Democrats aren't the only ones looking to make Trump the face of the Republican Party
I'll admit I'm a bit flummoxed as to why Fox News has been defending Donald Trump so energetically. Conventional wisdom is that Donald Trump is a raving clown whose mere presence in the presidential race is an embarrassment to a party desperately trying to be seen as serious and responsible; Sean Hannity, the Fox & Friends crew, and other Fox network staples have been rather quick to rise to his defense—nay, to applaud him for his services. Monica Crowley:
"The question about whether he's good for the Republican Party I think is immaterial, because he's performing two great services for the rest of the candidates, if they're smart enough to follow his lead. Number one, he is not caving in to the leftist intimidation tactics. Right? They're going after Univision, they're going after Macy's, they're going after NBC and they have all caved and Donald Trump says no, statistics back me up on the significant criminal element coming over the border, I can back up everything I'm saying and I'm not apologizing. That is a big lesson for Republicans and conservatives going forward.
And number two, by being this brash and outspoken, could he say things in a more graceful way, maybe, but guess what: He's doing a lot of political blocking for the other candidates. Because he is saying things that need to be said, and if the other candidates are smart—they might wrap it up in more diplomatic language—but he is actually going out there kind of as the lead rabbit running around."
As a reminder, here's the sort of thing he's been saying that "statistics back me up on" and on which other candidates should be "
following his lead."
When Lemon replied that the article [Trump cited] is about rape victims and not perpetrators, Trump responded, "Well, somebody's doing the raping, Don! I mean, somebody's doing it! Who's doing the raping? Who's doing the raping?"
The logical conclusion here is that Fox News is considerably more dedicated to the cause of racist inflammatory rhetoric (and, of course, defending that rhetoric when the Liberal Menace tries to make a big deal of it) than they are to any specific need of the Republican Party to look Not Insane. For them, Donald Trump may be the candidate they've been dreaming of for some time, a candidate that can finally peel back the layers of necessary misdirection that more center-seeking Republicans need to coat their rhetoric with and can finally give their viewers the unvarnished
Mexicans are coming to rape our womenfolk that the Fox nation of elderly lily white unapologetically conspiratorially minded and racist and pants-wettingly terrified viewers can wrap their un-nuanced minds around.
Still, in the aftermath of the Glenn Beck days corporate head Roger Ailes made considerable noise about wanting to tamp down on the network crazy, seeking to revert the network back to something a bit more staid and corporate-friendly and a bit less people-writing-conspiracy-theories-on-chalkboards. That hasn't happened; if anything the bizarre rants that Beck was known for have migrated out to the other programs. You don't need Glenn Beck interviewing a faux-historian, now you've got Sean Hannity interviewing clearly unbalanced armed nutcases out in the Nevada desert. You've got a network going all-in on Steve King-brand immigration rhetoric. You've got a pompous, ostentatious asshole opining that Mexican immigrants are predominantly criminals and rapists and the Fox News shows are falling over each other trying to praise the guy for saying "things that need to be said."
So I guess the experiment with more responsible programming is dead, then. From now on we'll just be putting a microphone on the crazy racists and inviting the audience to throw money at them. Maybe it doesn't make the party look bad after all, if you believe the Crowley interpretation. Maybe Trump's just saying what the Republican base really, truly wants the candidates to say.