Elites are completely hopeless: They still can’t acknowledge the real reason Donald Trump happened

[bemildred]

The media’s mea culpa season is in full bloom this spring as analysts and commentators step forward to concede that with Donald Trump effectively seizing the Republican nomination, they were often very wrong in predicting his political demise.

Convinced that he was an outlier fluke who couldn’t sustain his popularity — let alone nail down a major party nomination — the Beltway media consistently missed the Trump surge for months, and often did so in bold fashion:

*”Why no one should take Donald Trump seriously” (Washington Post)

*“Donald Trump’s surge in the polls has followed the classic pattern of a media-driven surge. Now it will most likely follow the classic pattern of a party-backed decline.” (New York Times)

http://www.salon.com/2016/05/07/elites_are_completely_hopeless_they_still_cant_acknowledge_the_real_reason_donald_trump_won_partner/

[malthaussen]

1. I do consider the appropriation of "elite" significant.

Ya know, that word used to indicate an earned status, not one self-awarded. Frankly, I cringe whenever I see it, but it is only a symptom of the devaluing of words. "Hero," anyone?

-- Mal

[bemildred]

2. The well-off have always been fond of appauding themselves.

Or better hiring people to do it for them.

But we talked of the consequences recently:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=1439874

It works for a while, or under duress, but after a while people stop obeying/paying attention (like people zapping the commercials on TV) when they are not being watched. That is what "legitimacy" is, the expectation of being obeyed/listened to without coercion, so whatever it is that you are flogging deceitfully will come to lose it's audience, its legitimacy, at best. The law of diminishing returns very much applies to all forms of advertising and propaganda

Also, after the bad has driven out the good, the result is NOT what you had before with you still in charge. Disinformation creates disfunction, it gums up the works, and you have to divert resources to controlling your minions.

[wcast]

3. It is all about ratings and, I think, the inability to think beyond their white privelege.

After reading the above article I chose to click on another article about Rob Reiner on Morning Joe. Rob Reiner tried to get the Morning Joe crew to go after hard news, to ask the hard questions. After getting angry and defensive, they went on to prove his point!
http://www.salon.com/2016/05/06/the_sad_spectacle_of_morning_joes_trump_denial_how_rob_reiner_laid_bare_the_brazen_failures_of_msnbcs_morning_crew/

The most telling part of the interview was when Rob Reiner was asked why so many people supported Trump even if they didn't watch Morning Joe. When he answered that there were a lot of racist in America, the shock, and then fear of having to discuss that, led the panelists try to twist Rob's words while never directly confronting the question. The look on Mika's face was priceless, a mixture of shock that he said that, fear that they might get have to discuss it, and disbelief that that could actually be the case.

Fear of alienating their audience, and their corporate masters whose only concerns in this whole process are ratings and sponsors, prevents hard news! Unless it makes ratings, it is dead. Especially if it means telling the majority of their viewers, who are white, that racism is alive and well and thriving in the USA.

[bemildred]

5. For the man in the paddock, whose duty it is to sweep up manure,

the supreme terror is the possibility of a world without horses.
-- Henry Miller in Tropic of Cancer"

I think that has something to do with it, the need to attract an audience, any audience.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

23. Horse's ass

[truebluegreen]

7. An odd side note: Rob Reiner was on Bill Maher

the other night when Thomas Frank was there. Frank was discussing his new book about how the elites in the Democratic Party have also abandoned and ignored the people...and Reiner laughed, showing the same dismissive incredulity as the Morning Joe panel. I found it illuminating.

[bemildred]

11. Lots of cognitive disconnect over Trump and Sanders, yes indeed.

How can this be?

[zeemike]

14. It's hard for those who have fame and fortune

To see what is happening way below them.

[NewImproved Deal]

21. Yes, 2016 is the Year of the Insurgent.

The Clinton Dynasty is as out of touch with political reality and legitimate rage as was the Bush Dynasty...

[safeinOhio]

4. The press gives his lots of free time.

He is the one that says he's going to take away their free speech protection. Way to go.

[Fast Walker 52]

6. the MSM is simply incapable of admitting that the GOP is fucking insane and horrible

they will stick to the false narrative of "both sides are the same" until they die.



Fuck those assholes. They are killing our country and increasingly, our world.

[abelenkpe]

8. Media will start to attack and belittle Trump

24/7 now that it's evident he is the nominee. They liked the ratings before and were comfortable in the thought that Trump would fail. Can't imagine Yrump will handle it well.

[Locrian]

9. partly right

Lots of media analysts continue to ignore a central reason for why they missed the Trump surge, and they’re still not acknowledging what’s driving his success: The truly radical nature of today’s Republican Party and its right-wing voter base.

But they're still missing it. As misguided as they are, the trump supporters are sick of seeing jobs and opportunity vanish into the pockets of the wealthy. There is a very real undercurrent of unrest at the status quo. Trump has been able to capitalize on this by the classic misdirection of pitting the poor and middleclass (what's left of it) against each other. He's their "hope and change" and will deliver even more to the wealthy once he tricks his way into office.

Bernie is a similar phenomenon - which they also CANNOT admit: that the people are getting wise to the game. In Bernie's case, he's accurately explaining the reason vs trumps lies

They by nature are completely blind to it - as they are insanely out of touch with the real world and hopelessly insulated in their bubbles.

[bemildred]

10. Yes.

In both cases you have a guy saying things that people want said, it is not their personal charisma in either case that is driving their campaign.

[annabanana]

22. It is clear that you get it 100% . .

as do most of those who have been paying attention all along.

The current state of our media makes it impossible to do it's "fourth estate" duties and help the populace sort between truth and lies.

[certainot]

15. what everyone is missing is $390 MIL / MONTH in rw propaganda

at a cheap $1000/hr x 15hrs/day x 1200 stations, rw talk radio is worth 4.68 BIL$/ year or 390MIL$ /month FREE for coordinated global warming denial, pro republican wall st think tank propaganda, deregulation, hate, and swiftboating

the media misses it and is enabled by it for their billionaire masters because the left ignores it and continues to flail at the symptoms and continue to give talk radio a free speech free ride. when the left starts including talk stations and the 90 universities that support 268 limbaugh stations in their protests the media will start paying attention.

when those universities start discussing their absurd support for rw radio advertisers will flee and the right's massive propaganda monopoly will fall apart - and the country will go 20 pts left.

[zeemike]

16. Yep,

But it is easier to just dismiss it as racism and serves to make the division between people greater.

People are fed up on both sides of the political spectrum and sometimes they will reach out for even the nut case out of frustration if nothing else is offered.
The moderate Republicans like Bush were defeated quickly because they were rejecting the status quo not because they loved trump.

[Locrian]

19. fed up

Fed up is the main thing. If trump pivots to the left and picks up independents with attacks on the status quo - it could really be a wild ride.

I just don't know if he could put down his big bag of racist and misogynistic tricks to pull it off.

I don't for a minute think he's legit - his big talent is in marketing, and I would expect zero good things to come from a trump presidency. Except maybe the biggest backlash (after the biggest economic crash) in the history of the US - towards what I would have no idea.

[zalinda]

24. He has said he doesn't need Republicans

I think he will tack to the left after it is determined who he is running against. If it's Hillary, he will go left and since she is pro war, he will go big on anti war. If it is Bernie, he will go right and talk about how Bernie wants to give away free stuff.

I think once he is declared the Republican candidate at the convention, a new Donald Trump will emerge.

Z

[pmorlan1]

29. Yes

THIS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

[certainot]

12. boelert identifies the problem but doesn't name it!

it's the talk radio, stupid!

at a cheap $1000/hr x 15hrs/day x 1200 stations, is worth 4.68 BIL$/ year or 390MIL$ /month FREE for coordinated global warming denial, pro republican wall st think tank propaganda, deregulation, hate, and swiftboating!

that is the main source of the problem and why we flail at the symptoms - the left/dems ignore the real problem so the media does too. the left needs to stop giving the talk radio gods a free speech free ride.

every liberal issue can be protested at those stations and maybe more effectively at the 90 major universities that endorse 268 limbaugh stations. they have no excuse, and if they start discussing it, advertisers will flee rw radio, the talk radio gods will lose credibility, and the main reason we have to waste time with trump will fall apart.

boelert starting to get it:
And that’s still the problem today. Lots of media analysts continue to ignore a central reason for why they missed the Trump surge, and they’re still not acknowledging what’s driving his success: The truly radical nature of today’s Republican Party and its right-wing voter base.

Y’know, the conservative movement that cheered Glenn Beck when he called the president of the United States a “racist“; that supported right-wing claims that president Obama was a tyrant who needs to be impeached. (And that he was foreign-born.) The movement that revolves around Rush Limbaugh, who claimed that if Obama weren’t black he’d be working as a tour guide in Hawaii, not sitting in the Oval Office, and who insisted Obama ran for office because he resents white America and wants to score some payback.

And it’s a Republican Party that has essentially shut down the U.S. Congress, rather than legislate with Obama. It’s a party today that refuses to hold hearings for the president’s highly qualified Supreme Court nominee.

That’s what the Republican Party has become in recent years, but the press has mostly held its tongue about the nasty makeover. And in the process, the press missed the Trump surge, which rode that radical GOP wave.

[bemildred]

13. To admit they created Trump is to admit they have been tools.

They are, they have been, but they will not admit it, most of them, never.

[Locrian]

20. They cannot

Their whole existence and success is predicated on the current system - and that required them to be "true believers". To question it would be like questioning their entire concept of reality. It would require re-wiring their brains....

[Kip Humphrey]

17. WARNING: THis is a change election.

[Baobab]

33. The rights to you have already been sold

Sorry!

[w4rma]

18. It's the same story with Clinton's elitists who pretend not to comprehend Sanders's popularity. (nt)

[840high]

28. Exactly.

[MisterP]

25. remember, every time someone says Clinton'll trounce him in November those were the same

people who were saying the Jeb machine would trounce him by LAST November

don't rely on people getting spooked for Clinton to win: "populist" doesn't mean "says whatever they think will earn them votes and then they'll end up playing ball like everyone else"

[mindwalker_i]

26. The Donald is Hillary's biggest troll

Hillary is running on being a woman. That isn't terribly inspiring to most of the country, so she needed to make it sexism a Big Problem. Might as well throw in racism too (how will breaking up the banks solve sexism and racism?). To make it a Big Problem, she needed a straw-man. Enter Trump, spouting a bunch of racist and sexist stuff. It's perfect!

The Donald brings all the stuff that was under the surface of the Republican party above surface, and that's like crack to their base. So they follow him like he's Jesus with a Hitler moustache. The party is horrified because they know he's a grenade thrown in the middle of their party and is doing a lot of damage. So they say he's not a real conservative, which is very true but I don't even think he's a Republican. Like Hillary isn't a Democrat.

Now Hillary has her straw-man to run against and can point to it and say, "He's bad, so vote for me." Forget about all her faults. Forget that she will compromise away abortion. Forget that she doesn't give a flying fuck about income inequality. Forget her always-changing positions on environment, trade agreements, etc. The Donald is Bad.

[polly7]

30. I wonder if that's why Bill encouraged him to run?

It all seems like one decades old 'game' to me - from NAFTA, to the Welfare Reform Act, to profit prisons, brutal 'super-predator' policies to imprison people for life, and then all the disgusting foreign policy decisions - now, she's on track to finish it all - with much help from Trump as the straw-man and all those supporters and big-backers gotten along the way. jmho.

[Peace Patriot]

31. Yup, Trump is a "straw man"--you got it!

The Corrupt Media CREATED Trump, out of nothing. They gave him billions of dollars worth of FREE publicity from the moment he announced. And what a perfect foil for their Goldman Sachs candidate!

Meanwhile, the Corrupt Media completely black-holed Bernie Sanders for months and months, while he was creating a truly astonishing, genuine movement for fairness and for intelligent policy. And even now--even when he keeps winning primaries!--they treat him like a footnote to their manufactured narrative.

We are living within "The Matrix," I'm afraid--a place of illusion--while the uber rich suck the very life out of us.

I do think that Trump was never interested in the responsibility of being president of the USA. He viewed it as a lark, but now that they've CREATED him as a contender (he would never have been otherwise), he's starting to smell power. I think our deep government will deny him the White House unless they want merely to mock us and our democracy with a buffoon as president, as I think they did, intentionally, by inflicting Bush Jr. on us. However, Trump could be dangerous to them--smarter than Jr. and highly unpredictable--and is not their ideal protector of the MIC and of other peoples' uber profiteering.

[mindwalker_i]

32. Very good analysis

Yeah, I thought of the Matrix as well, and we do have just the illusion of choice - the whole thing is rigged to give us Hillary and make us like it. Not sure whether Trump cares about winning even now, but it's possible. Being unpredictable is true and very interesting. He would very definitely shake up all the wheelers and dealers, whereas Hillary would be so in their back pocket that I bet everything will come out against Trump. It won't make a difference to his base.

The people who are disaffected with regards to the whole system may also rebel against it. That would be fun.

[kimbutgar]

27. With trump saying he wants to silence the media who are criticical of him if elected

I wonder if they will stop fawning over him and point out he is dangerous. After all their careers could be in jeopardy if he is elected. Can you imagine trump arresting the media figures under his Doj run by an arpaio type guy?

We live in scary times.

[ThoughtCriminal]

34. The reason attacks on Trump failed during the primaries

Republican voters are simply the meanest, dumbest and most gullible collection of imbeciles that is capable of showing up to vote.