How Not To Run An Anti-Trump Campaign

August 3, 2016

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.

Posted by b on August 3, 2016 at 16:49 UTC | Permalink

Comments

@97 Paveway
I think that, like so many things in the USA, the official story on the sacrifices and deaths of the armed forces is backward.
It’s supposed to be the cause for which one’s life is given that sanctifies the sacrifice.
The geeks in the US gov have turned that around, so that now the deaths of the US armed forces sanctify their criminal undertakings. At least that’s the way they play it. This is the same trick used forever by totalitarian regimes : human sacrifice.
It’s like pedophilia, no one wants to go there. I’m sure 9 of 10 Americans know the score – how can they not – but it is so repulsive to them that they just keep their heads down, just keep walking in the subway tunnel of denial.
Nothing can change until we stand up en masse and accept our share of the responsibility for the crimes of ‘our’ serial, criminal, governments. Because they are our governments, they’re no one else’s, and we have allowed them to degenerate so, and to drag us down with them.
Unless and until we stand up to ‘our’ government, seize power and end its endless series of invasions and occupations, end its reign of death, devastation, destruction, and deceit … it will all continue. Because it’s our government, purposefully behind it all. There’s no 15 year string of ‘accidents’ here.
And there is no fairy godmother gonna wave her wand and make it all go away. In fact there’s a banshee screaming in the wings, her new wave is about to start.
There’s no time like the present. It’s the only time anything ever actually happens.

Posted by: jfl | Aug 5 2016 8:57 utc | 101

94;Salaam to you,red.It’s a beautiful day on LI also,and early Nov. my half Jewish GS is due.Maybe I can celebrate Trump and him together!
Piotr Berman;When you critique those who call serial liars what they are,it makes you a serial liar also.Sad.
From the Hague;On further inspection,I think his small hands and fib comments were critiques of the slander memes the MSM are using against Trump.

Posted by: dahoit | Aug 5 2016 13:51 utc | 102

64;Jackrabbit,letting MSM provocations and lies about Trump,to do exactly what they intend,to lessen support of Trump supporters,is a sign of intellectual weakness.
Don’t be a scared rabbit.
It’s a long way to Tipperary,3 months,and this total propaganda by the Zionists will be seen as what it is.
I noticed the lying times backed off a tiny bit today,with one Trump story at the top,not too murderous,but the next lede had the usual BS,and Wapoo,forget about it,they are pulling out all stops in rabid hatred of America First.
I guarantee they are turning off real Americans,other than those divide and conquer idiots of Zionist and social issue morons who let their gender confusion rule their head,Sodomy and Gomorrah style.

Posted by: dahoit | Aug 5 2016 14:00 utc | 103

97;Yes,Jesus would have said that(about wasting Khans life),but Jesus aint in the race.
Trump was right on in asking why would they back the very shite that sent him on his mission from hell,and they by doing so,spit on their own dead son.
To hell with corrupt scum,and unfortunately,the peoples of Afghanistan,Pakistan and India are corruption central.
Documented by many studies of world corruption,btw,and most of it is in the leadership,as they receive payment from US to kill their own wayward citizens for zion,in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
And the little yuppie scum with their Constitutions;Obomba has been a Constitutional disaster,from undeclared wars and murder by drone,of American citizens no less,but you won’t find them at HB meetings,or Obomba protests.

Posted by: dahoit | Aug 5 2016 14:09 utc | 104

rufus magister | Aug 5, 2016 2:20:22 AM @ 98

No ear for dog whistles, I see.

Whatever. 🙁
WRT anti-Vaxxers and what Jill ACTUALLY said: here’s just one example… US’ use of mefloquine (anti-malarial). Pentagon gave it to our ME GI’s
knowing fullwell adverse side affects, including hallucinations, psychotic episodes and in some cases permanent neural damage. Also good evidence Pentagon/CIA used it on Gitmo prisoners to produce some of it’s worst symptoms.
Mefloquine’s clincial trials were circumvented for quick approval, just the kind of thing Stein alluded to.
Just off the top of my head, I’m aware of at least 5 others similarly dangerous… approved in this same manner.
Dog whistle’s are a little too Pavlovian for my tastes, thank you very much.

Posted by: jdmckay | Aug 5 2016 14:45 utc | 105

Have you ppl gone mad? What Jill Stein thinks about vaccines, or ergonomic sandals (sorry for the cheap dig), or whatever, is of aa..bsolutely no importance.
She may be a very nice person you’d like to invite for dinner and support with 20 dollar donations, and then what? What?
Jill S. garners groupies and earns quite a bit of cash and kudos, and a life-long lucrative tenure in the US pol. landscape, with a ‘failed but sincere’ pol move, a sort of opposition figure, lots of speeches and adulation, cheers, she can write books that will sell super well, get TV spots, and the voters can pat themselves on the back and go kiss-kiss that they did the right thing and voted for the best candidate and were true to their core principles? Huh?
Sorry to be harsh, but how can ppl be so naive? On MoA?
More interesting might be a comparison of ‘Green’ Pol parties in the World. They are very varied, and very opportunistic (imho.)

Posted by: Noirette | Aug 5 2016 17:14 utc | 106

@ Noirette | Aug 5, 2016 1:14:22 PM | 106
“… but how can ppl be so naive? On MoA?”
It is probably worse than that. Innumeracy is closely related to Illogic, both failures of abstract reason; the high summer of political emotionalism is also the nadir of consideration and thoughtfulness. In the present U.S. political system, only two parties matter, all else is ineffective political moralising using a ballot box. Those two parties put up only two candidates for the top administrative position. Whichever can put the most electors together wins by having the largest aggregate of supporters votes plus those who cast their vote against the other candidate in each electoral district (or state). All other votes are ineffective meaningless non-sense as an effective political force. Like the selected candidates or not, election fraud or not, effective voting is the only measure that can be taken that has the possibility to thwart the malfeasance of the system. Morals belong on the playground for children, not in running a Republic.

Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | Aug 5 2016 18:17 utc | 107

Re: numeracy, wisdom of the people (or the lack of it), rational strategy.
It is a bit more subtle. In many games the deterministic strategy loses to randomized strategy. I care about a number of things, and in the balance Clinton seems better than Trump. That said, I have to read stuff like that:
I Ran the C.I.A. Now I’m Endorsing Hillary Clinton.
By MICHAEL J. MORELLAUG. 5, 2016 (NYT)
Trump seems almost saintly lacking such endorsements. So we should opt for Trump instead? Here comes randomized strategy. With some probability, vote against Clinton. It does not make loose automatically, but makes her worried. Worried liberal politician may “double down”, but he/she may “triangulate”. And this is quite important, because a large part of imperialist nonsense is done for the purpose of grandstanding, so it helps if it appears less grand.
Thus it is very valuable that we observe a substantial percentage of potential Democratic vote going Green, and yet more substantial percentage of anti-Trump Republicans opting to vote Libertarian. Both minor parties seem anti-imperialist, and Trump, while anathema to many imperialists, it too much of a loose cannon to be preferred over Johnson.
General Election: Trump vs. Clinton IBD/TIPP Clinton 46, Trump 39 Clinton +7
General Election: Trump vs. Clinton vs. Johnson vs. Stein IBD/TIPP Clinton 39, Trump 35, Johnson 12, Stein 5 Clinton +4
Polls are quite volatile, in part because the sum of negatives of Clinton and Trump is around 120. Now, why Democratic pols we so unanimous behind Clinton long after poll after poll after poll showed that Sanders has much smaller negatives and much easier time winning in battleground states like Pennsylvania and Ohio. Part of the reason is that the most clever among them figured that GOP will have a candidate with even larger negatives (especially when the contenders were down to Trump and Cruz, I wonder if his own mother would vote for Cruz). But that does not explain a positive reason. That seems to be that the status quo offers many perks like easier fund raising from fat cats, cushy jobs from companies after retirement or before (for children etc.) and so on. Political capital is worthy because it can be exchanged for actual capital!
The last observation explains why two-party system is stable in USA. As soon as one of the two dominant parties gets enough of political capital it cashes it. Thus it is important to have some “random/crazy behavior” that would increase the “safely large” levels of political capital. Perhaps avoiding random sh..t is a good idea after all?

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Aug 6 2016 1:25 utc | 108

@106 noirette
Jill Stein, what’s his name Lawrence – the libertarian, any and all 3rd parties and write-ins … they’re all good. Our only hope long term is to empower ourselves and devise an alternative to the elephant-jackass show. And a strong showing for ‘other’ will cut into support for Hillary and her harridans as well. Better a devil we don’t know than the devil we know only too well. The main thing is to make ‘other’ a player and for us of the ‘other’ persuasion to see our collective named in the real papers – not the NYTimes/WaPO, certainly – and to recognize ourselves as what we are … more than 1.6% of the electorate, certainly.
I take it you are advising a vote for Trump directly?

Posted by: jfl | Aug 6 2016 1:58 utc | 109

@ Piotr Berman | Aug 5, 2016 9:25:09 PM | 108
Quite the ‘Penelope Pile of Poop’ of specious sophistry you’ve produced there. Not an iota of it overcomes the simple math that one out of twenty haven’t a snowball’s chance of winning an election in Texas come August (or any other time for that matter); even the magic of LBJ couldn’t pull that one off. But the house of mirrors at this quadrennial carnival has become the main attraction of the event. Suit yourself, it was moralistic emotions: ‘law and order’ and ‘moral majority’ that got you into this pass in the first place, more moralising isn’t the remedy.
Sorry,wasn’t born yesterday, not buying that load of cobbles. You all have lost the run of yourselves. It also appears the existence of a common language is unlikely as abstract reason cannot be found anywhere in #108, but sophistry there is aplenty.

Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | Aug 6 2016 2:23 utc | 110

noirette at 106 —
I would note the Dolack essay I cited above from Counterpunch does discuss in some detail the complicity of French social democrats and German Greens in their respective polities.
I’ve presented info on the German Green’s complicity in the Maidan and ongoing support for Kiev in the past. See e.g. Mar 5, 2016 12:31:13 am, nr. 83 at Whereas The Paper Of Record Gauges The Big (Or Small?) Global Question. I allude there to events in France that brought the Greens back into the cabinet, I’m sure you’re able to explicate to the curious.
Green Bundestag leader Marieluise Beck continues to serve as a favored propaganda conduit for Kiev.

Posted by: rufus magister | Aug 6 2016 4:16 utc | 111

Addendum to my remarks @ 107, 110
This is the “Do you feel lucky – PUNK” version; PUNK = Public Uncertain/ Nothing Known. With few exceptions, almost all information reaching public discourse is no better than third or fourth hand information, reported by Corporate Controlled Media (CCM) employing all the devices of marketing/propaganda to convince what isn’t to be truth, apple pie and The American Way. The only occasion anything resembling factual will be given is when it contains nothing of significance. That penny hasn’t dropped with the public yet.
What this election reduces down to is between a known known with a track record only equalled by Pol Pot, and an unknown known having no record conducting public affairs – a first in the nation’s history. The last time a candidate presented a contrived pseudo public non-record, the country only barely survived the hopium hokum – how did that work out for you? are you more equal today than when that administration began? Are you after more of the same?
In this election cycle, be assured there will be no right answers, only better answers and those will depend entirely upon opinions held; reality has barely a purchase on what is being presented. Facts are the public is being presented a clear choice between a candidate having a large and compliant organisation in place to control governmental power; and a candidate without such organisation, nor the ability to create such organisation ‘on the run’. Which of these is in your best interest, should you be aware enough to have one? Act by voting accordingly.

Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | Aug 6 2016 9:29 utc | 112

What happens to influential people trying to oppose present global war/debt enslavement system:
The Herrhausen Method: A Serious Challenge to the Genocidal Trans-Atlantic System

…The chief speaker (equivalent to Chairman) of Deutsche Bank’s board, Alfred Herrhausen, was killed in his car on his way to the bank by a remote-control bomb, on the morning of Nov. 30, 1989. The assassins have never been found or identified. The official version, instantly given to the press after the incident, is that he was killed by a team of the “third generation” of the infamous Baader-Meinhof gang (RAF, Rote Armee Fraktion), but that was never proven; it was also never proven that such a “third generation” even existed.
Crucial pieces of evidence have mysteriously disappeared during the past 26 years—including the wreckage of the car, whose availability would be important to determine in a renewed investigation, what kind of bomb was actually used in the assault, and whether that could provide leads into other circles that might have had an interest in killing Herrhausen.
It is widely known that particularly during the period between the big Wall Street Crash of October 1987, and the day of his assassination, Herrhausen had made himself many enemies in the trans-Atlantic world of banking and finance, with his unconventional proposals for solutions to the international debt crisis, and for economic-financial cooperation of the West with the Soviet Union—proposals that posed a serious challenge to the principles of financial policies in the western trans-Atlantic system—principles which have had increasingly genocidal effects.
Like John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert, Alfred Herrhausen was not murdered for anything that he had done (still less for anything he had said), but for what he threatened to do in the future. This threat was reflected in his public statements. In our July 22 issue, EIR quoted on page 20, from the speech Herrhausen was scheduled to give in New York on December 4, 1989, four days after his assassination, with its straight challenge to destructive trans-Atlantic banking methods. Two earlier statements which Herrhausen had given in June and September, already contained the core components of what he would have said in New York, had he not been assassinated.
Herrhausen’s Answers to the Crisis
In an essay headlined, “The Time Has Come —Debt Crisis at a Turning Point,” published by Germany’s leading business daily Handelsblatt on June 30, 1989, Herrhausen denounced the debt policies of particularly the U.S. banks. Not only were they useless, he wrote, but they were only worsening the debtor nations’ situation as well as that of the creditor banks themselves. Instead, the only measures that would work were general debt write-offs of up to 70%, cuts in interest of up to 50% for five years, a grace period of five years granted to all debtors, and an extension of the maturity of loans to 25 or 30 years.
This approach, he insisted, would “enable the said (debtor) nations to reassign considerable resources that so far had been used to serve the debt, to instead be used for such purposes as would serve the recovery of their domestic economies.” Herrrhausen added that what debtor nations really needed was not fresh money—that is, new debt—but “it would be better to say they need resources.” The net effect of this “resources reallocation could, during the first five years, be bigger than [all] the fresh money injections they have requested so far.”…

Posted by: ProPeace | Aug 6 2016 13:18 utc | 113

Go figure…
NYPD Commissioner Bratton Resigns, Takes Job With Pro-Clinton, Pro-Israel Firm

Posted by: ProPeace | Aug 6 2016 13:24 utc | 114

What Really Happened: Hitlary’s lies
Clinton Body Count +1:
Lead attorney in Hillary Clinton DNC fraud case found dead

Posted by: ProPeace | Aug 6 2016 13:38 utc | 115

It seems that choosing new Congress may be as important as electing new president:
What if U.S. Election 2016 Fails to Give Either Presidential Candidate 270 Electoral Votes? The Twelfth Amendment Sets In…

Posted by: ProPeace | Aug 6 2016 14:08 utc | 116

heh i expected objections > jfl at 109 …yes the ‘other candidates’ have much going for them, but ya know, what good is the democratic system in the US? Btw the US is a Representative Republic, not anything else, as you know.
Locked up by the PTB with two pretend opposing wings, all in service og Big Corps, totally corrupted by financial influence and control, the subservient / complicit media, add on vote manipulation and outright, blatant fraud (Diebold, etc.)?
It is a simulacrum, a dream-space, a fantasy to keep Joe-6 hugging Marcia-6 in the back yard at the BBQ…loving Amerika until they lose everything. Their home and their children. Once their lives are lost they are nobodies. Voting for Stein will change nothing for them.
(Not that other countries are doing better, another story.)

Posted by: Noirette | Aug 6 2016 16:45 utc | 117

Anyone else notice how many once somewhat informational and non neocon sites are now closed loops of anti Trump nonsense?Even American Conservative,outside of P.Buchanan,is wacko.
Just saw a video of Assange at RT;Saudi Arabia is the largest donor to the Clinton Foundation.(at the end)The whole thing was quite informative,something that has disappeared from the once free web.
The (attempted)Fix is in.

Posted by: dahoit | Aug 6 2016 16:49 utc | 118

96;I,and most people here have no problem with most of Ms.Steins policy,but I have a problem with her lack of gravitas,concern for all this idiotic social confusion and divide and conquer nonsense,and the fact that she would never be able to defeat the Zionists.
Only Donald Trump is capable of that feat,and after the abuse from them via this scurrilous and serial lying attack,trying to infer he is a Russian mole, a baby mauler,(sheesh)maniacal and mentally unstable,he will definitely carry through with that project.
And if the truth about that crud hillaryous,is able to reach the American public,which of course the serial liars are trying to impede,she will be road kill.
Assange,in RT video,says she has more ties to Russia than Trump,and the Saudis are the biggest contributors to the Clinton Foundation.Who’d a thunk that,America?
And there are 1500 emails relating to Libya that is about to or has been released.
And I’ve had solar panels for 10 years,so i’m on board the renewable train.5400 KW.
They only cover about 55% of my electric bill because the roof isn’t big enough.

Posted by: dahoit | Aug 6 2016 17:12 utc | 119

@117 noirette
Hate your defeatism.

Posted by: jfl | Aug 6 2016 20:37 utc | 120

@117 noirette
Hate your cynical defeatism.

Posted by: jfl | Aug 6 2016 20:38 utc | 121

Re: Posted by: Piotr Berman | Aug 4, 2016 7:33:09 AM | 81
Fairly easy way to deal with Savchenko then. Assassinate her and blame the Russians/ Putin. 2 birds, one stone etc.

Posted by: Jules | Aug 7 2016 16:20 utc | 122

Re: Posted by: PavewayIV | Aug 5, 2016 1:50:47 AM | 97

I honestly thought Vietnam was going to wake enough Americans up to the two distinct notions of patriotic sacrifice and the wast of those lives in immoral, unjust wars that have not accomplished a single thing in sixty years.

So I take it you were a fan of MASH and consider the Korean War a just war?

Posted by: Jules | Aug 7 2016 16:36 utc | 123

question for the crowd here. what do make of the fact that billmon won’t touch this comment section with a ten foot pole?

Posted by: shumanthehuman | Aug 8 2016 0:13 utc | 124

Jules@123 – “…So I take it you were a fan of MASH…”
No, sorry. 1) Gelbart’s Borsht-belt MASH humor never did much for me; I recognize it was an immensely popular show and no knock on Gelbart, but (to me) the humor was predictable and tiring in that familiar Hollywood Jewish comedian kind of way, 2) as a tool for social commentary on the Viet Nam war, I’m not so sure. Evil isn’t funny. I don’t know… 3.5 million deaths? Maybe it’s just me.
“…and consider the Korean War a just war?
I wasn’t excluding Korea with my math – it’s just that I wasn’t even alive. My understanding of the totality of the U.S. lies and distortion is rather limited. It certainly has that old, familiar psychopathic, U.S. hegemony feel about it cloaked in the well-worn ‘Evil Communist’ rags. It’s easy for me to believe it was immoral and unjustified so I’ll stick with that. I just can’t argue the issue based on facts. The three million victims of that U.S. instigated war might feel differently, because death is (apparently) preferable to communism. That’s what they taught me in grade school, anyways – and I’m sure the U.S. wouldn’t lie to little kids. Why, that would be evil.

Posted by: PavewayIV | Aug 8 2016 1:31 utc | 125

Methinks Trump can hardly be part of the current establishment:
Little-known former policy director and CIA agent, Republican Evan McMullin to launch presidential run against Trump | US news | The Guardian
Trump Leads Hillary By 60 Points, Independent Study | WHAT REALLY HAPPENED
Clueless Clinton Supporters Agree With Donald Trump Quotes if they think Hillary said them. | WHAT REALLY HAPPENED
Day One: I Will Keep Reminding You That Voter Fraud Is A Very Real Threat And That Obama Is Denying It… Secret Group Running Elections Revealed! | WHAT REALLY HAPPENED
Wow: Hillary has only THREE scheduled appearances between now and OCTOBER 19th and Trump has rallies once or twice a day! | WHAT REALLY HAPPENED

Posted by: ProPeace | Aug 9 2016 14:04 utc | 126

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