Events Matter

This Election Campaign is Far From Over

Right now Hillary partisans are feeling pretty good.     They should be wary, not confident.

 They look at Nate Silver and Real Clear Politics polls and feel good.   They love the idea of a blowout win in New York and try not to think about how close the polls are in Ohio and Florida by thinking back to the national polls.  And what is undoubtedly true is that Trump has had a bad week, hitting the anti-Muslim theme awkwardly by taking on the Khans and looking unreliable when insisting Obama was a "founder" of ISIS.

News Today

But these mistakes were not necessarily mistakes.   Trump was in the news for a week making the point that he doesn't like Muslims and that Obama probably is one.   Yes, that feeds the Trump-is-crazy idea that Hillary is pushing.    But it also feeds the Trump hates the scary and murderous Muslim idea that is Trump's brand.

Events matter.    Right now, in Milwaukee, black people are rioting.  Fox News is showing video of black youth carrying looted boxes.   Newt Gingrich is saying that this rioting is destroying the very fabric of civilization."    This is top news on Fox, breaking news.

This isn't just news on Fox.   NPR has the same story.

This is very bad for Hillary and it makes Trump's case.   Trump is the law and order candidate, the one who says that black people are dangerously violent and therefore it is only reasonable to give them wide berth and to police them closely.   Black riots--especially when the man shot was armed and had multiple arrests--feeds the notion that black protests are unreasonable.   This changes the subject from Trump being crazy to Trump being correct.

Somewhere out there in America some other crazy religious zealot is planning to do something violent.   Or maybe he or she will do it on the spur of the moment.  Whatever happens is bad, even if the perpetrator of the violence is a white churchgoing Christian.  Even in that case the violent act will document that a liberal cannot "pull the country together."  And if the violent actor is black, Hispanic, an immigrant, or a Muslim then it is purely and without complication bad.   It is a big country.  Bad things happen.   Police get killed on the job. 

News today.  Police killed

When bad things happen, especially breaking news bad things, Trump will have more evidence that his version of America is more real than is Hillary's version.

A major flaw in the Hillary Clinton coalition Love Trumps Hate campaign theme is that newsworthy events tend to show that Hillary is unrealistic--dead wrong.  Someone in her coalition of the oppressed, some black or brown or gay or woman will make news.   Almost all "Breaking News!" events help Trump.

Hillary is helped enormously by Trump's need to make news--as long as the main story is that it is crazy-Trump making the news.  The media is fully cooperative in this and Trump makes it easy--inevitable even--that they cover the story as crazy Trump.

Some of what Trump says is clearly, demonstrably untrue.   It is newsworthy because of its flamboyance but it is flamboyant because it is untrue.  The news media has decided to "balance" Trump by noting that it is untrue, either doing it themselves in interviews or finding someone to contradict Trump, a process that is documenting the crazy-Trump meme.

It is not clear to me if Trump's behavior is net-negative for him.  Trump remains the center of attention.  Trump can complain about the news media's conclusion that he is "crazy-Trump" but Trump remains the top of every newscast and his message is getting out there.   Muslims are scary and he is against them.   America is getting screwed and he will fix that.   Politicians are corrupt and he will replace them.   Those are popular ideas and he says them plainly.

Trump has victory within his power.   He has popular xenophobic nationalistic populist ideas to sell.  He has the ability and venue to seem a presidential peer on the campaign trail and in the debates, thus curing the crazy-Trump meme.  And breaking news events will tend to prove him right. 

A black male youth finishing an apprenticeship in Heating and Air Conditioning repair, setting himself up for a well paying job, isn't breaking news.  A Muslim working every day as a Ob/GYN physician isn't breaking news.   The good, normal, banal life of carrying out the work of the world isn't news.   A street riot is.   Events help Trump.