How long before one of his supporters gets mistaken for a protester? Anyone of color probably gets the evil eye at a Trump rally, it’s only a matter of time before a random guy with dark hair and a beard gets mistaken for a Muslim and taunted/punched.
Or has this has already happened?
Probably has, and once the person was thrown out onto the cement, no one heard from her again.
Yes, but those large Fascist movements played out in a very different era, before 24-hour news and the internet viral video. The benefit of non-violent protest is all in the publicity. Trying to “out-violence” a bunch of skinheads is pointless, but video of skinheads ganging up on an unarmed person will get lots of play in the media and works against their cause. There’s no way to convince a Trump supporter that punching a kid in the head is a bad idea, but then they are a lost cause, it’s the other people on the right whose votes are in play, will they stand for this? Or will they stay home in November if Trump wins the nomination?
I think this about sums it up! That’s a great post overall and I think right on the mark. King understood the importance of the use of the media in the same way Gandhi did and he used it effectively.
Yeah, not so much from here.
I meant between the WWF and WWE! 
Ethics in professional wrestling?
I think you’re assuming that these can’t have the effect of rallying for Drumpf rather than just against him. The media spins things now (well, they probably always did, but…) and there are lots of different medias spinning things in many different ways. So the rally is probably not being understood here the way it is elsewhere. We may see relatively peaceful protesters, shutting down a hateful event, but others see an infringement on Drumpf’s free speech rights. I don’t think we can count of publicity any longer to deliver the same kind of sympathy it did during civil rights, because American isn’t the same as it was then. King not only harnessed public opinion, he rode in on shared American values and employed religious language that’s not going to work in the same way today, I think.
Yes. I wonder what happens when someone dies? (I did think about whether to write if instead of when.)
You’d hope it would be a wake up call for at least some of his supporters. But some will probably continue to blame the protesters. They probably blame all the victims of police violence for their own deaths, too (unless, maybe they’re white?). Many of these seem to be of an authoritarian mindset, so death can be excuses as necessary to keep law and order.
I’m actually a little concerned about getting to the GOP convention that’s clearly going to be brokered (since I don’t think anyone else will be dropping out) and the effect it’s going to have when the GOP throws the nomination to someone else. I think we may be seeing the implosion of the party at this point. They clearly don’t want Drumpf and his ilk, but they can’t just kick him out at this point.
I think we may be seeing the implosion of the party at this point.
I’ve been hoping to see that, but yeah, not the fallout. (Sorry for the phone-typing brevity)
Many parallels between professional wrestling and the Trump campaign.
Both try to attack “issues” in the most misguided ways possible. Both have incredibly racist histories (while trying to claim otherwise). Both are enjoyed by the “nascar crowd” if you know what I mean. Both have “infallible” and charismatic leaders that are strangely proportioned and orange. Both eject unruly audience members. Both inherited their empire from their fathers.
Makes you think…
Like I said, Trump supporters are a lost cause, someone who is 100% in favor of Trump isn’t going to be more in love with him by seeing a kid get punched, they’ll just nod with approval. It’s the conservatives who are not in Trump’s camp that are the issue, and he’s still only winning primaries with less than half of the available votes, so more than half of GOP voters don’t like him.
The idea of “lots of different media sources” also means that there isn’t one cohesive, directed spin on the right-- even Fox News was hesitant to totally get behind Trump, and Trump constantly craps all over Fox’s coverage of him. The entire American right wing is in a weird disarray, none of the other candidates have the appeal of Trump (meaning “personality”-- the other guys are all stuffed shirts), and yet Trump is decidedly un-conservative on some things conservatives are emphatic about: Planned Parenthood, trade, 9/11. Lots of “intellectual” conservatives (an oxymoron if there ever was one) who study conservative dogma are in an uncomfortable position.
I don’t think there is any way for us to foresee how this will all play out.
The possibility that Trump doesn’t understand what he is doing scares me… as much as the thought that he understands what he is doing.
He could have had a pointed stick!
I’m worried they’ll take us all down with them. I truly am. Maybe this idiocracy is what ends us.
I know (as indicated in my comment) that he’s popular among republicans and will lively be their nominee.
I mean why aren’t they ridiculing him? He’s absurd, a buffoon, not a candidate to be taken seriously.
There should be non stop discussion of his lack of qualification, and of the sad state of a republican party that would put up such a bullshit set to choose from (among which he’s still the worst choice for government work).
The fact that he’s dangerous does not diminish the fact that he is ridiculous, and should be laughed out of every studio he enters.
Not sure how much of this you already know, but here goes:
Such discussion pretty much ceased on major (that is, corporate) news networks here decades ago. Then when corporations and so on started getting their sponsorship claws into government-funded broadcasting (practically deleting government funding in the process), and thus their influence, it pretty much stopped there too.
We have tons of adverts in corporate media, of course, but as far as the networks are concerned, the real product for sale is the viewers themselves; the more eyeballs watching, the higher the advert rates. That means that for the most part, whatever gets higher ratings becomes The Story (and whatever challenges the status quo, which also profits the corporations, gets ignored or ridiculed as much as possible).
Trump’s rise is fascinating, outrageous, and just plain entertaining to many viewers, far more so than “boring” policy analysis. Same with the “horse race” aspect of elections; most viewers want to know who’s ahead, more so than what the candidates actually claim to stand for.
Trump probably does get laughed at in studios. But it wouldn’t surprise me if he laughs right along with the laughers.
Trump refers to Bernie Sanders as “Bernie our communist friend.” No, democratic socialism is NOT the same as communism.
If Trump can call Sanders a communist, then yes, he’s given the green light to call Trump a Nazi.
Can I add?
In the debates of 1980, Reagan was lauded for his deft dismissal of Carter, jibing, “There you go again.”
But, it’s clear that Carter had identified the healthcare problems in this country and had proposed a nationalized solution that continues to be advocated for to this very day, 36 years later.
content warning for: Reagan, smug fuck, smirking at the thought of preventing disease.
I do often think of Reagan, and/or his overall “machine,” as the start of the current decline, and not only that of political discourse. Smug fuck indeed.
ETA: And of Carter as the last president with much of any actual integrity (certain fuck-ups of his own notwithstanding).
