Saturday, August 06, 2016

A Successful Con Man



Donald Trump's behaviour last weak appeared to be absolutely insane. Some commentators have taken to calling him the Kamikaze Candidate. But Tom Walkom warns his readers that there is a method to Trump's madness:

The billionaire realtor may be the privileged scion of a wealthy family. But he can win only if he convinces enough disgruntled Americans that he, like them, is an outsider — that he stands aloof from the power elite, that he is not a slave to political correctness and that he tells it like it is.

Up to now he has succeeded by defying the experts, confounding the pundits and doing everything a politician is supposed to avoid.

And so the outrageous behaviour continues. Do the grieving parents of a fallen Muslim soldier challenge him? Then Trump must double down — first by suggesting the wife’s religion forbids her from speaking publicly, second by hinting that Clinton, who brought this couple to public attention, cares only about non-white soldiers.

Does the president of the United States accuse him of being unfit to lead? Are the media on his case? Do his own party’s bigwigs take him to task?

To the self-declared outsider, none of this matters. Indeed, such attacks only prove his point that this election is about Donald Trump versus the elites.

His party is desperately trying to rein him in. But don't expect them to succeed. It's all a con job. But Donald Trump has been a very successful con man. 

Image: businessinsider.com

5 comments:

ottlib said...

Mr. Walkom is bound and determined to give Mr. Trump much more credit than he deserves. He keeps banging that drum.

Or to put it another way he is bound and determined to give the American voters less credit than they deserve.

Yes there is a desire for change in the United States. There is always a desire for change in the US. However, Americans, like Canadians and every other citizen in democratic societies, will only choose the change they believe will not do them any harm.

That is the kind of change Donald Trump has to represent and so far he is failing miserably. He still has three months to get his act together but right now, with each passing day, he is cementing the perception that he is not fit for the Office of the President amongst those all important non-aligned and undecided voters in the US.

Owen Gray said...

I agree, ottlib. Mr. Trump is demonstrably unfit for office. What is deeply troubling, however, is recent research which tracks the rise of authoritarianism among American voters. This is an election which will truly be a battle between their darker angels and the better angels.

Troy said...

It'd be nice, ottlib, were the world a nicer place, whereupon demagoguery never won out, anywhere or anyplace.

But there's examples throughout history, from Julius Caeser to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, of tin-pot tyrants appealing to the worser instincts in all of us, winning out in fair and square elections, and allowed to do as they please, only because they promised change from the status quo. And the current status quo in the USA is, well, basically killing people, slowly but surely. And Trump is promising them change from that.

Now, I don't believe him for a second. He's a con, as Monsieur Gray's already described him. A loudmouth who'll say any damn thing. But, perhaps that's part of the allure to the have-nots in the US who are supporting him. They don't have any other choice. But Trump's offering it, and that's all they have, and they're clinging to it. They'll overlook any scandal, any irregularity, just so they can make this choice, election day.

And liberals and centrists and neo-liberals and neo-conservatives are already patting themselves on the back, saying things such as Trump's done. He's finished. He's said one too many things, by now.

But I just don't know. There's a lot of time between now and election day. And a new scandal's all it will take to brush the current ones under the rug, and Trump'll happily have his name is the papers, "so long as they say something about him, and as long as they spell his name right."

Owen Gray said...

Trump has said that negative publicity is good publicity, Troy. I'm not sure I buy that. But, apparently, Trump does.

Anonymous said...

This fake scandal shows the disconnect between the establishment news media (and their faithful cattle) and what many Americans are actually thinking.

Trump was right that the DNC wrote the speech the Khan patriarch delivered. Khan attacked Trump for the Mexican wall, the Muslim ban -- and opposing free trade. Only DNC weasels would try to throw that in with the soundbite the attack was sure to generate. This just goes to show the TPP is a done deal. Yet another thing Hillary is lying about.

Trump also dared to suggest Khan didn't permit his wife to speak. The establishment news media sounded the red alert over this "outrageous attack on grieving parents" of a soldier killed in a pointless war Hillary supported. Stand down the hysteria and look at what Trump indirectly stated. He's probably right. In any case, Americans sick of establishment media lies will just view this as another empty cry of wolf.

The more hysterical the establishment media gets the more people tune them out. The more hysterical the centrist cattle get the more the establishment media manipulates them with hysteria.

The right-wing cattle believe Trump is an angel and Hillary a devil. The centrist cattle believe Trump is a devil and Hillary an angel. And Jill Stein is like Emmanuel Goldstein telling it like it is in a world of lies.

BTW, all the old-timer PC pearl clutchers better get their physicals. When the real fascist leaders emerge in Europe, I suspect they'll be dropping like flies. The media won't have to put any spin on what they'll say.