Posted on 03/29/2016 2:21:34 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Plenty of buzz about this last night, especially among anti-Trumpers struck by the coincidence of Trump superfan Newt criticizing him publicly on the same day that an even bigger superfan, Ann Coulter, called Trump “mental” in an interview. (Matt Drudge, yet another superfan, is leading as I write this with the news of Trump’s campaign manager being arrested for battery.) Are Trump’s cheerleaders heading for the lifeboats because they know something we don’t?
Nah. They’re still onboard, they’re just alarmed that the captain won’t steer away from that iceberg that keeps getting closer. Trump’s fans within the commentariat have, I think, convinced themselves that his boorishness is strategic, something he can turn on and off at will to command the media. It’s served him well but now, facing a de facto head to head race with Cruz, he should be sealing the deal by shifting to a more low-key “presidential” approach. Reassure Republican undecideds in the remaining primaries that you’re up to the job. Impress delegates at the convention that you won’t be a loose cannon as nominee. Attract swing voters in the general election by demonstrating that the vulgar, street-fighting Trump of the primaries was a persona adopted for electoral advantage, one that will be discarded to defeat a new opponent in Hillary Clinton. I think it’s dawning on Newt (and Coulter in the other clip) that maybe the boorishness isn’t strategic. Maybe it’s who Trump is. Maybe he can’t resist attacking Heidi Cruz, no matter how obviously stupid that is, because he’s spent his life being rewarded for boorish aggressiveness that supposedly proves his alpha-male dominance. What you’re seeing, in other words, is Gingrich contemplating possibly for the first time that Trump’s campaign really might turn into a dumpster fire in November because he’s too indisciplined and too much of an egomaniac to fiddle with a dangerous approach that’s worked for him in other contexts. Ben Domenech’s got it right:
At exactly the moment Trump ought to be transforming himself into a unifying figure, he is ensuring that is all the more difficult by stooping to baseless personal attacks and driving down his numbers among Republican women and social conservatives. In failing to recognize the importance of delegates and in engaging in these unnecessary personal attacks, Trump decreases his potential to win the nomination on the first ballot. If Trump is actually beaten because of these decisions it shows he’s not ready to lead a party anyway…
Coulter is a lot of things, but she’s no dummy. She understands that by politicizing Heidi Cruz’s depression and her appearance, Trump is hurting his ability to ever receive the support of a growing portion of Republican women, particularly social conservatives and evangelicals.
Until very recently, Cruz said repeatedly that he’d honor his pledge this fall to support the GOP nominee. Lately he’s stopped because, uh, how could he not when Trump’s taking shots at his wife? That’s a microcosm of how a presumptive nominee is throwing away support he desperately needs to win in November. Why can’t Trump lay off when even his own fans are telling him he’s making a mistake? David Brooks has a theory:
Trump’s misogyny, on the other hand, has a commercial flavor. The central arena of life is male competition. Women are objects men use to win points in that competition. The purpose of a woman’s body is to reflect status on a man. One way to emasculate a rival man is to insult or conquer his woman…
It’s not quite right to say that Trump is a throwback to midcentury sexism. At least in those days negative behavior toward women and family members was restrained by the chivalry code. Political candidates didn’t go attacking their rivals’ wives based on their looks. Trump’s objectification is uncontrolled. It’s pure ego competition with a pornogrified flavor.
In this way, Trump represents the spread of something brutal. He takes economic anxiety and turns it into sexual hostility. He effectively tells men: You may be struggling, but at least you’re better than women, Mexicans and Muslims.
And he’ll take that credo into battle against the would-be first woman president. The question unasked of Newt and Coulter is why they didn’t expect Trump to eventually take a cheap shot at Cruz’s wife given the sort of attitude Brooks describes, which Trump has harbored for decades. Why is there a note of frustration in backing (or all but backing, in Newt’s case) a guy who’s had this priced into his stock all along? It’s like watching a Cruz fan get exasperated that he keeps talking about faith and religious liberty. That’s who he is; if you don’t like it, you’re backing the wrong candidate. And it’s a lead-pipe cinch that this is who Trump will continue to be: If he’s the nominee, the odds that he won’t eventually attack Hillary Clinton in some sexist manner during the general election campaign are basically zero. Obama famously said in one of his books that the Hopenchange phenomenon was due in part to his fans projecting their own personal ideals onto him, as a blank slate. But there’s a weird, surprising element of that too with Trump, who should be the opposite of a blank slate after 40 years in the public eye. He is who he is, which is who he’s always been, yet here are Newt and Ann discovering nine months into his campaign that the nasty attacks on Twitter aren’t just some media kabuki he’s performing to dominate the morning chat shows and impress his savvier acolytes within the political class. It just may be that he really is temperamentally unfit for office.
(VIDEO-AT-LINK)
I have to say, this stuff gets old. Its Noise Machine stuff.
If you like a candidate, you aren’t required to approve of every last thing that comes out of his mouth, or every last thing one of his supporters says or does. Thank goodness, exhibit most of the threads here... among friends. :)
If a candidate does or says something tone deaf or stupid, you aren’t required to drop him like a hot rock and immediately take up with the other guy, who is guaranteed at some point to do or say something annoying too.
We are fortunate that most all the squishes have left the field and the two front runners are the two best men for the job out of the whole pack. Very fortunate. At various times of the day they both annoy me, but we are going to be so glad its one of these two and not one of the squishes, and not Bernie or Hillary.
I am very optimistic. And when it comes to politics, I don’t usually do optimism.
GIVE IT AREST!
Just go away.
Please.
At least he didn’t contribute to her campaign.
If you had made the statement, I would agree with you, totally... Meaningless.
Trump needs to cool it. I intend, as a solid supporter, to write an editorial with that as the thesis.
Trump lying again....NY values on display.
Trump and his NY thugs attacking women again.
Sissy cowards from NY.
Mid December perhaps?
Amazing how easily we all can be fooled, in the tiny minds of the dishonest.
T.Rump’s actions are often “utterly stupid”. That could be because T. Rump is “utterly stupid”.
Do you have proof of it???
And since you are a man of principle, then you cannot vote for Trump since he cheated on his wife and kids also, right???
And since you seem to be unaware of all the things that I posted that Trump has done, I get it that you don't know what the "hell" I am talking about.
Please don't vote...Your ignorance is not bliss for the conservative movement...
LOL!
'Tis a pity that most recent cars no longer have real bumpers, Eh?
Making the front half of new cars the bumper was considered a technical breakthrough, by the morons in the federal bureaucracy...
I find it ironic that so many of Trump's supporters are thrilled when Trump is brutally honest about others but so upset when others are brutally honest about Trump.
When the others are GOPEs, what do you expect?
Right on schedule: Gingrich! Coulter! Drudge! Under the Trump bus, now!
How dare you do anything but ADORE "The Donald"?!?
Your services are no longer needed.
Cruz didn't post it and you know he didn't post it, yet you still push the lie hoping that your fellow Trump supporters are stupid enough to believe it.
What a bunch of dishonest, lying Trump supporters we have on this website.
Brandon received the email this morning from SarahPAC.
I see you’re still lying.
It's gotten pretty darn funny if you ask me.
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