The war is on between Trump and the conservative media

Business Insider ^ | September 24, 2015 | Rob Garver, The Fiscal Times

[2ndDivisionVet]

Recent media coverage of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has noted that the loudmouthed billionaire currently leading the Republican field in public opinion polls has been increasingly eager to complain to his audiences about how the “dishonest” media is covering his campaign.

Floating theories about NBC suppressing coverage of its own polls in order to report on other findings less friendly to Trump and about the heat on the stage at CNN’s debate last week, the real estate mogul and former reality television star has come across as a little bit paranoid.

Of course, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t meant they aren’t out to get you....

[ek_hornbeck]

The media is biased, the debate moderators are biased, Republican candidates are physically ugly, too young, losers, okay doctors etc. Everybody is off base but Donald Trump.

There's plenty to criticize about Trump based on his past statements and actions. That doesn't change the fact that Fox News is more interested in being a mouthpiece for the RNC than supporting conservative principles. Fox supports the GOP establishment against any and all, regardless of ideology. Sometimes, the enemies of that GOP establishment are liberal Democrats, and in those instances Fox can pretend to be the voice of conservatism. Other times, the enemies of the GOP establishment are authentic conservatives or populists, in which case Fox takes the side of the liberals.

Fox's quarrel with Trump isn't really about Trump, they'd have the same problem with anyone else challenging Jeb and Jeb's pinch-hitters.

[ScottinVA]

“I must have slept through that. What candidate had anything substantive to say about foreign policy? I know Cruz only got about 2 questions all night.”

When the discussion turned to Russia’s presence in Ukraine, Syria, the Iran deal and Russia’s hosting of Quds commander Soleimani, Trump stood silently, knowing he didn’t possess the level of understanding his opponents did. Presidents are scheduled to receive Top Secret intel briefs each morning. Would Trump continue Obama’s practice of ignoring them?

[P-Marlowe]

You didn’t answer the question.

[ScottinVA]

Great assessment.

[ScottinVA]

Actually, I did. Read my response again.

And you know I’m right.. I don’t need to further convince you.

[P-Marlowe]

Actually, I did. Read my response again.

I did and you didn't.

Here's the question again:

What candidate had anything substantive to say about foreign policy?

[ScottinVA]

I guess you did indeed sleep through much of it.

Rubio discussed The threats pertaining to North Korean missiles, Russian incursions into the Ukraine and Chinese cyberattacks. Fiorina outlined what her actions would be vis-a-vis the Iran deal and Russia, i.e., the buildup of U.S. forces.

Cruz stated he would tear up the Iran agreement and take it back to renegotiation. All but Trump and Rand Paul agreed about the need to engage ISIS.

Trump was like a fish out of water in that arena, and stood silently for nearly 25 minutes.

But as I said.. I don’t have to further convince you... you know I’m right.

[P-Marlowe]

Sounds like generalities rather than a substantive discussion.

That is because the forum only allowed for soundbites and back bites.

In a real debate, the debaters know the topics and the questions in advance and the questions are put to each debater for point and counterpoint.

These MSM debates are a total joke. I didn’t learn anything. Nobody did.

[ScottinVA]

I agree there about the format. It was horribly done by CNN.

[willyd]

It’s not about referring to books.. you have to realize that he is a political outsider so he is relying on much of the same resources that we do to form opinions... writing the book means he has taken time to meet with the people that know and he has formed an opinion based on that... if the book is more rhetoric then he has a problem, but if he details specific plans that will form the basis of his campaign moving forward I don’t see a problem.

[P-Marlowe]

I agree there about the format. It was horribly done by CNN.

It it were a professionally moderated formal debate, Ted Cruz would have wiped the floor with all of them. Instead it was a set up designed to try to get all the GOPe candidates to gang tackle Trump and ignore Cruz.

[nathanbedford]

As the gentleman said, I am much older than you and I can remember a bashing of a candidate that made my blood boil as well as my stomach turn. It occurred in a familiar venue, The South Mountain Arena, in the fall campaign in 1964 when Barry Goldwater appeared there at a rally. I had tickets with friends to get inside but there were throngs of people in overflow outside because there simply were not enough seats. I saw them enthusiastically cheering for Goldwater. After the rally, I went home and turned on the late news as it was presented in those days only to be shown through the magic of television that the people who thought they were demonstrating in favor of Goldwater were in reality opposing Goldwater. How easily had my own eyes deceived me!

When real conservatives like Goldwater are attacked by the press, the Republicans have have had an ignominious and pusillanimous history of turning the other cheek. Goldwater lost but his champion, Ronald Reagan, had learned a lesson, Reagan expected and Reagan received little help from the Republicans but he turned the media back on itself with wit. Donald Trump, who is no conservative, simply lashes back at the media and he does so in the most unseemly, boorish manner. I was one of the very earliest supporters of Ted Cruz in this forum and I always characterized the senator as a man who "never put a foot down wrong." I know of no gaffe committed by Ted Cruz. I know of no contretemps between Cruz and other candidates. Cruz fights very hard but he fights against the establishment for conservative principles, he does not fight with television executives who buy their gigabytes by the barrel about the menstrual cycles of female news presenters.

I will grant Donald Trump that he has inadvertently performed a great service for conservatism, he has made it politically possible, if not politically correct, to directly attack the media. This was done the last cycle by Newt Gingrich but Trump has simply made it part of our culture. I will even grant that Trump has helped to create an atmosphere in which the Republican establishment has been exposed and he has contributed to the atmosphere which has brought down John Boehner. But these contributions were not intentional contributions to conservatism, they were opportunistic lurches for power by Donald Trump on behalf of Donald Trump. Are they any more than ugly excrescences of Donald Trump's ego?

I will grant the Donald Trump regards himself to be a patriot who wants to, "make America great again." What patriotic conservative does not? But does Donald Trump share a conservative vision of what an America restored to greatness would look like? Are we committing ourselves with an emotional orgasm to a world according to Donald? We complained long and hard on this forum before Obama took office that he was not just a mountebank but a communist. It seemed as he walked up Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House on Inauguration Day that the whole nation had swallowed uncritically his mindless rhetoric of "hope and change." Have we not learned any lesson? Barack Obama governed as he the man he was and always had been. Why do we think Donald Trump will do otherwise? Are we so desperate in our genuine patriotic need to save the Republic from the destruction to which it is unarguably headed that we will uncritically substitute rhetoric for reason, hope and change for on the ground political biography?

A word about electability. When the Republican establishment passers up every opportunity to exercise the power of the purse to control the budget and save the nation from bankruptcy, to defund Planned Parenthood and spare millions of babies from dismemberment, or to defund Obama care we are told that it is a question of electability. We must grab our ankles for Barack Obama on immigration and on Iran because of electability. Astonishingly when we criticize Donald Trump we are lectured by principled conservatives about electability. Many a conservative on this form will say that electing a Rino Republican President is no different than electing a Democrat. I say that electing a narcissist, and opportunist, a man who is clearly not a conservative is not likely to be an improvement in many respects and in ways we cannot yet anticipate might well prove disastrous. We fault the Rino establishment for failure to fight for conservatism because they cite electability. Why should we sacrifice principle for electability on behalf of a man like Donald Trump?

Donald Trump seems to be qualified because he has the right enemies but the problem is virtually everyone is Donald's enemy. If one does not submit to the cult of personality he becomes Donald Trump's enemy. The cult of personality is something we despise in Barack Obama, let us not succumb to our own conservative temptations to have false gods before us.

[noinfringers2]

I like your discourse but you leave me dangling in the political winds as to who could fill your intentions.

[nathanbedford]

I ended my initial reply #18 in this thread with this conclusion:

The Republican establishment is trying to decide whether to back Fiorina or Rubio. I continue to support the only conservative with a chance to win, Ted Cruz.