It’s interesting that Bill O’Reilly and Megyn Kelly are warring with each other and that Roger Ailes has arranged for HarperCollins to give Kelly a $10 million advance on a book as a way to keep her happy. Frankly, I’m not a Foxologist. I can’t watch the network without feeling ill. And I know that this gives me a bit of a blind spot in my political analysis, but I’m just not willing to pay that kind of price to know everything I ought to know.
What someone else might be better positioned to discuss is how the rise of Trump is flummoxing the network and how they’re going to handle this.
With his decisive win in New Hampshire, Donald Trump dashed the GOP Establishment’s hope that skipping last month’s Fox News debate would sink his campaign. By claiming more than a third of the New Hampshire vote, Trump not only exceeded expectations and more than doubled the vote tally of any of his rivals — but also demonstrated that disregarding Fox News doesn’t spell political ruin for a Republican. The grip that Rupert Murdoch, Roger Ailes, and Co. have held on the GOP for nearly a generation got a little looser Tuesday night.
Inside Fox there is confusion about what role the network should play in this altered media ecosystem going forward. According to three insiders I spoke to, the channel’s hosts and producers are split over how to cover Trump. Historically, in moments like this the strategy would be clear: Punish the person who publicly crosses Fox. But network boss Ailes has tried that, and Trump not only survived the PR assaults, including one last month, but he seems to have emerged stronger than ever. The situation is even more dire because Marco Rubio, a favorite of many high-profile voices at the network, fared badly in the New Hampshire primary, only a few days after political analysts were floating the possibility that he might even beat Trump. Tuesday night, Fox’s pundit class had to accept that his robotic performance during ABC’s debate may have destroyed his candidacy. Charles Krauthammer even compared it to Ed Muskie’s 1972 implosion.
There has been a lot of focus on how Trump and Cruz are giving elected Republican officials a bad case of heartburn, but much less on how their successes are messing up the operation of their Mighty Right-Wing Wurlitzer.
I don’t think right-wing media is set up to deal with an unorthodox candidate who doesn’t consistently hew to the conservative line, let alone one who attacks their talent and boycotts their debates. I also don’t know how they’d promote Cruz without willing and eager surrogates to fill the chairs. I’m sure they’d muddle through, but they’re not effective if they can’t do their thing the way they been trained to do it.
The GOP is definitely in disarray.
The Dems are suffering from their own form of schizophrenia, but their media outlets actually kind of thrive on the debate and excitement. It helps that they’ve never really been an official organ of the party. It reminds me of how countries with official state religions couldn’t weather the pedophilia crises nearly as well as countries where no religion was tightly aligned with the government.
Cosmopolitan — The Sex Lives of Politicians During the Primaries — According to Their Escorts
Suggests that business should be good this summer in Cleveland and Philadelphia.
snort
Nice, too bad so many are type A assholes, rough on the companions.
According to the article, they have been polite and generous toward the escorts.
Great! Win-win.
Let’s dispel with this notion that Obama didn’t know what he was doing when the escort asked him if he wanted to “go out”….
What drives me nuts throughout is their whole “Gee, I wonder how this happened” bafflement.
Yastreblyansky excellent blog has done numerous takedowns of David Brooks’ (and others’) strange fantasies about the existence of some kind of reasonable, moderate, academic, evidence-based American conservatism that’s well represented across the country — even though such a thing certainly doesn’t exist now, and probably never did.
People like William Kristol (who labor under the same misconception) can blithely go ahead and spend decades perpetrating falsehoods through the media and promoting people like Sarah Palin, and yet somehow not understand that those techniques actually work and create the current environment that they find so troubling. (Yes, I’m just making the “Frankenstein’s monster” point like everyone else, but it has specific application here.)
It’s like fast food executives knowingly approving every single stage of the process of their industry — including the overwhelming onslaught of advertising — and then publicly wondering why everyone’s so fat and unhealthy.
Some of the slap downs of Bobo and his fellow (mostly male but not all) pundit-travelers is one of the more amusing things lately. They’ve always sucked sh*t and are horrible human blights, but this latter day come to Jeebus stuff, where they wank about “whar did all the smurt peeeple gooooo????” provides, at least, some mild comic relief from the unabated horror of the Trump spectacle. One must find one’s amusement where one may.
Yeesh. These pundits. Yeah, they created this nasty Frankenstein’s monster, but as alleged Master Minds of the Master race representing the feckin party of “personal responsibility (not)” they’ll never ever ever ever confess to being responsible for this sh*t.
As for Jabba the Ailes and his Master, Rupert, well… I don’t believe there is an afterlife, but if there is, I certainly hope there’s places for them in the 9th circle of hell… or maybe de debbil will create a special 10th circle just for them!
Fox doesn’t have to concern itself anymore with the Bayonne Bully, he’s out (apparently after having a private phone convo with Trump) (as noted last week by me, the Christie campaign is broke) and the GOP “ladyparts” candidate is also taking her hat out of the ring (on a high note with 4% of the NH GOP primary vote total).
They will do what they must to continue to make money.
They’ll surrender to Trump.
Or…if Bloomberg runs (a much better bet today after the PermaGov’s two least favored candidates won in NH), they will hype him to the skies as the savior of modern America.
Or…and I have been presenting this as a distinct possibility since Trump showed real strength in late July/early August…”something” will happen to his candidacy. Soon. What? I dunno. A scandal. Worse? Fuck with the bull and you get the horns.
Every time.
AG
Uortunately, I think AG might be right. It depends on just how righteous the $$$men are feeling.
http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/b/boggs_thomas.html
http://daviesscountyhistoricalsociety.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&
sid=160
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/onpolitics/elections/carnahan101700.htm
http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2003/11/18_zdechlikm_ntsbreport/
The rubes are finally turning on the party. First they turned on moderates in the party and on the Bush Administration. Over the last eight years, more and more of the party has gotten pushed into the category of “the enemy” (not unlike the way the radicals of the French Revolution turned on more and more people until they even turned on their own leader, Robespierre).
With someone taking leadership of the Rubes from outside the party, there’s a real danger that the party itself and all its organs could become the enemy. Fox wants to stay a step ahead but how to do that without renouncing the rich elites they truly serve?
I’m having so much fun watching this debacle, rooting for Trump to stay ahead and for Bush, Rubio et. al. to continue to flounder. Christy was wise to put himself out of his misery.
Trump.
Rubespierre…errr, ahhh, I mean Robespierre… in waiting.Watch.
AG
Rubespierre — I love it!
A meme is born.
Will drive the rubes nuts because it sounds so French.
Let them eat Twinkies.
deep fried twinkles
Be careful what you wish for.
You might get it.
AG
Schadenfreude rules the day. It is satisfying to see the beast devouring itself. But what happens when Il Duce is actually the nominee and has 45% of the electorate, minimum, in his corner? Not sure Robespierre, who after all was just one member of the Committee of Public Safety, is the right analogy; The Donald doesn’t do committees. But you’re right about getting what you wished for being a dubious choice.
I’m not so sure about that 45% figure. I would agree with that figure for Romney, Kashich and Bush but the rest of the cast is NOT that secure.
Esentially, Tea Party is the only piece of the American voting electorate that actually LIKES Trump. The rest either don’t like him at all or are tepid at best. Tea Party “members” are about 17% of the voting population. But support from self-described conservative Republicans has dropt from 63% to about 40%.
I’m not sanguine about roughly 25-30% of the voting population actively supporting Trump, but don’t go down AG’s road and decide that entire voting population is going to go cra-cra overnight.
I made essentially the same point in this fairly recent comment:
Adding: heard NPR interview a few self-identified NON-Trump NH GOP primary voters, and boy howdy did they NOT like him. IIRC, at least one said they’d vote for Hil or Bern if Trump was GOP nominee. Yes, anecdotal, but still suggestive that Trump has limited room to expand that 9-22% of the national electorate.
It is uncharted territory for the coaches of Team Conservative and their Noise Machine, no doubt—although why rightwing extremist Cruz would be so anathema to Fox and the plutocrats is a bit of a mystery. But if the establishment-of-the-moment candidate continues to change places while Trump and Cruz keep on top, then clearly some improvisation will be needed in the Conservative High Command and its Generals like KKK Rover.
Ultimately, the Repub nominee will make nice with the High Command, its generals and the Noise Machine, these are assets that Der Trumper or Cruz will want to utilize to some degree. Nor will the High Command attempt to kill the nominee selected by its own rubes—they are tied to the rubes in perpetuity and aren’t going to commit hari-kari in a fit of pique because Bush or Kasich weren’t selected.
After all, the raison d’etre of the Noise Machine and the Coaches is above all to annihilate and ruin the Dem party and vilify its candidates. So they will make their separate peace with Der Trumper (or whoever) and follow his orders, while he confers with the plutocrats/CEOs who fund the operation (and effectively run the country) as how to best get the GOoP nominee into the Oval office.
Coordination of Noise Machine, Coaches and Plutocrat funders is not an insuperable problem for the nominee. They are all ultimately united in a single goal—the annihilation of the Dem party and its relegation to complete impotency. That is the Prime Directive.
they are tied to the rubes in perpetuity and aren’t going to commit hari-kari in a fit of pique because Bush or Kasich weren’t selected.
IOW the GOP high command isn’t as stupid and emotionally driven as the 1972 DEM high command. Have to see if the DEM high command has learned from that lesson.
>>Have to see if the DEM high command has learned from that lesson.
if i were to bet, i think labor wouldn’t be that dumb again, they’d get behind Bernie. Beltway Dems would be all in for Bloomberg.
Labor is too small to matter — in part because of how dumb it was back when they helped blow up the DEM coalition.
Policywise, the Clintons would align very nicely with Bloomberg, but they would never overtly support him over a Sanders nomination. Many far better ways to undermine a DEM POTUS candidate without leaving direct fingerprints. Although those fingerprints made not erase as easily as the once did.
“Labor is too small to matter — in part because of how dumb it was back when they helped blow up the DEM coalition.”
Marie3’s anger over the Presidential campaigns of the late ’60’s and ’70’s does not make her right about Labor’s role in progressive politics. Labor is plenty big enough to matter. Everything that Marie3 wants government to accomplish depends on maintaining a vital Labor movement. Her frustration over the failure of governance in recent decades is explicitly tied to the weakening of Labor. I would agree that Labor has some self-inflicted wounds, but her claim here is a little over the top.
And here’s why. Share price down to $11 from high of $16+ last year.
Live by the sword, die by the sword. It’s all about the money. It is always about the money. That’s all you need to know about Republican policy, politics and ideology. It’s always simply about the enrichment of the person talking. Supporter, pundit or pol. Every single time.
It’s contagious and corrosive and celebrated as everything but the selfish narcissism that children hopefully leave behind when turn eight or ten.
Same with DLC.
I think the DLC no longer exists (and good riddance!)
In fact, I looked it up:
Today’s announcement of both Christie & Fiorina suspending their campaigns gives about 12% back into the kitty.
Will FOX twiddle their thumbs or will they make a stab at their old role of kingmaker and support old pal Kasich?
Can’t imagine the giant egos at FOX handing over the keys to Trump just yet.
12% from NH only.
Not from NC, AR, and MI. In those states Fiorina and Christie put back at most 5% … if that.
Indeed. I sat for a moment this morning savouring the headline in Politico, “GOP establishment stares into the abyss“; repeating it several times with emphasis on different words to see which was sweetest. Hard to choose. Try it yourself.
And, if one looks, signs that the combative, mean, selfish entitlement that motivates the policies, personalities and the apparently useless money sloshing around the decks of foundering ‘establishment’ campaigns has no vision beyond bloody, damaging, pointless cage-matches over imaginary supporters in constituencies whom already disdain and reject them:
Too bad, so sad; the bonfire of their vanities manifest as a dumpster fire on a muggy day.
Bush and Rubio are like a cage match with wet noodles while T-rump and Cruz laugh all the way to the convention.
Well, here is the scary thing to me. We all laugh and laugh at the straits that old guard conservatives now find themselves in. And the whole sense that karma is somehow finally exacting its pound of flesh is a deliciously enticing thing to contemplate. It is rich to watch the likes of David Brook, Bill Kristol and their fellow travelers squirm and prevaricate under this unimaginable dissonance that has descended upon them.
But what about this? What if, in the end, after all the craziness plays to its seemingly inevitable conclusion, these people and all their monied friends simply fold themselves into the world of Trumpistan or Cruzistan, and everything that comes along with it? What if they decide that the lunatics do, indeed, own the asylum and all the ground that comes along with it, and they make the decision to cut a necessary and strategic deal with the lunatics, simply because there are no other options available to them? They certainly are not going to throw their hat into the Democrat’s ring. So they will have no choice but to make the best of the situation that has been dealt to them, and they ally themselves and all their money with the craziest of the lunatic fringe.
Does anyone think that Fox News and all the other winger organizations won’t work overtime to fit themselves into the framework of whoever is actually holding the levers of power in the insane world of today’s conservative movement?
I’m not entirely certain that there will be this fracturing of the right that we all seem to be waiting for. The possibility of a Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders presidency is just too much for them to contemplate. Still, I think, in the end they will ALL do what they always do, and dutifully line up and support whoever is NOT a Democrat.
The world they and all their right wing sources of information have created is, in their minds, nothing short of apocalyptic in nature. The world is totally binary to them. They are going to align themselves and show up simply because, to them, this is a straightforward case of needing to defend the gates of heaven against a massive hoard of crazy liberal zombies who are going to literally destroy their world, kill their children, confiscate and burn their bibles and enslave them in a hellish liberal fantasy.
So I am loathe to celebrate just yet, and to start counting my chickens at this point. If the people who populate the right wing of our political spectrum possess anything in abundance, it is the ability to compartmentalize things simply and to ignore the tugs of cognitive dissonance that pull at many of their brains 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. When the prospect of losing is equated with literal annihilation, it is easy to rationalize that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
As much as I am among the most imprudent gloaters I can see your essential point. Still, these moments don’t come often.
But just on the constituencies in motion, aren’t Trump and Cruz voters those most unlikely among the GOP to share the same economic policy aspirations as “these people and all their monied friends”? Aren’t they mostly the cranky white people with too little money or too much fear? It seems to me that’s one of the major notions underlying both insurgent campaigns, although admittedly an edge issue for the clearly insincere Cruz he also has a populist spiel he cants.
My take is that “these people and all their monied friends” don’t have a horse they like that looks like winning. Sure the whole GOP will close ranks after the nomination in any case but the schism seems to run very deep; one might say an existing fault in the Faustian bargain that Nixon struck and Reagan renewed. So I’m still long popcorn futures.
But beyond some arguably appropriate gloating the essential political question seems, “Which Democrat is the better candidate in the event of Trump, say, gaining his party’s nomination?” Hillary or Sanders? Not a slam dunk, it seems:
Not to mention Trump not jumping on Hillary and Bill’s every nerve from late July to early November. We need to think about this carefully and hope our predictions are sound. I’m not sure one way is better than another just yet.
I guess the foundation of my premise is that I fear this kind of seemingly tenuous and obviously distasteful alliance which could form would be enough to push the lunatic fringe over the top. And while it is always fashionable to paint elections in apocalyptic terms, in this case there is much evidence to support that a win by these people would be apocalyptic to the long term health and well being of the country. The barbarians have not been this close to the gate in a very long time. Certainly not in my lifetime of over half a century.
I am simply distrustful of polls at this point which seem, to me, to be giving a lot of people an inflated sense of confidence that either of the Democrats will easily win out over whoever the lunatic party puts out there. I personally know a lot of people who are finding this whole nationalistic, xenophobic campaign by the right wing nutters quite invigorating and motivational. And they are not planning on going quietly into the night.
I quite agree with the “invigorating and motivational” observation; we need to brace ourselves. I don’t think Democrats are prepared for what might be coming our way.
MikeInOhio:
I’ve had this exact thought and I agree that the joke is going to be a whole lot less funny if Trump does claw his way to victory.
That said, I don’t think support for Der Donald is quite as universal on the Right as us left-leaning folks like to imagine. There are a whole lot of Republicans who consider their political allegiance a marker of their sophistication and responsibility. The kind of people for whom Sarah Palin was a tremendous embarrassment. Those Republicans can be buffaloed but Trump’s con is not calibrated for them.
In a Clinton vs Trump match-up, it is not solely a choice between a Dem and a Republican. It is a choice between a serious candidate and a candidate who will force them to abandon their own pretense of being serious voters. They may indeed hate Hillary, but Donald is an implicit attack on their self-image.
If Trump sticks to his reality television persona in the general election, I expect to see him lead the Republican party into a historic thrashing. If he pivots, and is able to shapechange into his own version of the “responsible” Republican, then I will be worried.
Then again, even if Trump does pivot I expect a lot of the Conservative Movement (including their Media army) to support him very tepidly. Him ripping control of the movement out of their hands and then winning regardless would in many ways be a greater threat to them than a Clinton Presidency. Their main interest will be to avoid the perception that they were the cause of his defeat. (And once he has lost, the knives will come out for him.)
I could wrong about all of this, of course, but I don’t think we should overestimate the “loyal follower” mentality of the political right. I strongly suspect that something that violates their self-image as badly as Trump will be more of an anathema than Hillary Clinton. Identity politics may be real, but they aren’t actually binary.
Don’t know what I think yet. On one hand this looks like professional wrestling. It’s like selling spaghetti sauce. There is no one perfect spaghetti sauce so to maximize sales one needs to offer more than one recipe of sauce. Just ’cause it looks like a suplex hurts doesn’t mean it actually does. On the other hand surely those bilionaires aren’t falling for an act and this is really chaos. It seems to be selling tickets one way or the other though.
…On one hand this looks like professional wrestling. …
If the rubes ever catch on, it’s going to be harder to sell those tickets.
The rubes never catch on. That’s why they’re rubes.
AG
great article
Sewa Bus Murah Sewa Bus Pariwisata Sewa Bus Pariwisata Murah
You could sense by how they delivered news on Trump versus other candidates.