I could feel Donald Trump’s frustration from thousands of miles away. I’d been there. In the course of a campaign for president, you say something that isn’t as clear as it could be. The political class calls statements like this “inartful” for some reason. You know what you meant. It’s easy enough to explain it.
But it doesn’t matter, because the media caught you in a trap, and now they’re going into days or weeks of histrionics over a completely absurd interpretation of something you said – an inference that anyone with a brain knows you didn’t intend. But it doesn’t matter.
Suggesting that “the Second Amendment people” might have a way or protecting their own rights hardly sounds like anything objectionable to me, but to people with an agenda and an imagination, it quickly became “Trump calls for Hillary’s assassination.”
What?
What?
How does anyone get that out of that?
But you know the answer. They got it because they wanted to. The media are in full attack mode against Donald Trump. They listen to every word he says in search of the slightest opportunity to twist or contort something into a controversy. I know a lot of Republican strategists are upset with Trump because they think he keeps stepping in it. But I don’t think he has a chance not to when the game is rigged like this. The very same media who complain when politicians’ words are “carefully scripted” are proving the reason this is so often the case. Look what they do when a politician becomes the slightest bit spontaneous.
They pounce.
And consider what happened – or I should say didn’t happen – in response to something Hillary said last week. As we reported here, she declared loudly in that cackling monotone of hers that “we will raise taxes on the middle class!” What a gaffe! Wow, she really stepped in it! What a blunder! Surely the media will pounce and hound her for this, talking about it 24/7, and . . . oh. They didn’t? Nope. Aside from a few conservative sites like this one, total silence.
Why? Well, came the explanation, she obviously just misspoke and meant to say something else. Thus, there is no story.
Consider the different standards that are being applied here. On the one hand, Trump says something that in no way suggests violence should be committed. Not only that, but he very clearly offered a subsequent clarification that left no doubt about that. Yet the media hyperventilated for days with the assertion that he really did mean to provoke violence, even though that’s not in any way clear from his words, and his clarification leaves no room for any doubt.
Hillary, by contrast, didn’t just say something that could be creatively interpreted as a call to raise taxes on the middle class. She said – exact words – “We will raise taxes on the middle class.”
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But there’s no story because the media just assume she didn’t mean what she clearly and unmistakably said.
That’s how they’ve rigged the game. No matter what Trump says, they will twist it to make him sound like a monster. No matter what Hillary says, they will either ignore it or make it sound innocuous. This is how the media are trying to make sure Hillary wins.
So yes, Trump is right. But here’s what he needs to understand: He can’t let this turn into an excuse for losing. He has to win anyway. Every Republican nominee for president has to deal with this. Whether it’s Mitt Romney, John McCain, George W. Bush or anyone else, the media always try to turn the Republican nominee into some sort of insane lunatic moron fool. Trump’s bombastic style gives them more material to work with than some of his predecessors, but the problem would be there regardless.
Trump has to overcome it. Defeating Hillary is too important. He can’t just throw up his hands and say that the game is rigged and there’s nothing he can do. If the media are going to serve as de facto campaign surrogates for Hillary, then Trump has to go to war with them every bit as much as he does with her. And he has to win that war.
How do you do that when they control the narrative? I know it’s not easy. They can pound away all day long with their lies and bogus storylines. But the public recognizes how ridiculous the media have become, and it’s not difficult to demonstrate how they lie and mislead their readers and viewers.
I’m not saying the whole campaign should be a war against the media. But from the beginning, Trump has succeeded by taking on the entire political/media complex that lies to the American public as a matter of course. Just as they lie about the things he says, they also lie about the state of the economy, the failures of ObamaCare and many other things. Save for Fox News and a very few others, they’re all in on it, and they’re all misleading the American people.
Somehow, Trump has to make the public understand that: Look, I may not be the smoothest political operator, but I’m telling you the truth about the problems we face and I’m going to fix them. None of them will give you the truth.
People can understand that, and they will believe it if he makes his case well enough. He’d better. Hillary Clinton with the power of the presidency is too horrible to imagine. And if the media are determined to help her get that power, then they’re every bit the enemy she is. They all need to be taken down together.
Yes. The game is rigged. Win anyway. There is no other choice.
I could feel Donald Trump’s frustration from thousands of miles away. I’d been there. In the course of a campaign for president, you say something that isn’t as clear as it could be. The political class calls statements like this “inartful” for some reason. You know what you meant. It’s easy enough to explain it.
But it doesn’t matter, because the media caught you in a trap, and now they’re going into days or weeks of histrionics over a completely absurd interpretation of something you said – an inference that anyone with a brain knows you didn’t intend. But it doesn’t matter.
Suggesting that “the Second Amendment people” might have a way or protecting their own rights hardly sounds like anything objectionable to me, but to people with an agenda and an imagination, it quickly became “Trump calls for Hillary’s assassination.”
