Fox News’ summer of discontent: Donald Trump, the Confederate flag and the right’s brewing electoral

[DonViejo]

Fox News’ summer of discontent: Donald Trump, the Confederate flag and the right’s brewing electoral nightmare

The right's ugliest elements are stepping out of the shadows, and conservatives have only themselves to blame

ERIC BOEHLERT, MEDIA MATTERS

At the 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner, guest performer Seth Meyers joked that he was surprised presidential hopeful Donald Trump was thinking about running as a Republican since Meyers just assumed Trump “was running as a joke.”

The dead-on punch line, which created a small tidal wave of laughs, gasps and “ooh’s” inside the Hilton ballroom that night, landed like a stake though the blustery billionaire’s ego. (C-SPAN cameras captured Trump looking perturbed after the barb, which only added to the toll.) Meyers’ put-down perfectly captured the absurdity of Trump’s grandiose desires. And sure enough, he opted out of running and largely faded into the political background.

But fast-forward four years and Trump and his divisive brand of nativist, right-wing rants have risen from the political dead to capture the spotlight. Basking in mounting headlines less than one month before the first Republican debate, where Trump and his bombastic immigrant bashing is almost sure to dominate the news cycle, the Republican brand-maker has created massive headaches for the GOP.

And note that the emerging Trumpmentum unfurled itself at the same time Republicans have struggled during the national debate about the Confederate flag, coming in the wake of its association with the alleged killer in last month’s South Carolina shooting rampage in an historical black church.

Indeed, the front page of the New York Times last Friday featured two articles detailing a pair of mini crises Republican leaders were forced to grapple with: Trump’s troubling rise in the polls, and the messy debate that broke out in the House of Representatives when Republicans at the last minute tried to introduce an amendment to protect the Confederate flag in national cemeteries, only to then withdraw the controversial measure. A “fiasco,” is how the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank described the GOP’s confederate flag two-step; the Times tagged it “an embarrassment.”

more
http://www.salon.com/2015/07/14/fox_news_summer_of_discontent_donald_trump_the_confederate_flag_and_the_rights_brewing_electoral_nightmare_partner/