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How Not To Run An Anti-Trump Campaign
The whole U.S. political and media establishment is right now running a full fledged anti-Trump campaign. The points this drive brings up are minor issue, rumors or outright lies.
It is premature to run such a campaign now. One can not tell the same story over and over again for nearly a 100 days. People will either get tired of it or will endorse Trump as the poor small boy that everyone is bullying and beating up.
Some spat over a dead soldier who the Clinton campaign (ab)used for her campaign gets way overblown. Unfounded rumors that some Republicans are going to replace Trump are just a repetition of the same nonsense that spread a month ago. It only heightens the media's lack of credibility. It is similar to the claims that "the Assad regime will fall any minute now". We have heard for the last five years and no one believes it. Unsourced claims that Trump asked why the U.S. can not use nukes are not credible. Especially when they are transported by a lowlife like MSNBC's Scarborough and immediately denied. If true at all, the issues is likely taken out of context.
On the other side, news about Clinton actively lying is so obviously suppressed by the New York Times that even its public editor laments about it. CNN claims that Hillary meets "boisterous crowds" when no-one shows up.
This wont work. This imbalance is not sustainable. The Clinton campaign managers who orchestrate this onslaught are shooting their wads prematurely.
It does not matter that Trump indeed has small hands or that he fibs on every details. The majority of the people hate Clinton. This media campaign will fall back on her. She will be perceived as the bully increasing her already strong negatives.
LOL! How is bullying a bully a bad thing? You gotta use the only sort of language they understand or respect.
PB at 41 —
If one is to talk about hatred, the disapproval levels you cite would suggest that The Donald is more hated. Nice comment.
MS at 49
Trump is pre-selling his alibi for losing the election. Bob Cesca at The Daily Banter is a little harsh on the Berners, but he is correct in arguing that Despite the GOP’s Voter ID Laws, Trump is Already Blaming Hillary for Rigging the Election.
Trump thinks she’s trying to rig the election, of course, which is the chief gripe of Bernie loyalists who insisted she did the same via the DNC and so on….
Meanwhile, Trump’s weirdest surrogate and Alex Jones henchman, Roger Stone, continues to insist that Hillary will absolutely steal the election. The calculus from both crooks is that if Trump loses the election, it can only be because Hillary stole it. They’re building an escape hatch before-the-fact, revealing a hint of defeatism while prepackaging the de-legitimization of the Clinton presidency. The allegedly stolen election will be the new birth certificate, endlessly investigated by Trump’s flying monkeys for the next four-to-eight years.
Makes sense. What’s not to like about a narcissistic serial liar with anger management issues? Fraud would be the only logical explanation. No doubt House Rethuglicans will ginger up a witch hunt. “Apprentice: Congressional Investigation Edition” will be huge.
in re 46 —
Actually, its “Vaxxers and Frauds First” with Stein and the Greens.
First, a word about their bad politics.
Because even by the standards of protest candidates, Stein—whose press team did not respond to an interview request—is an absolutely awful torchbearer for the far left. She’s a Harvard-trained physician who panders to pseudoscience. She mangles pet policy issues. And her cynical retelling of the past eight years has nothing to do with the reality of recorded history.
So Stein has taken to offering critical support for the anti-vaccination movement. “Despite clearly understanding that vaccines are safe…” Stein panders by suggesting “worries are justified and offering fuel for those fears by painting a dark picture of a corrupt regulatory apparatus.”
Given what passes for “pwogwessive” politics, this is hardly surprising. But when it comes from some one who you would think knows better, it’s a little sad.
Again, this is somewhat standard stuff on the far left these days, but coming from a physician, it’s discouraging. It is also in keeping with the last official Green Party platform, from 2014, which supports the “teaching, funding, and practice” of “alternative therapies” such as naturopathy and homeopathy, i.e. funneling money into quack medicine.
I think many might agree with the sentiment offered in There Are No Democratic or Green Saviors: Get in the Streets!
Dolack deals it out to both sides, Berners and Greens, and not unfairly. But he really does tear into the Greens, particularly the horrible foreign policies of the German Greens.
The only route to a better world is through mass movements articulating clear goals,… [and] the only way out of our present crises is to push beyond what is possible in the world’s present political systems. There are only two reasons for voting for Secretary Clinton instead of Mr. Trump — one, that voting for the latter is a vote for open racism, misogyny and immigrant-bashing… that carries with it the seeds of a potential fascist movement and, two, that it would be better to be on the offensive than the defensive. A Trump presidency would necessitate a multi-pronged movement against an all-around assault on civil rights just to maintain the crumbs left to us. Although a Clinton presidency is hardly destined to be a golden age, mass movements would be better able to go on the offensive as she will have to give lip service to the campaign promises she has been forced, through gritted teeth, to make to fend off Senator Sanders’ primary challenge.
Either way, what we do in the streets, what pressure movements bring to bear, will be decisive
So I plan on Taking it to the Streets over course of the next Administration. “Take this message to my brother/You will find him everywhere/Wherever people live together/Tied in poverty’s despair.”
Posted by: rufus magister | Aug 4 2016 4:01 utc | 71
in re 82
Well, you coulda looked at the article I linked to, as it actually does quote her and provide links to her statements.
But I think you’ll likely need this article to explain to you the obvious. And to unpack the assorted tendentious falsehoods that she’s crammed into her statements. Jill Stein and left wing antivaccine dog whistles The author “orac” is not a pundit, but science blogger.
Here is her answering the WaPo’s follow-up questions, after the controversy around her Reddit AMA arose. It’s a bit shorter and tighter than Reddit.
“I think there’s no question that vaccines have been absolutely critical in ridding us of the scourge of many diseases — smallpox, polio, etc. So vaccines are an invaluable medication,” Stein said. “Like any medication, they also should be — what shall we say? — approved by a regulatory board that people can trust. And I think right now, that is the problem. That people do not trust a Food and Drug Administration, or even the CDC for that matter, where corporate influence and the pharmaceutical industry has a lot of influence.”
Orac had this to say about the Reddit conversation, which clearly applies to her subsequent statements.
Regular readers will recognize this as the gambit I like to call, “I’m not ‘antivaccine.’ I’m pro-safe vaccine and don’t trust the FDA and big pharma.” I will grant that Dr. Stein was a little more—shall we say?—emphatic in her concession that vaccines do good than the average antivaccinationist…. However, the rest of her word salad above could be cribbed from any number of antivaccine websites. Hell, even Andrew Wakefield concedes that vaccines do good and claims not to be “antivaccine.” …In other words, denying being antivaccine counts for nothing if you’re repeating antivaccine tropes. It’s standard practice among antivaccine activists.
…Jill Stein arguably [is] worse than Donald Trump in that she probably doesn’t believe the antivaccine BS she’s been laying down, but she lays it down anyway. In other words, she chooses to pander to antivaccine loons with antivaccine dog whistles for left wingers.
Do you see yourself in this statement? I think I detect a certain likeness in the rising pose.
Not surprisingly, Dr. Stein’s admirers leapt to her defense with scientifically ignorant assertions that she’s not antivaccine because she says she’s not antivaccine. For example, Dan Arel tried to argue that, sorry Clinton supporters, but Jill Stein is not the antivaccine presidential candidate, but even he was forced to admit her statements were “straight anti-vaxx pandering”….
Handy links there, too, BTW.
Here’s another science blogger and non-pundit making these points at somewhat shorter length, Jill Stein anti vaccine message – be aware progressives. Commenting also on the WaPo follow-up:
And there we go – vaccine denial. Long ago, I learned that when someone on the internet says “I believe in evolution (or vaccines or climate change or [etc.]), but…,” everything after the “but” is all that matters.
…[S]he’s just parroting the lies of the anti-vaccine gang. The members of the FDA advisory committee on vaccines are all academic researchers from top level medical schools and research institutions. Since all Dr. Stein wants to do is pander to the leftists who have an ignorant fear of vaccines, she decided to not use that brilliant mind to actually see the facts about them.
in re 86 –
Current on all vaccinations, and keeping up with my meds, too, thank you very much. Just some under-the-counter all-natural products to help with the stresses of modern life.
Posted by: rufus magister | Aug 5 2016 0:24 utc | 95
rufus magister | Aug 4, 2016 8:24:52 PM @ 96
Well, you coulda looked at the article I linked to, as it actually does quote her and provide links to her statements.
I did.
But I think you’ll likely need this article to explain to you the obvious
What is “obvious” is Stein’s own word’s. What is also obvious in Weissmann’s article (I read it before) is his self-aggrandized blinding, prejudicial scepticism. For example:
Others, like moving to 100 percent renewable energy by 2030 (while ditching nuclear), are deeply unrealistic, if admirable in spirit.
“Deeply unrealistic” perhaps to people who have “gotten used to” Wall Street fraud that never gets fixed, massively destructive wars expanding across the ME, and an economy stuck in reverse for 15 years.
She has said the “green” effort must be commensurate with that given to the Manhattan project.
I agree with her… completely. Have been saying the same thing here in our environmental work for some years now.
She is talking about doing what is possible, not what is our habit of “bureaucratically feasible”, and she’s nailed the most important endeavor of our time. Good for her!!!
And more than a few sound like they were hatched in an old Bay Area commune. Cut defense spending in half and close more than 700 foreign military bases? Sure, maybe after we get done levitating the Pentagon.
Nice snark, and a little depressing AFAIC.
Stein’s said a lot more in detail where she’d propose cuts in Pentagon spending. Amongst biggest: massively reducing our nuke development. I don’t know how much attention you pay to this, but we are quietly budgeting over a $trillion just for nukes in next 10 years. Whole lot of it is refurbishment “make work” programs.
She would redirect this $$ to developing a smart grid and “green” generation.
It’s doable allright. Especially on this forum, where comment after comment for years laments US “empire”… someone comes along saying exactly what we need to do, with no support possible from the most corrupt of Corp. America (fossil fuel industry in particular), and she’s shot down as a whacko… mis-characterizing her statements and ignoring detail in her other well documented positions your selected authors apparently “know too much” to bother reading.
…
The “anti-vaxxer” meme some of these guys have “stuck on her” came from 2 brief and short statements in forums on Reddit and the WP you cite.
I agree she mis-spoke about the mercury (although I haven’t looked into this, I take your citations at their word). However, she also said this was something she looked at years ago… and after being front and center in Green party over 10 years now, this is the ONLY time she ever mentioned it.
Further, careful reading of her Reddit interview… she clearly was talking about regulatory approval of pharmaceuticals (NOT vaccines), which does have big problems. I’ve seen this front and center taking care of my Dad his last 5 years. Almost unbelievable what I saw.
It’s EZ to be a critic. Be wary of skepticism becoming habitual, turning into cynicism that blinds.
Have you ever heard her speak? Seriously. Have you read her position papers on her website?
As to your statements she supports Homeopathy/Naturopathy research as though this is a “sin”, I agree with her also on this: the AMA for decades has refused to acknowledge and embrace non-mainstream treatments that have proven effective. They are only recently beginning to come around on this.
And, there is vast amount of quackery and ripoffs in both these. All the more reason to subject them to higher scrutiny AND integrate those found beneficial into treatment.
Mayo embraces now both Homeopathy/Naturopathy treatments in some cases.
You may want to Google “integrative medicine”, and read some of the in depth clinical studies. Mayo has several integrative centers now, and they’ve been successull… in some cases finding cures for serious conditions where traditional treatments have utterly failed or years, in some cases making things worse.
Posted by: jdmckay | Aug 5 2016 4:14 utc | 96
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