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In History, Politics, Social commentary on November 29, 2017 at 12:36 pm
A major reason for Donald Trump’s appeal during the 2016 Presidential campaign was: “He’s not like other politicians.”
And he wasn’t.
The vast majority of politicians adhere to an unwritten rule: Even when you criticize another politician, you do so in a reasonably dignified manner.
Trump threw that rule—along with many others—out the window. In its place, he gave his opponents—Republican and Democrat—a series of disparaging nicknames.
And, as President, he has continued to do so.
His main sources of public defamation have been Twitter and the speeches he makes. Among the insulting nicknames have included:
- “Jeff Flakey” – Jeff Flake, Arizona United States Senator.
- “Crazy Megyn” – Megyn Kelly, Fox News’ then-anchor, perhaps the only member of this Right-wing propaganda outlet that Trump disliked.
- “Liddle Bob Corker” – Bob Corker, United States Senator from Tennessee
- “Psycho Joe” and “Dumb as a Rock Mika” – Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, hosts of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
- “Lyin’ Ted” – Texas United States Senator Eduardo “Ted” Cruz.
- “Crazy Bernie” – Vermont United States Senator Bernie Sanders.
- “Low Energy Jeb” – Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida.
- “Crooked Hillary” – Hillary Clinton, former First Lady, New York United States Senator and Secretary of State.
- “Little Marco” – Florida United States Senator Marco Rubio.
- “Rocket Man” – North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un (because of his series of missile launches)
- “Al Frankenstein” – Al Franken, United States Senator from Minnesota.
- “Pocahontas” – Elizabeth Warren, United States Senator from Massachusetts.
Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks appear every Friday on the PBS Newshour to review the week’s major political events.
On May 27, 2016, Shields—a liberal, and Brooks, a conservative—reached some disturbingly similar conclusions about the character of Republican Presidential front-runner Donald Trump.
David Brooks and Mark Shields
MARK SHIELDS: “Donald Trump gratuitously slandered Ted Cruz’s wife. He libeled Ted Cruz’s father for being potentially part of Lee Harvey Oswald’s assassination of the president of the United States, suggesting that he was somehow a fellow traveler in that.
“This is a libel. You don’t get over it….
“…I think this man may be addicted to the roar of the grease paint and the sound of the crowd, or however it goes, smell of the crowd.”
Donald Trump
DAVID BROOKS: “Trump, for all his moral flaws, is a marketing genius. And you look at what he does. He just picks a word and he attaches it to a person. Little Marco [Rubio], Lyin’ Ted [Cruz], Crooked Hillary [Clinton].
“And that’s a word. And that’s how marketing works. It’s a simple, blunt message, but it gets under.
“It sticks, and it diminishes. And so it has been super effective for him, because he knows how to do that. And she [Hillary Clinton] just comes with, ‘Oh, he’s divisive.’
“These are words that are not exciting people. And her campaign style has gotten, if anything…a little more stagnant and more flat.”
Only one opponent—who was not a Presidential candidate—managed to stand up to Trump: Massachusetts U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren. Whenever Trump attacks her, Warren strikes back—sometimes even more harshly.
As Mark Shields noted:
“Elizabeth Warren gets under Donald Trump’s skin. And I think she’s been the most effective adversary. I think she’s done more to unite the Democratic party than either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.”
From June 15, 2015, when he launched his Presidential campaign, until October 24, 2016, Trump used Twitter to fire almost 4,000 angry, insulting tweets at 281 people and institutions that had somehow offended him.
Warren has dared to do what no other Democrat—or Republican—has: Attack Trump head-on, with the kind of blunt, insulting language he has lavished on his opponents.
Among the jabs she has thrown at him on Twitter:
- “But here’s the thing. You can beat a bully—not by tucking tail and running, but by holding your ground.”
- “You care so much about struggling American workers, @realDonaldTrump, that you want to abolish the federal minimum wage?”
- “@realDonaldTrump: Your policies are dangerous. Your words are reckless. Your record is embarrassing. And your free ride is over.”
Nor is Twitter her only weapon.
On March 31, Warren appeared on The Late Show, with Stephen Colbert. Her take on the egotistical billionaire:
“Donald Trump is looking out for exactly one guy, and that guy’s name is Donald Trump. He smells that there’s change in the air and what he wants to do is make sure that that change works really, really well for Donald Trump.
“The truth is, he inherited a fortune from his father, he kept it going by cheating and defrauding people, and then he takes his creditors through Chapter 11.”
When Colbert said that Trump had never broken the law, Warren replied that he had never broken the law “and been caught.”
For David Brooks, Warren’s tactics prove a depressing, lose/lose situation:
“And so the tactics…is either you do what Elizabeth Warren has done, like full-bore negativity, that kind of [get] under the skin, or try to ridicule him and use humor. Humor is not Hillary Clinton’s strongest point.”
As a whole, Democrats have shown themselves indifferent to or ignorant of the power of effective language.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on August 29, 2017 at 1:12 am
Tyrants are conspicuously vulnerable to ridicule. Yet Democrats have proven unable or unwilling to make use of this powerful weapon.
Donald Trump—as political candidate and President—has repeatedly assaulted the press as “fake news.” He has similarly attacked the judiciary and Intelligence agencies such as the CIA and FBI. But no Democrat has dared to label him a “fake President.”
Similarly, he has branded Hillary Clinton “Crooked Hillary.” But Democrats—despite Trump’s often-publicized admiration for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin—have never called him “Red Donald.” Nor charged him with using dictatorial methods via the damning barb: “TrumPutin.”
Had Democrats met his insults with effective ones of their own during the campaign, the results might well have been different.
Democrats and liberals (the two are not always the same) have similarly failed to produce funny anti-Trump jokes. Jokes are an effective weapon because they highlight traits that people are already familiar with—such as Trump’s dictatorial nature:
- One day, while walking down a corridor, newly-elected President Trump passes Hillary Clinton. “It’s so nice to see you,” says Trump. “I thought I had you shot.”
- What’s the difference between Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler? Nothing—but Trump doesn’t know it.
Or his egomania:
- Donald Trump commissions a sculptor to draw up blueprints for a statue of Abraham Lincoln. Version #1 shows a towering Lincoln reading the Gettysburg address. Trump: “That’s very good, but there’s something missing.” Version #2: Trump standing next to Lincoln, who’s reading the Gettysburg address. Trump: “That’s better, but something’s still missing. Try to fix it.” Version #3: Trump, sitting in the Oval Office, reading the Gettysburg Address. Trump: “Yes, that’s it. You finally got it right.”
Nor have Democrats assailed the ignorant semi-literates who comprise most of Trump’s voters:
- Why do Donald Trump’s supporters always travel in threes? One who can read, one who can write, and one to keep his eye on the two intellectuals.
Incredibly for this YouTube-obsessed age, Democrats have never assailed Trump with barrages of satirical musical videos.
Trump’s notorious “bromance” with Vladimir Putin could be satirized by converting the Beatles’ hit, “With a Little Help From My Friends” into “With a Little Help From My Vlad”:
What do I do when the bank calls me in?
(Does it worry you to be in debt?)
How do I feel when I need rubles fast?
(Do you worry Vlad might say “Nyet”?)
No, I get by with a little help from my Vlad.
Mm, I can lie with a little help from my Vlad.
Mm, you’re gonna fry with a little help from my Vlad.
In the hands of a creative writer, the Beatles’ “Can’t Buy Me Love” could become “Can’t Buy Me Class”:
I’ll sell you a load of crap my friend
If it makes you feel all right.
I’ll don a Klansman’s robes and hat
‘Cause it makes me Super White.
‘Cause I don’t care too much for humble.
Money can’t buy me class.
Can’t buy me class
Everybody tells me so.
Can’t buy me class—no, no, no, no.
Many Americans have wondered how so many millions of their fellow citizens could have voted for Trump.
“Springtime for Hitler,” the signature tune of the hit play and movie, The Producers, could become “Springtime for Trumpland”—and help mightily in clearing up that mystery:
America was having trouble
What a sad, sad story.
Needed a new leader
To restore its former glory.
Where oh where was he?
Who could that man be?
We looked around and then we found
The man for you and me.
And now it’s…
Springtime for Trump goons and bigotry—
Winter for Reason and Light.
Springtime for Trumpland and infamy—
Come on, Trumpsters, let’s go pick a fight.
Parody song-writers could easily attack the obvious racism of Trump and those who elected him. This would be especially easy after his praise for white supremacist demonstrators in Charlottesville, Virginia:
LITTLE NAZIS
(To be sung to the tune, “Little Boxes)
Little Nazis in the White House
Little Nazis made of Fascist hate.
Little Nazis in the White House
Little Nazis all the same.
There’s a big one and a small one
And a fat one and an Orange One–
And they’re all made out of Fascist hate
And they all look just the same.
And the voters in the “heartland”
All went off to the polling booth
Where they pulled hard on the levers
And the Nazis got a win.
And there’s bigots and oppressors
And screaming misogynists–
And they’re all made out of Fascist hate
And they all sound just the same.
And some go off to lynchings
Where they hang their black neighbors high.
And they all have stupid children
And the children flunk at school.
And the children go to Nazi sites
And learn their perversity.
Then they turn out like their parents
And they’re all scum just the same.
For any of this to happen, Democrats would need to acquire two qualities they have all-too-often lacked: Creativity and courage.
Specifically:
- The creativity to produce audience-captivating humor; and
- The courage to ruthlessly attack Trump as he attacks others.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on August 28, 2017 at 12:14 am
Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks appear every Friday on the PBS Newshour to review the week’s major political events.
On May 27, 2016, Shields—a liberal, and Brooks, a conservative—exchanged opinions on Donald Trump’s use of insults against his political opponents.
David Brooks and Mark Shields
MARK SHIELDS: “Donald Trump gratuitously slandered Ted Cruz’s wife. He libeled Ted Cruz’s father for being potentially part of Lee Harvey Oswald’s assassination of the president of the United States, suggesting that he was somehow a fellow traveler in that.
“This is a libel. You don’t get over it….
“I think there is a sophomore quality that is entertaining with Mr. Trump, but I am worried. I’m very concerned of having him in charge of his nuclear weapons because his visceral response to attack people on their appearance—short, tall, fat, ugly—my goodness that happened in junior high.”
Donald Trump
DAVID BROOKS: “Trump, for all his moral flaws, is a marketing genius. And you look at what he does. He just picks a word and he attaches it to a person. Little Marco [Rubio], Lyin’ Ted [Cruz], Crooked Hillary [Clinton].
“And that’s a word. And that’s how marketing works. It’s a simple, blunt message, but it gets under.
“It sticks, and it diminishes. And so it has been super effective for him, because he knows how to do that. And she [Hillary Clinton] just comes with, ‘Oh, he’s divisive.’
“These are words that are not exciting people. And her campaign style has gotten, if anything…a little more stagnant and more flat.”
Hillary Clinton wasn’t the only Presidential candidate who proved unable to cope with Trump’s gift for insult. His targets—and insults—included:
- Former Texas Governor Rick Perry: “Wears glasses to seem smart.”
- Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush: “Low Energy Jeb.”
- Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders: “Crazy Bernie.”
- Ohio Governor John Kasich: “Mathematically dead and totally desperate.”
Only one of Trump’s opponents tried to match him in insults—Florida’s United States Senator Marco Rubio.
At the 11th GOP presidential debate in Detroit, Rubio “countered” Trump’s insult of “Little Marco” by calling him “Big Donald.”
Since Americans believe that “bigger is better,” this was a poor choice of ridicule.
So why hasn’t anyone come up with a way to counter Trump’s repeated insults?
According to David Brooks: Democrats face two choices in combating Trump:
“Either you do what [Massachusetts United States Senator] Elizabeth Warren has done, like full-bore negativity, that kind of [get] under the skin, or try to ridicule him and use humor. Humor is not Hillary Clinton’s strongest point.”
A May 12, 2016 story on CNN—“Elizabeth Warren Gives Trump a Dose of His Own Medicine on Twitter”—notes: “Whenever Trump criticizes her, Warren fires right back at him, sometimes twice as hard.”
Warren’s tweets, according to the article, appeared to have two goals:
- Challenge Trump on social media, which he had so far dominated; and
- Use attention-catching words like “bully” and “loser.”
Among her tweets:
- “But here’s the thing. You can beat a bully—not by tucking tail and running, but by holding your ground.”
- “You care so much about struggling American workers, @realDonaldTrump, that you want to abolish the federal minimum wage?”
- “@realDonaldTrump: Your policies are dangerous. Your words are reckless. Your record is embarrassing. And your free ride is over.”
Nor did Warren restrict herself to battling Trump on Twitter.
Elizabeth Warren
On May 24, 2016, Warren unleashed perhaps her most devastating attack on Trump at an event hosted by the Center for Popular Democracy:
“Just yesterday, it came out that Donald Trump had said back in 2007 that he was ‘excited’ for the real estate market to crash because, quote, ‘I’ve always made more money in bad markets than in good markets.’
“That’s right. The rest of us were horrified by the 2008 financial crisis, by what happened to the millions of families…that were forced out of their homes.
“But Donald Trump was drooling over the idea of a housing meltdown—because it meant he could buy up a bunch more property on the cheap….
“What kind of a man does that? I’ll tell you exactly what kind—a man who cares about no one but himself. A small, insecure moneygrubber who doesn’t care who gets hurt, so long as he makes some money off it….”
On the May 27, 2016 edition of the PBS Newshour, syndicated columnist Mark Shields noted the ability of Elizabeth Warren to rattle Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump:
“Elizabeth Warren gets under Donald Trunp’s skin. And I think she’s been the most effective adversary. I think she’s done more to unite the Democratic party than either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.
“I mean, she obviously–he can’t stay away from her. He is tweeting about her.”
As a whole, Democrats have shown themselves indifferent to or ignorant of the power of effective language.
Many of them—such as former President Barack Obama—take the view: “I’m not going to get into the gutter like my opponents.”
Thus, they take the “high ground”—while their sworn Republican enemies undermine them via “smear and fear” tactics.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on June 27, 2017 at 9:25 am
Johnny Depp is an acclaimed actor. But his skills as a comic have sparked a backlash.
“When was the last time an actor assassinated the President?” he asked while speaking at the Glatonbury Festival on June 22.
Johnny Depp
The Glastonbury Festival is an annual, five-day celebration of contemporary performing arts that takes place near Pilton, Somerset (England).
Perhaps Depp sensed that he was making himself a target for the Secret Service, for he quickly added that he was not referring to himself: “I want to clarify, I am not an actor. I lie for a living. However, it has been a while and maybe it is time.”
Predictably, Donald Trump’s family did not find the joke funny.
The next day, Lara Trump, wife of the President’s son, Eric, called Depp’s comments “really, really sad—as a family member and as an American.”
Eric and Lara Trump
Max Goldberg from USA, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Appearing on Right-wing Fox Network’s “Hannity,” she told its host, Sean Hannity: “It’s happening to Donald Trump because he is Donald Trump. Their candidate failed, because they have nothing else to say. They have no platform; they have no real leader; they have no message.
“So the only thing they can do is pile on the President. Unfortunately it is to the detriment of the country.
“It’s really sick, Sean. The Republican Party is becoming the only party of tolerance here in the United States.”
On Twitter, Donald Trump Jr. called for Disney to dump the star of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise.
“President Trump has condemned violence in all forms, and it’s sad that others like Johnny Depp have not followed his lead,” said deputy White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
Apparently these Trump enthusiasts forgot Trump’s series of threats against his Republican and Democratic opponents throughout the 2016 campaign:
- On March 16, he warned Republicans that if he didn’t win the GOP nomination in July, his supporters would literally riot: “I think you’d have riots. I think you would see problems like you’ve never seen before. I think bad things would happen. I really do. I wouldn’t lead it, but I think bad things would happen.”
- That Republicans clearly saw this as a threat is undeniable. Paul Ryan, their Speaker of the House, said on March 17: “Nobody should say such things in my opinion because to even address or hint to violence is unacceptable.
- On August 9, Trump told a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina: “Hillary [Clinton] wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment. If she gets to pick her [Supreme Court] judges, nothing you can do folks. Although the Second Amendment people–maybe there is, I don’t know.”
Clinton’s camp instantly responded with fury.
“Don’t treat this as a political misstep,” Senator Christopher S. Murphy of Connecticut, who has called for stiffer gun laws, wrote on Twitter. “It’s an assassination threat, seriously upping the possibility of a national tragedy & crisis.”
“Well, let me say if someone else said that outside of the hall, he’d be in the back of a police wagon now, with the Secret Service questioning him,” said Michael Hayden, former head of the CIA and National Security Agency (NSA).
The Trump campaign issued a statement denying that he had meant any such thing.
Three days after Trump’s Hillary remarks, Operation Antrhopoid, a UK-French-Czech historical film, appeared in theaters. Its subject: The 1942 assassination of SS Obergruppenführer (General) Reinhard Heydrich.
A tall, blond-haired formal naval officer, he was both a champion fencer and talented violinist. Heydrich joined the Schutzstaffel, or Protective Squads, better known as the SS, in 1931, and quickly became head of its counterintelligence service.
Reinhard Heydrich
In September, 1941, Heydrich was appointed “Reich Protector” of Czechoslovakia, which had fallen prey to Germany in 1938 but whose citizens were growing restless under Nazi rule.
Heydrich immediately ordered a purge, executing 92 people within the first three days of his arrival in Prague. By February, 1942, 4,000-5,000 people had been arrested.
In January, 1942, Heydrich convened a meeting of high-ranking political and military leaders to streamline “the Final Solution to the Jewish Question.”
An estimated six million Jews were thus slaughtered.
Returning to Prague, Heydrich continued a policy of carrot-and-stick with the Czechs—improving the social security system and requisitioning luxury hotels for middle-class workers—alternating with arrests and executions.
The Czech government-in-exile, headquartered in London, feared that Heydrich’s incentives might lead the Czechs to passively accept domination. They decided to assassinate him.
Two British-trained Czech commandos—Jan Kubis and Joseph Gabcik—parachuted into Prague.
On May 27, 1942, the assassins waited at a hairpin turn in the road always taken by Heydrich. When Heydrich’s Mercedes slowed down, Kubis lobbed a hand grenade at the car. The explosion ruptured Heydrich’s diaphragm, spleen and lung.
On June 4, Heydrich died of his injuries.
For Donald Trump, movies and jokes about assassination carry supreme—if unnoticed—irony.
It is Trump who repeatedly raised the issue of using violence and assassination to attain political ends. The last thing he needs are reminders—like Depp and Anthropoid—that Right-wingers can also be targets for death.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 30, 2017 at 12:23 am
Donald Trump repeatedly boasted that, if elected President, he would “make America great again.”
He would do well to re-watch Saving Private Ryan, Steven Spielberg’s 1998 World War II epic.
This opens with a scene of an American flag snapping in the wind. Except that the brilliant colors of Old Glory have been washed out, leaving only black-and-white stripes and black stars.
And then the movie opens–not during World war II but the present day.
Did Spielberg know something that his audience could only sense? Such as that the United States, for all its military power, has become a pale shadow of its former glory?
May 30, 1945, marked the first Memorial Day after World War II ended in Europe. On that day, the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery, near the town of Nettuno, held about 20,000 graves.
Most were soldiers who had died in Sicily, at Salerno, or at Anzio. One of the speakers at the ceremony was Lieutenant General Lucian K. Truscott, Jr., the U.S. Fifth Army Commander.
Lieutenant General Lucian K. Truscott, Jr.
Unlike many other generals, Truscott had shared in the dangers of combat, pouring over maps on the hood of his jeep with company commanders as bullets or shells whizzed about him.
When it came his turn to speak, Truscott moved to the podium. Then he turned his back on the assembled visitors–which included several Congressmen.
The audience he now faced were the graves of his fellow soldiers.
Among those who heard Truscott’s speech was Bill Mauldin, the famous cartoonist for the Army newspaper, Stars and Stripes. Mauldin had created Willie and Joe, the unshaven, slovenly-looking “dogfaces” who came to symbolize the GI.
Bill Mauldin and “Willie and Joe,” the characters he made famous
It’s from Mauldin that we have the fullest account of Truscott’s speech that day.
“He apologized to the dead men for their presence there. He said that everybody tells leaders that it is not their fault that men get killed in war, but that every leader knows in his heart that this is not altogether true.
“He said he hoped anybody here through any mistake of his would forgive him, but he realized that he was asking a hell of a lot under the circumstances….
“Truscott said he would not speak of the ‘glorious’ dead because he didn’t see much glory in getting killed in your teens or early twenties.
“He promised that if in the future he ran into anybody, especially old men, who thought death in battle was glorious, he would straighten them out. He said he thought it was the least he could do.
“It was the most moving gesture I ever saw,” wrote Mauldin.
Then Truscott walked away, without acknowledging his audience of celebrities.
Fast forward 61 years later–to March 24, 2004.
At a White House Correspondents dinner in Washington, D.C., President George W. Bush joked publicly about the absence of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) in Iraq.
One year earlier, he had ordered the invasion of Iraq, claiming that its dictator, Saddam Hussein, possessed WMDs he intended to use against the United States.
To Bush, the non-existent WMDs were simply the butt of a joke that night. While an overhead projector displayed photos of a puzzled-looking Bush searching around the Oval Office, Bush recited a comedy routine.
“Those Weapons of Mass Destruction have gotta be here somewhere,” Bush laughed, while a photo showed him poking around the corners of the Oval Office.
“Nope–no weapons over there! Maybe there’s under here,” he said, as a photo showed him looking under a desk.
In a scene that could have occurred under the Roman emperor Nero, an assembly of wealthy, pampered men and women–the elite of America’s media and political classes–laughed heartily during Bush’s performance.
Only later did the criticism come, from Democrats and Iraqi war veterans–especially those veterans who had lost comrades or suffered horrific wounds to protect America from a threat that had never existed.
Then fast forward another 11 years–to February 27, 2015.
The Republican party’s leading Presidential contenders for 2016 gathered at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland.
Although each candidate tried to stake his own claim to the Oval Office, all of them agreed on two points:
First, President Barack Obama had been dangerously timid in his conduct of foreign policy; and
Second, they would pursue aggressive military action in the Middle East.
Neither Bush nor Walker had seen fit to enter the ranks of the military he wished to plunge into further combat. And Donald Trump, who would win the Republican nomination and the Presidency, was a five-time draft dodger while the Vietnam war raged.
Bush, Walker and Trump are typical of those who make up the United States Congress:
Of those members elected to the House and Senate in November, 2016, only 102–less than 19%–have served in the U.S. military.
Small wonder then, that, for many people, Old Glory has taken on a darker, washed-out appearance, in real-life as in film.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on November 24, 2016 at 12:19 am
November 22 marked 53 years since President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas by an embittered Marxist named Lee Harvey Oswald.
Historians generally agree that he left three great legacies to his country:
- The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty;
- The Apollo moon landing; and
- The Vietnam war.
But there was a fourth legacy—and perhaps the most important of all: The belief that mankind could overcome its greatest challenges through rationality and perseverance.
Kennedy demanded timely, reliable information about national and international issues. He speed-read several newspapers every morning. He nourished personal relationships with reporters—and not for entirely altruistic reasons.
These journalistic relationships gave Kennedy additional sources of information and perspectives he felt he could not get through government agencies.
When giving speeches, Kennedy—a 1940 cum laude graduate of Harvard University with a Bachelor of Arts in Government—never tried to hide his education. Nor did he talk down to his audiences.
Republicans, on the other hand, have made appealing to the ignorant and uneducated a centerpiece of their political campaigns.
During the 2016 Presidential campaign, real estate mogul Trump famously said; “I love the poorly educated.”
Trump may love “the poorly educated,” but he didn’t want to join them. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1968 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics.
Donald Trump
And for all his notorious bragging about himself, Trump didn’t share this achievement with his audiences.
During the 2012 Presidential race, Republican candidates seemed to value ignorance as a prime requirement for entering the White House.
Former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain thus excused his ignorance of the reasons for President Barack Obama’s intervention in Libya: “We need a leader, not a reader.”
Herman Cain
Texas Governor Rick Perry showed similar pride in not knowing there are nine judges on the United States Supreme Court:
“Well, obviously, I know there are nine Supreme Court judges. I don’t know how eight came out my mouth. But the, uh, the fact is, I can tell you—I don’t have memorized all of those Supreme Court judges. And, uh, ah–
“Here’s what I do know. That when I put an individual on the Supreme Court, just like I done in Texas, ah, we got nine Supreme Court justices in Texas, ah, they will be strict constructionists….”
And former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin rewrote history via “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere”:
“He warned the British that they weren’t going to be taking away our arms by ringing those bells and, um, making sure as he’s riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that, uh, we were going to be secure and we were going to be free.”
Actually, Revere was warning his fellow Americans about an impending British attack—as his celebrated catchphrase “The British are coming!” made clear.
Republicans have attacked President Obama for his Harvard education and articulate use of language. Among their taunts: “Hitler also gave good speeches.”
And they resent his having earned most of his income as a writer of two books: Dreams From My Father and The Audacity of Hope.
As if being a writer is somehow subversive.
In that sense, Obama is a “throwback” to John F. Kennedy, who was similarly gifted with language as a writer and orator.
Kennedy was perhaps the last President to convince most Americans that they could overcome their problems through reason and open-mindedness.
White House painting of JFK
At American University on June 10, 1963, Kennedy called upon his fellow Americans to re-examine the events and attitudes that had led to the Cold War. And he declared that the search for peace was not futile:
“Some say that it is useless to speak of peace or world law or world disarmament….But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief.
“It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable—that mankind is doomed—that we are gripped by forces we cannot control.
“We need not accept that view. Our problems are man-made; therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.
“Man’s reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable, and we believe they can do it again.”
Today, politicians from both parties cannot agree on solutions to even the most vital national problems.
On November 21, 2011, the 12 members of the “Super-Committee” of Congress, tasked with finding $1.2 trillion in cuts in government spending, threw up their hands in defeat.
At the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy spoke with aides about a book he had just finished: Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August, on the events leading to World War 1.
For him, the book’s most important revelation was how European leaders had blindly rushed into war, without thought to the possible consequences.
Kennedy said that he did not intend to make the same mistake. Having read his history, he was determined to learn from it.
And he did, for the world escaped all-out nuclear war.
When knowledge and literacy are attacked as “highfalutin’” arrogance, and ignorance and incoherence are embraced as sincerity, national decline and collapse lie just around the corner.
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In History, Politics, Social commentary on November 9, 2016 at 11:38 am
If there is one thing Republicans, Democrats and Independents can agree on, it’s this: 2016 gave America perhaps its most divisive Presidential election in modern history.
Many pundits have correctly noted that both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump–especially Trump–brought a coarseness to the election never before seen.
Saturday Night Live brutally captured this in a series of skits featuring Alec Baldwin as Trump and Kate McKinnon as Clinton.
But if basic civility proved a casualty of this campaign, there were two other casualties that the overwhelming majority of Americans will be glad to see finally buried: The Bush and Clinton family political dynasties.
Since 1980–36 years ago–there has been only one American Presidential election that did not feature a Bush or Clinton as a candidate. Consider:
- 1980: George H.W. Bush–first as a Presidential candidate; then, losing the Republican nomination to Ronald Reagan, as Reagan’s pick for Vice President.
- 1984: Bush--as Reagan’s continued choice as Vice President.
- 1988: Bush–as Reagan’s anointed choice for President, and then serving as President for four years.
- 1992: Bush--as President running for a second term, only to be defeated by Bill Clinton, whose star now rises.
- 1996: Clinton–as President, running for and winning a second term until 2001.
- 2000: George W. Bush, son of the former President and Governor of Texas, runs for and wins the Presidency.
- 2004: Bush, running for a second term and winning it.
- 2008: Hillary Clinton–former First Lady and now New York Senator runs for the Democratic nomination and loses it to Barack Obama. Even so, he picks her to be his Secretary of State for the next four years.
- 2012: The only Presidential election year since 1980 when neither a Bush nor a Clinton is a Presidential or Vice Presidential candidate.
- 2016: Jeb Bush–son of George H.W. and brother to George W., he seeks the Republican nomination but is easily humiliated and defeated by Trump.
- 2016: Hillary Clinton–having resigned as Secretary of State, she wins the Democratic nomination and loses the race to Republican nominee Donald Trump.
Among the “legacies” of both the Clintons and the Bushes:
- George H.W. Bush: Sends a half-million American troops to Saudi Arabia to “liberate” Kuwait from Saddam Hussein. The real reason: To secure continued American access to Kuwaiti oil.
George H.W. Bush
- Presides over one of the worst recessions in American history–causing him to lose the 1992 Presidential election.
- Bill Clinton: “Romances” White House intern Monica Lewinsky–and gets impeached (but not convicted) for it.
Bill Clinton
- Repeals FDR’s Glass-Steagall Act, which separated commercial and investment banking. This allows big banks to merge, becoming “too big to fail”–and sets the stage for the 2008 financial meltdown.
- After Right-wing terrorist Timothy McVeigh blows up the Oklahoma City Federal Building, Clinton refuses to condemn Republicans’ 50-years’ demonizing of government that is largely responsible for it.
- George W. Bush: Repeatedly ignores intelligence warnings of a coming attack by Al Qaeda, which results in the slaughter of 3,000 Americans on 9/11.
George W. Bush
- Lies the United States into a needless war in Iraq, which costs the lives of 4,486 Americans and costs the treasury at least $2 trillion.
- Assures his fellow Americans that he has “looked into the soul” of Vladimir Putin and found him a man “very straightforward and trustworthy.”
- After Hurricane Katrina devastates New Orleans, his Federal Emergency Management Agency–staffed with political hacks–bungles getting desperately-needed aid to America’s stricken citizens. Bush famously congratulates FEMA Director Michael Brown: “Heck of a job, Brownie.”
- Hillary Clinton: As First Lady, refuses to release documents about Whitewater, a failed Arkansas land deal. This brings on a needless, seven-year investigation by a Republican special prosecutor which turns up–nothing.
Hillary Clinton
- After leaving the White House, she and her husband set up the Clinton Foundation, a public charity to bring government, businesses and social groups together to solve problems “faster, better, at lower cost.”
- As Secretary of State, more than half of Clinton’s meetings with people outside government are with donors to the Clinton Foundation. If there isn’t a “pay-to play” system at work, there certainly is the appearance of one.
- Clinton casts further suspicion on herself by her unauthorized use of a private email server. She claims it’s so she doesn’t have to carry two cell-phones. But, as Secretary of State, she travels with a huge entourage who carry everything she needs.
- As a candidate for President, she “secretly” works with Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, the chair of the Democratic National Committee, to ensure that she will get the nomination.
- She wins the nomination–but is so unpopular she loses to Donald Trump by an overwhelming margin in the Electoral College.
Millions of liberals and Democrats are no doubt dismayed at the outcome of the 2016 election.
And Republicans who sided with Trump will now find themselves at odds with those who refused to do so.
But Democrats and Republicans alike can rejoice that these two embarrassing–and disastrous–family political dynasties have finally been swept into the ashcan of history.
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In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Politics, Social commentary on August 15, 2016 at 1:03 am
August is the month for…assassination. Or at least for advocating—and dramatizing—it.
On August 9, Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump told a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina: “Hillary [Clinton] wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment.
“If she gets to pick her [Supreme Court] judges, nothing you can do folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.”
Donald Trump
The Clinton camp instantly saw it as a “dog-whistle” solicitation for political assassination:
“Don’t treat this as a political misstep,” Senator Christopher S. Murphy of Connecticut, who has called for stiffer gun laws, wrote on Twitter. “It’s an assassination threat, seriously upping the possibility of a national tragedy & crisis.”
“A person seeking to be the President of the United States should not suggest violence in any way,” Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook said in a statement.
The Trump campaign issued a statement denying that he had meant any such thing.
Three days after Trump’s remarks, Operation Antrhopoid, a UK-French-Czech historical film, appeared in theaters. Directed by Sean Ellis, it stars Cillian Murphy, Jamie Dornan, Charlotte Le Bon and Bill Milner.
Its subject: The 1942 assassination of SS Obergruppenführer (General) Reinhard Heydrich.
For Trump it was a moment of supreme, if unnoticed, irony.
“The constant violent, brutish talk from Donald Trump,” said Michael Steel, a top adviser to former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, “is unworthy of the office he seeks.”
Political violence has long been a feature of Trump’s campaign. During the primaries, he openly endorsed retaliation against protesters who disrupted his rallies, many of whom accused him of racism.
Reinhard Heycrich
And Heydrich—“the man with the iron heart,” as Adolf Hitler eulogized at his funeral—similarly earned a reputation for brutality and racism.
A tall, blond-haired formal naval officer, he was both a champion fencer and talented violinist. Heydrich joined the Schutzstaffel, or Protective Squads, better known as the SS, in 1931, and quickly became head of its counterintelligence service.
In 1934, he oversaw the “Night of the Long Knives” purge of Hitler’s brown-shirted S.A., or Stormtroopers.
The S.A. had been instrumental in securing Hitler’s rise to Chancellor of Germany in 1933. They had intimidated political opponents and organized mass rallies for the Nazi Party. But after Hitler attained power, he saw them as a liability.
In September, 1941, Heydrich was appointed “Reich Protector” of Czechoslovakia, which had fallen prey to Germany in 1938 but whose citizens were growing restless under Nazi rule.
Heydrich immediately ordered a purge, executing 92 people within the first three days of his arrival in Prague. By February, 1942, 4,000-5,000 people had been arrested.
In January, 1942, Heydrich convened a meeting of high-ranking political and military leaders to streamline “the Final Solution to the Jewish Question.”
Up until that time, the Nazis had been unable to agree on a comprehensive anti-Jewish policy. Some had argued for the “mere” expulsion of Jews from Germany while others advocated their wholesale extermination.
At the now-infamous Wannsee conference, Heydrich decreed that, henceforth, all Jews in Reich-occupied territories would be shipped to extermination camps. No exceptions would be made for women, children or the infirm.
An estimated six million Jews were thus slaughtered.
Returning to Prague, Heydrich continued his policy of carrot-and-stick with the Czechs—improving the social security system and requisitioning luxury hotels for middle-class workers, alternating with arrests and executions.
The Czech government-in-exile, headquartered in London, feared that Heydrich’s incentives might lead the Czechs to passively accept domination. They decided to assassinate Heydrich.
Two British-trained Czech commandos—Jan Kubis and Joseph Gabcik—parachuted into Prague.
With limited intelligence on Heydrich’s movements and little equipment in a city under lockdown, they had to find a way to carry out their assignment.
Unexpectedly, they got help from Heydrich himself. Supremely arrogant, he traveled the same route every day from home to his downtown office and refused to be escorted by armed guards, claiming no one would dare attack him.
On May 27, 1942, Kubis and Gabcik waited at a hairpin turn in the road always taken by Heydrich. When Heydrich’s Mercedes slowed down, Gabcik raised his machinegun–which jammed.
Instead of ordering his driver to “step on it,” Heydrich ordered him to halt—so he could take aim at his would-be assassins.
Rising in his seat, he aimed his revolver at Gabcik—as Kubis lobbed a hand grenade at the car. The explosion drove steel and leather fragments of the car’s upholstery into Heydrich’s diaphragm, spleen and lung.
Hitler dispatched doctors from Berlin to save the Reich Protector. But infection set in, and on June 4, Heydrich died at age 38.
For Donald Trump, the timing of Operation Antrhopoid couldn’t be worse.
Trump has long been accused of being a racist and would-be dictator. Facebook routinely carries memes of him wearing a Nazi uniform, complete with Hitler forelock and toothbrush mustache.
It is Trump who raised the issue of using assassination to attain political ends. The last thing he needs is a movie showing that Right-wingers can also be targets for death.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on May 16, 2016 at 12:01 am
The electoral success of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Red-baiting treason slanders proved too alluring for other Republicans to resist.
Joseph McCarthy
Among those who have greatly profited from hurling similar charges are:
- President Richard Nixon
- His vice president, Spiro Agnew
- Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich
- Former Congressman Dick Armey
- President George W. Bush
- Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin
- Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann
- Rush Limbaugh
- Glenn Beck
- Sean Hannity
- Bill O’Reilly.
During the 1992 Presidential campaign, Republicans tried to paint Bill Clinton as a brainwashed “Manchurian candidate” because he had briefly visited the Soviet Union during his college years.
After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Republicans lost their “soft on Communism” slander-line. So they tried to persuade voters that Democrats were “soft on crime.”
When riots flared in 1992 after the acquittal of LAPD officers who had savagely beaten Rodney King, President George H.W. Bush blamed the carnage on the “Great Society” programs of the 1960s.
George H.W. Bush
After losing the White House to Clinton at the polls in 1992 and 1996, Republicans tried to oust him another way: By impeaching him over a tryst with a penis-loving intern named Monica Lewinsky.
The Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted to impeach, but the effort was defeated in the Democratically-controlled Senate.
The 2008 election of Barack Obama pushed the Republican “treason chorus” to new heights of infamy.
Barack Obama
Almost immediately after Obama took office, he came under attack by an industry of Right-wing book authors such as Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh.
The following titles vividly reveal the hates, fears and ambitions of their authors–and audience:
- Conservative Victory: Defeating Obama’s Radical Agenda by Sean Hannity
- Obama Zombies: How the Liberal Machine Brainwashed My Generation by Jason Mattera
- How Barack Obama is Bankrupting the U.S. Economy by Stephen Moore
- Let Freedom Ring: Winning the War of Liberty over Liberalism by Sean Hannity
- The Manchurian President: Barack Obama’s Ties to Communists,Socialists and Other Anti-American Extremists by Aaron Klein
- The Blueprint: Obama’s Plan to Subvert the Constitution and Build an Imperial Presidency by Ken Blackwell
- Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies by Michelle Malkin
- Why Obama’s Government Takeover of Health Care Will Be a Disaster by David Gratzer
- To Save America: Stopping Obama’s Secular-Socialist Machine by Newt Gingrich
- Obama’s Radical Transformation of America: Year One by Joshua Muravchik
- How the Obama Administration Threatens to Undermine Our Elections by John Fund
- Power Grab: How Obama’s Green Policicies Will Steal Your Freedom and Bankrupt America by Christopher C. Horner
- The Bad Science and Bad Policy of Obama’s Global Warning Agenda by Roy W. Spencer
- America’s March to Socialism: Why We’re One Step Closer to Giant Missile Parades by Glenn Beck
- Obama’s Betrayal of Israel by Michael Ledeen
- The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality by Jerome R. Corsi
- The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media’s Favorite Candidate by David Freddoso
- Censorship: The Threat to Silence Talk Radio by Brian Jennings
- The War On Success: How the Obama Agenda Is Shattering the American Dream by Tommy Newberry
- Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them by Steven Milloy
- Liberalism is a Mental Disorder: Savage Solutions by Michael Savage
- Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism by Ann Coulter
- How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must): The World According to Ann Coulter by Ann Coulter
- Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right by Ann Coulter
- If Democrats Had Any Brains, They’d Be Republicans by Ann Coulter
- Guilty: Liberal “Victims” and Their Assault on America by Ann Coulter
- Catastrophe: How Obama, Congress and the Special Interests Are Transforming…a Slump into a Crash, Freedom Into Socialism and a Disaster into a Catastrophe….And How to Fight Back by Dick Morris
Consider the vocabulary Right-wingers use to describe their political adversaries:
“Liberals,” “radicals, “bankrupting,” “treason,” subversion,” “slander,” “terrorism,” “betrayal,” “catastrophe,” “shattering the American dream,” “leftists,” “Communists,” “government takeover,” “socialism,” “power grab,” “secularism,” “environmentalism.”
And while the Right lusts to constantly compare Obama to Adolf Hitler, its propaganda campaign draws heavily on the Nazi leader’s own advice.
In Mein Kampf, Hitler laid out his formula for successful propaganda: “All effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials.
“Those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotypical formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward.”
Among the lies most “persistently repeated” by Republicans about Obama:
Obama isn’t an American citizen. The reason: To “prove” that he is an illegitimate President, and should be removed from office.
Even the President’s releasing of the long-form version of his birth certificate in 2011–showing that he was born in Hawaii, not Kenya–didn’t end these falsehoods.
The long-form version of President Obama’s birth certificate
Oaama is a secret Muslim who intends to betray America to his Islamic masters.
In fact, Obama has eliminated far more Al Qaeda leaders than George W. Bush ever did–including the most sought-after one of all: Osama bin Laden.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on May 13, 2016 at 12:11 am
“The Republican Party has weaponized its supporters, made violence a virtue and, with almost every pronouncement for 50 years, given them an enemy politicized, racialized and indivisible.”
So wrote Rolling Stone writer in a blistering June 19, 2015 editorial. The touchstone was the slaughter of nine black worshipers by a white supremacist at a South Carolina black church.
But the proof of Republican culpability in political violence goes back much further.
Consider:
Gabrille Giffords, 40, is a moderate Democrat who narrowly wins re-election in November, 2010, against a Republican Tea Party candidate.
Her support of President Obama’s health care reform law has made her a target for violent rhetoric–-especially from former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.
In March, 2010, Palin releases a map featuring 20 House Democrats that uses cross-hairs images to show their districts. In case her supporters don’t get the message, she later writes on Twitter: “Don’t Retreat, Instead – RELOAD!”
Sarah Palin’s “Crosshairs” Map
As the campaign continues, Giffords finds her Tucson office vandalized after the House passes the healthcare overhaul in March.
Giffords senses that she has become a target for removal–in more than political terms. In an interview after the vandalizing of her office, she refers to the animosity against her by conservatives.
She specifically cites Palin’s decision to list her seat as one of the top “targets” in the midterm elections.
“For example, we’re on Sarah Palin’s targeted list, but the thing is, that the way that she has it depicted has the cross-hairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they have to realize that there are consequences to that action,” Giffords tells MSNBC.
At one of her rallies, her aides call the police after an attendee drops a gun.
Giffords may have seen the spectre of violence closing in on her. In April, 2010, she supported Rep. Raúl Grijalva after he had to close two offices when he and his staff received threats.
He had called for a boycott of Arizona businesses in opposition to the state’s controversial immigration law.
“I am deeply troubled about reports that Congressman Grijalva and members of his staff have been subjected to death threats,” Giffords said.
“This is not how we, as Americans, express our political differences. Intimidation has no place in our representative democracy. Such acts only make it more difficult for us to resolve our differences.”
But intimidation–-and worse–-does have a place among the tactics used by influential Republicans in the pursuit of absolute power.
Increasingly, Republicans have repeatedly aimed violent–-and violence-arousing–-rhetoric at their Democratic opponents. This is not a case of careless language that is simply misinterpreted, with tragic results.
Republicans like Sarah Palin fully understand the constituency they are trying to reach: Those masses of alienated, uneducated Americans who live only for their guns and hardline religious beliefs–and who can be easily manipulated by perceived threats to either.
If a “nutcases” assaults a Democratic politician and misses, then the Republican establishment claims to be shocked–-shocked!–-that such a thing could have happened.
And if the attempt proves successful–-as the January 8, 2011 Tucson shootings did–-then Republicans weep crocodile tears for public consumption.
The difference is that, in this case, they rejoice in knowing that Democratic ranks have been thinned and their opponents are even more on the defensive, for fear of the same happening to them.
Consider the following:
- Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-Tex.) yelled “baby killer” at Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) on the House floor.
- Florida GOP Congressional candidate Allen West, referring to his Democratic opponent, Rep. Ron Klein, told Tea Party activists: You’ve got to make the fellow scared to come out of his house. That’s the only way that you’re going to win. That’s the only way you’re going to get these people’s attention.”
- Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) said Tea Partiers had “every right” to use racist and homophobic slurs against Democrats, justifying it via Democrats’ “totalitarian tactics.”
- Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.) said she wanted her constituents “armed and dangerous” against the Obama administration.
- Sarah Palin told her supporters: “Get in their face and argue with them. No matter how tough it gets, never retreat, instead RELOAD!”
- Right-wing pundit Ann Coulter: “My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times building.”
- Senator Phil Gramm (R-Tex.) “We’re going to keep building the party until we’re hunting Democrats with dogs.”
- Rep. Louisa M. Slauter (D-NY) received a phone message threatening sniper attacks against lawmakers and their families.
Since the end of World War 11, Republicans have regularly hurled the charge of “treason” against anyone who dared to run against them for office or think other than Republican-sponsored thoughts.
Republicans had been locked out of the White House from 1933 to 1952, during the administrations of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman.
Determined to regain the Presidency by any means, they found that attacking the integrity of their fellow Americans a highly effective tactic.
During the 1950s, Wisconsin Senator Joseph R. McCarthy rode a wave of paranoia to national prominence–by attacking the patriotism of anyone who disagreed with him.
The fact that McCarthy never uncovered one actual case of treason was conveniently overlooked during his lifetiAL me.
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BULLIES AND COWARDS: PART ONE (OF TWO)
In History, Politics, Social commentary on November 29, 2017 at 12:36 pmA major reason for Donald Trump’s appeal during the 2016 Presidential campaign was: “He’s not like other politicians.”
And he wasn’t.
The vast majority of politicians adhere to an unwritten rule: Even when you criticize another politician, you do so in a reasonably dignified manner.
Trump threw that rule—along with many others—out the window. In its place, he gave his opponents—Republican and Democrat—a series of disparaging nicknames.
And, as President, he has continued to do so.
His main sources of public defamation have been Twitter and the speeches he makes. Among the insulting nicknames have included:
Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks appear every Friday on the PBS Newshour to review the week’s major political events.
On May 27, 2016, Shields—a liberal, and Brooks, a conservative—reached some disturbingly similar conclusions about the character of Republican Presidential front-runner Donald Trump.
David Brooks and Mark Shields
MARK SHIELDS: “Donald Trump gratuitously slandered Ted Cruz’s wife. He libeled Ted Cruz’s father for being potentially part of Lee Harvey Oswald’s assassination of the president of the United States, suggesting that he was somehow a fellow traveler in that.
“This is a libel. You don’t get over it….
“…I think this man may be addicted to the roar of the grease paint and the sound of the crowd, or however it goes, smell of the crowd.”
Donald Trump
DAVID BROOKS: “Trump, for all his moral flaws, is a marketing genius. And you look at what he does. He just picks a word and he attaches it to a person. Little Marco [Rubio], Lyin’ Ted [Cruz], Crooked Hillary [Clinton].
“And that’s a word. And that’s how marketing works. It’s a simple, blunt message, but it gets under.
“It sticks, and it diminishes. And so it has been super effective for him, because he knows how to do that. And she [Hillary Clinton] just comes with, ‘Oh, he’s divisive.’
“These are words that are not exciting people. And her campaign style has gotten, if anything…a little more stagnant and more flat.”
Only one opponent—who was not a Presidential candidate—managed to stand up to Trump: Massachusetts U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren. Whenever Trump attacks her, Warren strikes back—sometimes even more harshly.
As Mark Shields noted:
“Elizabeth Warren gets under Donald Trump’s skin. And I think she’s been the most effective adversary. I think she’s done more to unite the Democratic party than either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.”
From June 15, 2015, when he launched his Presidential campaign, until October 24, 2016, Trump used Twitter to fire almost 4,000 angry, insulting tweets at 281 people and institutions that had somehow offended him.
Warren has dared to do what no other Democrat—or Republican—has: Attack Trump head-on, with the kind of blunt, insulting language he has lavished on his opponents.
Among the jabs she has thrown at him on Twitter:
Nor is Twitter her only weapon.
On March 31, Warren appeared on The Late Show, with Stephen Colbert. Her take on the egotistical billionaire:
“Donald Trump is looking out for exactly one guy, and that guy’s name is Donald Trump. He smells that there’s change in the air and what he wants to do is make sure that that change works really, really well for Donald Trump.
“The truth is, he inherited a fortune from his father, he kept it going by cheating and defrauding people, and then he takes his creditors through Chapter 11.”
When Colbert said that Trump had never broken the law, Warren replied that he had never broken the law “and been caught.”
For David Brooks, Warren’s tactics prove a depressing, lose/lose situation:
“And so the tactics…is either you do what Elizabeth Warren has done, like full-bore negativity, that kind of [get] under the skin, or try to ridicule him and use humor. Humor is not Hillary Clinton’s strongest point.”
As a whole, Democrats have shown themselves indifferent to or ignorant of the power of effective language.
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