Matt Taibbi: How America Made Donald Trump Unstoppable

[kpete]

He's no ordinary con man. He's way above average — and the American political system is his easiest mark ever

By Matt Taibbi February 24, 2016

You think the media sucks now?
Just wait until reporters have to kiss a brass Trump-sphinx before they enter the White House press room.



Trump isn't the first rich guy to run for office. But he is the first to realize the weakness in the system, which is that the watchdogs in the political media can't resist a car wreck


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The problem, of course, is that Trump is crazy. He's like every other corporate tyrant in that his solution to most things follows the logic of Stalin: no person, no problem. You're fired! Except as president he'd have other people-removing options, all of which he likes: torture, mass deportations, the banning of 23 percent of the Earth's population from entering the United States, etc.

He seems to be coming around to the idea that having an ego smaller than that of, say, an Egyptian Pharaoh would be a sign of weakness. So of late, his already-insane idea to build a "beautiful" wall across the Mexican border has evolved to the point where he also wants the wall to be named after him. He told Maria Bartiromo he wanted to call it the "Great Wall of Trump."

In his mind, it all makes sense. Drugs come from Mexico; the wall will keep out Mexicans; therefore, no more drugs. "We're gonna stop it," he says. "You're not going to have the drugs coming in destroying your children. Your kids are going to look all over the place and they're not going to be able to find them."

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And as bad as our media is, Trump is trying to replace it with a worse model. He excommunicates every reporter who so much as raises an eyebrow at his insanity, leaving him with a small-but-dependable crowd of groveling supplicants who in a Trump presidency would be the royal media. He even waves at them during his speeches.



Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-america-made-donald-trump-unstoppable-20160224#ixzz418n61hKu
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[Warren DeMontague]

1. Elements of the "left" have made us vulnerable to someone who is "refreshingly un-pc"

Im talking about the people who hand-wave away the shootings of cartoonists because the true "outrage" is that the 1st amendment allows "blasphemous" cartoons.

The sanctimonious censorship-happy yubnubs who compare a woman choosing to wear a sexy bathing suit on a magazine cover to a woman being forced to wear a burqa, etc.




I could have told you this was coming. In fact, I did.

[Marr]

2. That's surely a part of it, but personally I think it's more to do with our

political and economic systems slowly ceasing to even bother pretending to serve the public interest.

They don't even dress it up anymore-- haven't for at least 16 years now. The whole system, starting with Wall Street, regularly gives the average citizen the finger and says, 'what are you gonna do about it?'. People are sick of the whole unconvincing, transparently corrupt game, and are willing to support anyone they perceive to be outside of the establishment. Trump and Sanders are both, in a weird way, products of the same public disillusion.

[Warren DeMontague]

4. Yeah, people are fed up. No question.

I mean, look at the GOP- a prime example. Obviously I have deep philosophical disagreements with the entire party, but they've got an establishment that has systematically sort of humored them and pretended to care about immigration, for instance, all the while the big business money people at the top are perfectly happy to have this limitless pool of marginalized, undocumented workers they can pay sub-min wage, staying in the shadows with this highly profitable status quo.

Well the rank and file eventually figure out they're being had, and not listened to, and someone like Trump comes along with "Immigration!" and the party boo-bahs go "but but but", and the people eat it up.

[Angel Martin]

6. Democrats have forgotten the basics

of being a party which represents blue collar workers as part of their coalition.

I'm old enough to remember when Democrats supported plant closing legislation. It wasn't much, but it represented an effort to try and do something.

Now, they don't even go thru the motions.

The only one who has made a big fuss about the Carrier, Ford and Nabisco plants moving to Mexico is Trump.

[Wounded Bear]

3. Long but good...

Typical Matt Taibbi.

[Initech]

5. Well reporters are stupid losers.

When you elect me Donald Trump as your lord and saviour I will take care of the so called liberal media once and for all! We will make American media great again!