You Cannot Laugh A Clown Offstage, Pt. III. ESPECIALLY When The Stage Is Presidential.

On my recent post Trump Redux. Trump Redefined. Trump the STATESMAN!!!, The Voice In The Wilderness posted the following comment:

Please read this:

https://caucus99percent.com/content/what-left-can-learn-italy

Berlusconi, perhaps a better fit for Trump than Caligula. Berlusconi liked the young girls too (it’s legal in Italy).

I hope Marie3, mino and Karl Pearson read it too. It’s very apropos with what they have been saying, particularly mino & Karl.

I did read it.

Here is some of what it said:

What the left can learn from Italy
Submitted by gjohnsit on Wed, 04/19/2017 – 6:39pm

There are few who will deny the similarities between Donald Trump and former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Both grew their fortunes on allegedly mafia-linked real-estate developments, transitioned into successful careers as media moguls, and, against all odds, ascended to the helm of their respective national governments. Then there’s the common penchant for vitriol, misogyny, philandry, aggressive tanning, and pompous neckwear.
That’s just the start. You could also include scapegoating immigrants, corruption, fake populism, attacks on the news media, etc.
There is also another similarity that is on the verge of repeating: The left’s failed response to a corrupt demagogue.

Back in November, an Italian gave this advice.

Political opposition: `Stop crying and try to understand his voters’
For years, Berlusconi’s boorish behaviour was a gift to political opponents and journalists who were free to ridicule him. But ultimately they did not prove an effective opposition.

Opposing Berlusconi by ridiculing him, Orsina said, was a way to preach to the converted, as were attempts to warn that Berlusconi’s rule represented the end of Italian democracy.

“The most powerful way to oppose him, but it was never really done seriously, was to try and understand what his voters want and try to address the need of his voters. No jokes, stop shouting, stop crying, stop saying: `It is a horror and disaster’; try and seriously understand what his voters want, and the left was never really successful in doing that,” Orsina said.

Democrats were already preaching to the choir inside their bubble before the election. It didn’t start with Hillary’s ‘deplorables’ comment.
It seems to be getting worse.

“The question neither Maloney nor Luján will answer is whether they should recruit moderate to conservative candidates in rural districts or just abandon them altogether,” reported The Washington Post in an article titled, “Should House Democrats write off rural congressional districts?” This piece, and the DCCC strategies it outlines, embodies what is wrong with the Democratic Party: Their elitist arrogance is why Hillary Clinton lost the presidential election and why the Democratic Party is in the position it is in now.

This elitism and arrogance is on display almost every night on cable TV.
Trevor Noah’s Daily Show, Samantha Bee’s Full Frontal, and John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight are full-throated liberal polemics against Trump. Fair ’nuff. Trump is an easy target and much deserving of the abuse, even if it does devolve into childish name-calling at times.

That isn’t the problem.

But somewhere along the way, the hosts of the late-night shows decided that they had carte blanche to insult not just the people within this administration, but also the ordinary citizens who support Trump, and even those who merely identify as conservatives….

Though aimed at blue-state sophisticates, late-night comedy shows are an unintended but powerful form of propaganda for conservatives.

This is the end result of a belief system built upon moral superiority. It only works if it is unquestionably morally superior (which it isn’t), and even then the lack of humility is a huge turn-off.

Liberals can’t see it because they are too busy signaling their virtue to each other.

—snip—

The neoliberal wing of the Democratic Party must be defeated, and it must be defeated soon.

I replied to Voice, and now I am posting that reply as a standalone.

Read on.
Exactly!!!

Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are trying to do precisely that.

Oppose on the issues, not on snark.

And they are failing.

Why?

1-They are outnumbered and outmoneyed in the DNC.

2-The media…the so-called left-centrist media particularly…oppose Trump mostly on behavioral grounds. (When they do oppose him, of course…an increasingly rare phenomenon as he gains “War President” stature. So it goes. Business usual in Omertica. War business.)

My posts The Trump Problem. You Cannot Laugh A Clown Offstage. (July, 2015) and Trump-You Cannot Laugh A Clown Offstage. Pt. II (January, 2016)…and many more that I have made since the Trump phenomenon became a serious threat…made precisely that point.

Snark is weak. It is a weakling’s weapon. I have no use whatsoever for MSNBC, SNL, the late night shows and the various snarky media outlets that continue to “oppose” Trump by ridiculing him. They are preaching to a millennial/yupster choir, and that choir is paying them royally for the privilege.

The privilege of losing!!!