Don’t get distracted by the latest Trump Birthright nonsense.
That was the takeaway from my long conversation with Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert. (future MIB will be here in 2 weeks or so). After the first GOP debate in 2015, he recognized Trump’s style of communication as “uniquely effective.” He said – in real time, publicly and in print – that not only was Trump going to win the nomination, he was likely to win the general election. People (including yours truly) laughed at him.
Adams observes Trump is a communication wizard, who understands mass media better than every politician and most people in the media. I’ll come back to this shortly, but let’s use Trump’s latest pronouncement as an example of what Adams was referring to.
This morning, Axios reported President Trump was signing an executive order. In it, he will end Birthright – the guarantee in the 14th Amendment that every person born on US soil is automatically a U.S. citizen.
No, Trump cannot end the 14th amendment by signing an executive order. It is silly beyond words.
However, what he CAN DO is dominate the news cycle for a day to take the emphasis off of all of the things that are working against him in the midterms.
If you are discussing this laughably idiotic ant-constitutional foolishness (even Judge Kavanaugh would laugh at this) – I am talking to you CNN and MSNBC, including Joe Scarborough and Rachel Maddow — then what is not be discussed are any and all of the following:
-Why hasn’t Trump’s massive Corporate tax cut fallen to more people in the middle class? Why has it only benefited to the top 1%?
-We were told by Steve Mnuchin the corporate tax cuts would not only pay for themselves, but would pay down the national debt. Instead, according to the Congressional Budget Office, it has caused the annual deficit explode.
– Mitch McConnell wants to pay for those tax cuts by slashing Medicare and Social Security – do candidates for the House and Senate support that approach?
-Why did the GOP vote so many times to take away coverage of pre-existing conditions contained in the ACA?
-If it wasn’t for GOP Senator John McCain (a Trump adversary), the ACA and pre-existing conditions protections would have been lost. It was straight party ling vote and McCain did Americans a huge service.
-What was the role of Trump’s incendiary rhetoric in the Tree of Life mass killing of 14 Jewish Worshipers?
-How has Trumps Tariffs impacted farmers in the grain belt?
-How much has Right Wing Rhetoric encourage mentally unstable people like Cesar DICKHEAD to send pipebombs thru the mail to opponents of
-How much has the Trade War caused the stock market to have the worst month in years?
Etc., etc., etc.
I discussed this with Adams, who many think of a conservative Trumpist but who describes himself as “To the left of Bernie Sanders.” (Wait til you hear his views on Abortion, reparations and inner city reconstruction in the podcast) He explained that Trumps uniquely effective style of communication sucks all of the oxygen out of the room. He dominates the news cycle by saying things so absurdist and ridiculous that Press is COMPELLED to cover them.
As you watch the news this week, pay attention to what is NOT BEING DISCUSSED. You will see that Adams is right; that the Democrats are tied up in knits over how to respond to him. Even Senate Elizabeth Warren, one of the brightest law professors in the country (and that’s a very bright cohort to begin with) got suckered in by his nonsense.
The only politician I see who has figured out how to respond to Trump seems to be Beto O’Rourke, running for Senate against Ted Cruz. A positive unifying message is making what should be an easy win for Cruz a surprisingly close race.
One last thing: I asked Adams about the midterms – remember, he has been more right than most – and his answer was startling. “GOP voters have more to lose” and that is what is motivating them. Democrats are so angry – he notes which party is out of power sufferers from a form of “_____ Derangement Syndrome” – and have so much wishful thinking going on, that they may be complacent. Young people don’t vote, polling places have been closed or moved out of town.
Adams notes that the outcome likely to surprise the people who got 2016 totally wrong is another GOP victory – not just the Senate but the House too. “Don’t be surprised if the blue wave does not materialize,”he added.
You have been forewarned.
