Probably a bad idea. Certainly bad optics. Meryl Streep fell into a trap.
Once again the coastal elites are putting down the deplorables, once again feeding resentments. There could have been a much better spokesperson than Meryl Streep.
Meryl Streep criticized Donald Trump at the Golden Globes Awards. She criticized him for one of the least defensible of Trump's put-down of others, although Trump insists he was mocking the reporter for changing his reporting not for being disabled. Trump's actual, real, deep-in-his-heart target is known only to Trump if at all, but it is unquestioned that he mocked the disabled reporter for something.
She chose a good target if she were going to do anything at all.
She chose a good target if she were going to do anything at all.
 |
| Bad moment for Trump |
Trump was punching down when he mocked the disabled reporter. And her scolding Trump was arguably part of the great pushback against Trump that is inevitable and part of our democratic tradition of checks and balances. We did not elect a tyrant whom Americans are supposed to worship. Trump media supporters acted shocked, shocked! that people are criticizing Trump, saying Democrats are sore losers and should get over it. Trump won, they say. Get behind him.
It is good strategy for Trump supporters to attempt to dismiss the motives of Trump opponents. That is their job, and right. It is simultaneously the job and right of Trump opponents to say that Trump's initiatives should be resisted. Hollywood liberals would be expected to use their platform to do this. Opposition by his highly visible opponents helps to legitimize political opposition. It gives it voice. It's absence would denote that Hollywood thinks Trump is acceptable to them.
People who want to see loyal obedience should get and train a dog.
The bigger question is whether Streep actually helped or hurt Trump. Meryl Streep is a high status award-winning actress. She spoke well. She linked Trump's least defensible moments to acting, so there was a bit of elegant connection between her role as actress and what she was condemning.
Everything was perfect except the very, very big thing.
It was a Hollywood actress condemning a person who condemned--among other things--the privilege of the rich and powerful elites. And Meryl Streep, in a fancy gown, did not just criticize Trump, she criticized football and mixed martial arts:
Everything was perfect except the very, very big thing.
It was a Hollywood actress condemning a person who condemned--among other things--the privilege of the rich and powerful elites. And Meryl Streep, in a fancy gown, did not just criticize Trump, she criticized football and mixed martial arts:
"So Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners. And if we kick them all out you'll have nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts, which are not the arts."
This comment clarified and confirmed that part of what was going on here was yet another assault by the coastal elites against the tastes of all American men. One does not need to be an expert demographer to know that football and mixed martial arts are watched and enjoyed by a great many people including exactly the people who pushed the electoral college to Trump. Ohio State and Michigan have football stadiums that hold 100,000 people and they sell out. The commercials on NFL games are filled with Ford 150 trucks, with Dodge Ram trucks, with Budweiser beer, with Axe shaving products.
The optics of this confirmed the very battle lines that hurt Democrats and elected Trump: an older Hillary-supporting multimillionaire actress of elite status criticizing the tastes of regular people--regular male people--who prefer football to the "finer art" of Hollywood movies. Once again, Democrats engendered and empowered the feeling of resentments against the elites. Once again snubbed. Once again a woman scolding a man and the people who like him and the people who like manly stuff like football.
What would have been a better Hollywood spokesperson?
Some he-man action hero actor condemning Trump solely for mocking the reporter, saying that real men don't do that. The optics of that would have been good. Better yet, the actor should be a stunt double in action movies. A guy who actually gets hurt and takes risks on behalf of protecting a star. He isn't a big shot. He is Hollywood but working-man Hollywood. He would have had credibility criticizing Trump, and the attack could be precisely where Trump is sensitive and vulnerable, in his manliness.
The stunt man might say, "Shame on you, Mr. Trump. Real men don't mock disabled people and then they don't lie about it. Grow a pair."
Some he-man action hero actor condemning Trump solely for mocking the reporter, saying that real men don't do that. The optics of that would have been good. Better yet, the actor should be a stunt double in action movies. A guy who actually gets hurt and takes risks on behalf of protecting a star. He isn't a big shot. He is Hollywood but working-man Hollywood. He would have had credibility criticizing Trump, and the attack could be precisely where Trump is sensitive and vulnerable, in his manliness.
The stunt man might say, "Shame on you, Mr. Trump. Real men don't mock disabled people and then they don't lie about it. Grow a pair."
2 comments:
“The UpClose Prophecy- Delegitimization in the Age of Trump”
Among the political phenomena that Peter Sage has analyzed since he retired to become a political junkie full time, none is more profoundly correct than the delegitimization plague. Post after post, informed early by his campaign “tourism” launched in 2015, Peter has insisted that the process of delegitimization is a potent political weapon, early wielded by Mitch McConnell against everything Obama, perfected by Donald Trump in the early primaries. The battle cry “you lie” hurled at Obama by Joe Wilson in a joint session of Congress in September 2009, now no longer seems shocking.
Most of us convulsed at McConnell’s process of deligitimization, but Trump was attracted to it, and saw it for what it was—a contagion that could be spread and used. By October 2009, even NPR referenced claims of a "Kenyan-born Sen. Barack Obama", and in March 2011, during an interview on Good Morning America, Trump referenced birtherism in announcing his presidential ambitions. (See, Wikipedia, “Barack Obama Citizenship Conspiracy Theories”, https://goo.gl/5EafKi). Now seeing Michelle Obama’s call that “when they go low, we go high” as politics of the weak, Democrats and left media now blithely embrace delegitimization as weaponry. There’s an apocalyptic Mad Max or zombiesque Night of the Living Dead feel to the contagion, an ethos that you fight the disease with the disease; counterattack fake news with fake news; and that if the FBI and “intelligence leakers” can be used to infect Clinton, they can be used to infect Trump.
Until today’s reports, first by CNN then the New York Times, I didn’t fully appreciate UpClose's delegitimization prophecy, or that the whole of the body politic would be infected. Other than the First Lady, no one is even looking for a cure, we are embracing it with almost maniacal fervor. Those left media reports, now on fire globally, are “Intel Chiefs Presented Trump with Claims of Russian Efforts to Compromise Him”, (CNN, Jan. 10, 2017, https://goo.gl/RMjqcy), and “Trump Received Unsubstantiated Report That Russia Had Damaging Information About Him”, (NYT, Jan. 10, 2017, https://goo.gl/61iD2e). Yet, both outlets emphasize that the reports of Trump being blackmailed by Putin armed with porno films of Trump with Russian prostitutes, are “unsubstantiated”, “unconfirmed”, “unproven”, but “explosive” and “salacious”. The FBI says the reports started as “rumors”, but that a “political operative” was paid by the campaigns of both Trump’s Republican primary rivals, and Hillary Clinton to investigate them.
The Times says Democrats have been pushing the FBI to investigate “Trump’s connections to Russia”, and when the FBI declined to confirm or deny any investigation, Oregon’s Senator Ron Wyden resentfully tweeted: “Director Comey refused to answer my question about whether the FBI has investigated Trump campaign contacts with Russia”. Harry Reid proclaimed he has been “validated” by the FBI investigating what the FBI says is unsubstantiated. The Times reports the FBI went public because it was “concerned that the information would leak”—indeed that explanation itself was leaked to the Times by unnamed intelligence “officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity”.
Delegtimization, like the “fake news” label coined by the left but now more effectively wielded by the right, cannot be put back into its bottle. (See, Washington Post, “It’s Time to Retire the Tainted Term ‘Fake News’”, Jan. 8, 2017 https://goo.gl/DD3BWQ, and Brietbart, “Washington Post Cries Uncle: Stop Using ‘Tainted Term’ Fake News”, Jan. 9, 2017, https://goo.gl/v1ow0S).
The politics of delegitimization is a miasma to the uninitiated, but a familiar milieu to Trump. It’s a battlefield he understands, where he thrived as a billionaire. Delegitimized press, delegitimized media, delegitimized intelligence state, and delegitimized opponents. We are now in Trump world, and woe to amateurs who confront him there.
I like your excellent summary Thad. The term "fog of war" comes to mind; where it seems the only thing that makes sense to each camp is to prevail decisively.... at all costs. Which does not bode well for the republic, or for that matter, the world.
Post a Comment