The Media totally let Hillary down this election. In 2012, they had no problem at all smearing Mitt Romney — by all accounts, a good and decent man with a successful record in business and Government — as a dog torturer who gave a poor gay kid a bad haircut and a woman cancer. Oh, and did you hear about how he wants to outlaw tampons… well, of course, that was a satirical website, but it certainly sounds like something he would do, doesn’t it?
Smearing Trump should have been an easy lay-up for them, and, boy, they sure did try, didn’t they? They brought out the Latin Beauty queen who (oh, what a horrible man) said Trump thought she needed to lose weight and ignored her involvement in organized crime. When screechy feminist Gloria Allred brought out her parade of women who had been “abused” by Trump thirty years ago, but only suddenly remembered the “abuse” when Hillary was running for president, the media was there. And when attacking Trump didn’t work, the media attacked his supporters. “What a bunch of ignorant, white, racist, stupid hicks.” (Because, surely, no respectable person would support the same candidate as those ignorant white racist stupid hicks.)
And this time, it didn’t work out so well for them.
In a few isolated patches of the Democrat Media Complex, a few are starting to wonder if maybe they are going about this the wrong way.
You’d think that Trump’s victory – the one we all discounted too far in advance – would lead to a certain newfound humility in the political press. But of course that’s not how it works. To us, speaking broadly, our diagnosis was still basically correct. The demons were just stronger than we realized.
This is all a “whitelash,” you see. Trump voters are racist and sexist, so there must be more racists and sexists than we realized. Tuesday night’s outcome was not a logic-driven rejection of a deeply flawed candidate named Clinton; no, it was a primal scream against fairness, equality, and progress. Let the new tantrums commence!
That’s the fantasy, the idea that if we mock them enough, call them racist enough, they’ll eventually shut up and get in line. It’s similar to how media Twitter works, a system where people who dissent from the proper framing of a story are attacked by mobs of smugly incredulous pundits. Journalists exist primarily in a world where people can get shouted down and disappear, which informs our attitudes toward all disagreement.
What’s worse, we don’t make much of an effort to really understand, and with too few exceptions, treat the economic grievances of Middle America like they’re some sort of punchline. Sometimes quite literally so, such as when reporters tweet out a photo of racist-looking Trump supporters and jokingly suggest that they must be upset about free trade or low wages.
We have to fix this, and the broken reasoning behind it. There’s a fleeting fun to gang-ups and groupthink. But it’s not worth what we are losing in the process.
The whole piece is worth reading.
Good one.
A long-time Republican friend on FB posted this link about the horrifying tidal wave of racist and misogynist violence and vandalism committed by Trump supporters, and we had an utterly delightful time playing “Spot the Hoaxes and/or Insurance Scams.” (Or rather, to save time, “Spot the Ones That Have a Tiny Quantum of Plausibility.”)
I also remarked to her, “Did you ever read Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack?” (“No, but I remember the ABC After School Special!”)
(Dinky Hocker was NOT actually a heroin user, and painted the graffiti herself as a hoaxed cry for help.)
By the way: It’s funny, what a difference winning makes.
100,000 more votes for Hillary, and she would have won. And EVERYTHING we’re saying about how the political elite scorn the peasants, would still be true. Except the elite wouldn’t care. There would be no soul searching.
The contract implied in democracy (and/or the U.S. constitution) is that:
– There must be periodic elections with official vote counts.
– Come hell or high water, the political elite must respect the counts. (Even if they can do a lot to manipulate them.)
This year, for once, the peasants were able to rebuke the political elite. So they have to care, all the sudden. A little. For awhile.
Like, “Oh look, maybe we *are* out of touch with the peasants?”
And in the event that Hillary had won in the Electoral College but Trump had squeaked by in the popular vote, how many on the left would be denouncing our horribly outdated system?
Managing and winning the Electoral College is like playing chess. Over confidence can lead to a stunning defeat.
I agree with this, if there is any silver lining. And, while it may never happen, I hope it’s possible that liberal elites will reevaluate how they employ their progressive ideals in the context of the common person, and question their own snobbery.
One of the best films of the year.
Yet, Trump would be at the front of the denouncing the EC like he did four years ago.
Hillary, on the other hand, is saying nothing about the EC. She has accepted the results. Trump wouldn’t have. When Romney lost, he called it a disaster.