "big league" Yeah! Yes, Trump really is saying ‘Big League,’ not ‘Bigly,’ linguists say.
Tautology for Children
This can't even be described as Tautology 101 because that would require merely the tiniest soupçon of creativity. In other words, being able to come up with a different word to say the same thing. Trumpado can't even manage that. Here he is talking about how the media is horrible and he's wonderful and being, er....the opposite of opposite. Or something.
"I’m going to protect the people, and the media are the exact opposite and they represent the, you know, opposite."
Well, glad that Donald person is here to clear that up. For a minute I thought that sentence was pure gar-bahjhe. Imagine my surprise when, after deep linguistic analysis, it turned out to be just complete nonsense. (See, that's how you do tautology, Donnie.)
Also nonsense is the idea of Trump protecting "the people". Hahahahahahahahaha. From what? His buddy Putin? His own greed? Confederate scams? Attack from all the newly nuclear rogue states he's going to okay? Trump fucking TV??? Future historians are going to look back at this era and wonder what in the hell we were all smoking that this guy may get 40% of the vote in a presidential election.
Oops, forgot the link to the deathless words referenced in the previous comment. That is, if you can stand it.
It's from a Politico piece in which Donaldo whines that too many people are taking him at his word and that's a problem for him. Poor Trumpy. Those clown shoes really do get in the way, don't they?