All of America is wondering how it is possible that Donald Trump is even in the Presidential race at all, and incredulous that the campaigns are neck and neck according to some polls. I’m astounded that no one else sees his strategy, but here it is: he won the Republican nomination by “sucking the air out of the room” — He was loud, aggressive, obnoxious, and offensive, but he was news. Two hour debates, ten people, and what do we remember? We remember the controversy over his penis size. Carly Fiorina couldn’t even talk about the size of her penis — she was excluded. One down, nine to go… Rubio at least got press coverage out of the deal by being just as outrageous. What did others say? No one remembers. Why? Because Trump got all the coverage. Did they have policies? I don’t know. Did they have plans? I don’t know. Did they give it a lot of thought? I assume so, but I’ll never know, because we talked about Trump’s penis and how outrageous he was.
This is Trump’s strategy: Be outrageous, attract attention away from everyone else’s very existence. Today’s Huffington Post front page is an example. Trump has at least 20 articles about him. Hillary in the headline? 4 times. That means Trump gets 5 times the press coverage that Clinton gets. All the ad money in the world isn’t going to beat that.
Trump has a narrative in the press, Hillary doesn’t. A few shots about emails every once in a while and her narrative is this: Nothing… then corrupt.
Don’t buy the idea that the media is involved in his fall. They are the reason he has succeeded. If the media really wanted to defeat Trump, here’s how they’d do it: they’d only cover Trump when he made a policy speech, or only when he said something rational or intelligent (i.e. like a Presidential candidate should). I assume Hillary is doing that or Tom Kane (is that even his name? I don’t remember) is running around giving speeches every day. Perhaps she’s sitting in a room thinking up policies, or shaking hands, or whatever it is candidates do. We don’t know.
I’m not sure what Hillary’s speeches are about. I don’t know about economic plans or energy plans or military strategy or … much of anything. I assume she’s doing things every day but she speaks into a vacuum.It was a winning strategy the first time. it may be a game winning strategy again. The only problem is that this isn’t a game. It’s our lives.
We need to stop giving him attention unless he acts like a statesman. We need to give Hillary attention for being a stateswoman, if that’s what we expect of a President. I sure hope it is.
Peace,
John
Like It Matters 
John, you started your post on a false note: All of America is wondering how it is possible that Donald Trump is even the Presidential race. You then course corrected by saying the race was neck and neck. The second comment counters the first. If the race is neck and neck then about half of America doesn’t wonder why he is there in the first place. Now, given the other republicans on the stage, I can certainly question why he is in the race at all as I think there were many other more worthy candidates on that stage that should be the candidate.
But here’s the thing, we can’t pretend that democrats or the media would be treating any republican with any less than the disdain than they do Trump. And THAT amongst other things I think is what is empowering Trump supporters. They are tired of being the medias whipping boy and liberals are hating that the republican candidate doesn’t just fold like a deck of cards. It can be solidly argued that Romney lost the last election when he didn’t fight back against a media in full on defense mode of Obama. Romney crushed Obama in the first debate. In the second debate he was doing well until Candy Crowley FALSELY fact checked him on Benghazi during a debate and after that he sort of deflated.
But here’s the larger issue that I think you miss. You are doing the exact same thing of which you tend to accuse Trump supporters. You say, how can they support him when he says all of these outrageous things? Meanwhile, Trump supporters are saying “How can you support Hillary when she has DONE all these outrageous things”. To name just a few…it doesn’t matter if the email server and the confidential material was illegal…she lied about it endlessly to the voters until she repeatedly was caught in those lies. 4 families said she lied right to their faces about the relationship of the video and Benghazi (Why would those 4 families lie about that?) She was against Gay Marriage before it was politically expedient to be for it. She voted for the Iraq war when she had access to ALL the intelligence. Her State Department is largely responsible for our ugly relationships with Russia, what is going on in Syria and Libya which gave rise to ISIS. She once called black people “Super Predators” and at least 3 woman have said that when they accused Bill Clinton of rape or sexual misconduct, that Hillary essentially threatened them if they pursued the matter. Oh, and BTW, she might be the biggest Wall Street inside candidate EVER. Remember, Trumps in Real Estate, not trading on Wall Street.
She is an eloquent speaker and plays to your liberal sensibilities (although she only seems to do that when it will benefit her or bring more power her way)
So, maybe the question should be All of America is wondering how Hillary Clinton is even in the Presidential race? I will likely not be voting the top of the ticket this time as the candidates are both awful, but I certainly know why Trump exists and it is not even remotely in the same realm as to why the left believes it to be so.
Regards,
Sean
Sean:
“Don’t tell me what to do” is the motto of a 10 year old, and shouldn’t be the motto of adults. Fox News has huge popularity, so you can’t be saying “media” and meaning all media.
As you know, I would have *gladly* voted for Bernie, so I’m not thrilled with Hillary, either. Still, if my choices boil down to “flawed” vs. a man who *promises* the end of civil liberties and thus the end of civilized America, I’m going to vote for flawed every time.
The point of the piece is that the way media determines what’s important (if it bleeds, it leads) got us here and leadership requires something else.
Granted the opening lines are confusing, but “at least he’s not Hillary” isn’t a reason to vote for the Republican Candidate.
At least she’s not Trump is not a reason to vote for the democrat either John. That’s my point. Trump has said some outrageous things…Hillary has both said and DONE some outrageous things.
As to all media; Fox News is popular for a cable network…It is dwarfed by ABC, NBC, CBS, BBC, CNN, MSNBC, and the NYT. The left has cornered the market on what the public sees as news.
CNN has been caught just in the last week outright lying about Trump saying he said he is for more Racial profiling. There is a very large difference between profiling, which is done by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies all the time, and RACIAL profiling. If the FBI is hunting a serial killer for example, the extreme likelihood is that it will be a white male. So, in most cases they aren’t going to be looking for a black female. The word racial was never uttered and yet that is what they said he said. In another story, they outright omitted the word “bombing” from Hillary’s statement so they could chastise Trump for jumping to the conclusion that it was a bomb in New York. So Hillary says the exact same thing that he does and yet it gets covered completely differently as if he jumped to conclusions.
You disagree with Fox News (which BTW is only right leaning in their opinion section i.e. Bill O’Reilly, Hannity etc), but CNN is caught outright fabricating a story (this is roughly the 10th time in the last couple of years) and yet Fox News is the dishonest network? Fox News is the lone conservative network. Sorry that the left has to put up with one opposing viewpoint.
Now, I agree that Media is all about the soundbytes, and largely did get us into this mess on both sides of the aisle. They have been for years. BTW, that also is an indictment on CNN since they were the first 24×7 news network. The other night I was watching CNN, and every 5 minutes the story was about Brad and Angelina getting divorced…it’s pathetic.
This is actually my biggest gripe in politics. The media sets the agenda.