Look, it’s no secret that I am a huge Bernie fan and haven’t been able to summon up much enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton’s candidacy. I’ve felt a bit unmoored because I’m not interested in listening to a bunch of speculation about her health and whatnot on other sites but it’s difficult to come here and read all the excuses and obfuscation for what the world perceives as a lack of transparency. It’s not as nefarious as the press makes it out to be, but it is not as innocuous as folks here want to pretend it is.
That said . . .
I just saw on CNN that, among likely voters, Trump leads Clinton 47% — 44%.
Now on what planet is that even possible?
Donald Trump has to be the singularly least qualified presidential candidate in history. Worse than that, he is likely one of the most dangerous assholes to ever approach DC, with a complete lack of understanding of what an “indoor” voice means in terms of diplomacy, and a constant stream of insults and lies and crazed commentary and doomsday-provoking policy declarations. I mean, this guy insists we should have (and will in the future) violate international law. Putin is his role model. He incites violence at his rallies, elevates racism and xenophobia and misogyny, runs his campaign like a third grader trying to get out of doing his homework with a forged note (“Little Donny is the very bestest in the whole wide werld, ever!”)
The story today is Clinton’s health. Not Trump’s insane policies and hateful bile and lack of candor about his taxes. Not his racist supporters or his obvious lies about his meeting with the President of Mexico. Not his insulting faux pas in Flint, being called out by the residents there for not having fricking given a damn about Flint until now and using them as a springboard to attack Clinton. Not that he has been accused of refusing to rent to people of color. Not the fact that half his followers ARE a basket of disgruntled losers and known racists looking for someone to blame for their woes.
No. The story today is Jed Bartlet has MS Hillary Clinton is a 69 year old woman and may or may not have some sort of illness. No wait, it’s not even that. That might be a story. The story today is that Hillary Clinton should have told us on Friday that she had pneumonia, instead of Sunday. Sort of a self-inflicted wound, shades of the “earthtones” debacle with Al Gore, fed well with a neverending stream of “well I didn’t think it was important to tell the voters about XX” coverups of stuff that is not necessary to cover up.
But only in a world where the press can’t let go of a narrative to chase a real story does this sort of crap turn an election around. Trump=crooked liar/clueless egomaniac/dangerous loon is like dog bites man. Who fucking cares, right? More of that is just ho hum. Assume he never means anything he says, and when he turns on a dime he doesn’t mean that either. The media doesn’t see this as a story, and after months of gaping and pointing with a smile and head shake at his ludicrous and crude performance they have turned to Hillary to point and accuse with Very Serious Faces — and report the numbers as if their lack of journalistic integrity has nothing to do with it.
As if an ignorant lunatic spewing nonsensical words and munitions and authoritarian edicts from the Oval Office is just fine by them. Do they really think he’s a viable . . . person? Seems like an ugly bag of brainless persona to me.
It’s no secret that I believe that Hillary Clinton is a flawed candidate and a lot of what she is facing she has brought upon herself. But let’s be real here: Donald Trump has no business within 1,000 miles of the White House. The media needs to get its act together. Hillary’s campaign needs to pre-empt the narrative with complete transparency about virtually everything, no matter how unfair that seems given the lying, withholding sack of crap that is Trump. But the media is seriously missing the boat here. I’ve never been a fan of the way the media covers politics. This takes the cake, even over their failure to call Romney an obvious liar. Even over their failure to recognize the truth in the Bush AWOL story. This has been a really strange primary and election season. Probably the strangest I’ve ever been involved in to any extent. Maybe the media just doesn’t even know how to properly cover it with the goal of an informed electorate in mind. But they should start figuring it out, quick.
In no reality I want to live in does Donald Trump lead Hillary Clinton — or anyone else — in a Presidential election.
Friday, Sep 16, 2016 · 2:57:46 PM +00:00
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delphine
This diary has nothing to do with Bernie Sanders. I’ve gone after the media in the past and they are failing now. I won’t apologize for not feeling a huge amount of enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton, nor will I pretend she doesn’t have flaws and hasn’t come into this campaign with huge negatives. That doesn’t mean the media shouldn’t be doing its job revealing what a disaster Trump is. I am not a victim of right wing memes. I defended Bill and Hillary for years. Hillary lost me during this campaign, with her positions on many crucial issues, and her disingenuous attacks on Bernie Sanders, who was loathe to even talk about the various right wing bullshit. While her campaign was painting him as a racist, sexist, lefty loon whose policies (now in the Dem platform) were ridiculous pie in the sky, he was pointing out that she and other politicians take a lot of money from Wall Street and Big Oil and Pharma and then tell us they will rein them in. That’s called “campaigning”, and it sucked for both sets of supporters, but it’s not the reason that Hillary Clinton finds herself right now facing a media that can’t let go of the narrative that she is withholding. And every time she withholds anything (or even seems to), they will pounce on it and it will distract from the horrible reality of Trump. I won’t apologize for saying she needs to be very cognizant of that during the making of each decision.
And to those who seem to think I’m co-opting phrasing from Trump himself, well . . . . eeeeuuewww. I loathe this man. He is a disgusting turd of a “human being”. I have never watched any of his speeches and turn the channel when the media starts to play clips. To the extent that anything I say (“what the hell” and “Who knows?” apparently???) is similar, it’s a total coincidence. Certainly he’s never said anything I find worth quoting.
Finally, please understand that people don’t have to deify someone in order to vote for them. You won’t convince people to go to the polls by insisting that any criticism of Clinton is a right wing lie and implying they are secretly Trump supporters or slyly trying to tear her down. You won’t convince the vast majority of people that she is perfect, and attacking people as sexists or naively bent by right wing lies for seeing flaws will just drive them away.
She’s not perfect and the media is a clueless mess. Both exist simultaneously. My diary is about the media narrative, but Clinton’s campaign needs to understand its role as well.