Have I mentioned that this is turning out to be a GREAT news day?
Trump’s Supporters Are Not Cult Members. We’re Americans.
By Sally Zelikovsky
FTA:
Any birdbrain knows that Trump makes every day about us and the U.S. The only reason he has had to talk about himself is because he’s been under constant attack, and Democrats demanded his head. Past Republican presidents likely would not have responded, concluding that it was beneath the dignity of the office. Perhaps. But at some point, you have to fight back, or you’ll eventually be ousted. When they called George Bush a liar and accused him of starting a war for oil we never got but would somehow benefit him, he just took it and virtually disappeared. When you don’t present your case forcefully, the accusations become the truth, no matter how false.
Republicans are trained to respond like that. When running for office, you are advised not to address outrageous accusations — because it drives more media and public attention to the issue, keeping it in the spotlight. Instead, candidates are supposed to pivot towards what they can do or have done or what one’s opponent hasn’t done, etc. The tactic of punching back should be deployed only in very rare circumstances. This might have worked in a more chivalrous period of American politics, but once the Democrats shifted to a strategy of relentlessly lobbing mostly false accusations at their competitors, Republicans should have altered their strategy. But they didn’t, and, for too long, the Democrats have been cage-fighting while we pretend-fight with our Rock ‘Em, Sock ‘Em Robots.
Democrats got used to bullying Republicans, and Republicans forgot how to stand up for themselves. That all changed when Trump seismically disrupted the status quo, and Democrats and establishment Republicans went nuts. Democrats lost their stronghold over Republicans, and the Republican establishment didn’t know what hit them: they couldn’t control someone who burned their playbook and didn’t care about perceptions.
Taking the high road is admirable, but if you continue to come up short, you are going to have to find another path if you want to win. The new path forged by Trump is that of punching back with whatever you’ve got — facts, insults, rumors, truths — and, duh! It’s working, and Democrats don’t like that.
Again, Justice!
https://amgreatness.com/2020/02/09/the-once-and-future-scandal/
The Once and Future Scandal
Victor Davis Hanson
Soon the worm may turn. The real scandal is back on the horizon, and at last, we may learn that no one is above the law—most certainly not a group of smug and mediocre apparatchiks who assumed they had the moral right to destroy a presidential candidate and later an elected president.
FTA:
So, we are now back to the existential issue of the entire Trump phenomenon: to what degree did the Hillary Clinton campaign collude with high-ranking Obama officials, and the top echelons of the FBI, CIA, and the national intelligence apparatus, to surveil, defame, and hope to derail Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign by unlawful means?
Who in the federal government then continued Clinton’s efforts after the 2016 election to disrupt and indeed attempt to destroy the Trump transition and presidency?
Taking the high road is admirable, but if you continue to come up short, you are going to have to find another path if you want to win. The new path forged by Trump is that of punching back with whatever you’ve got — facts, insults, rumors, truths — and, duh! It’s working, and Democrats don’t like that.
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Agree with your whole excellent post. Thank you.