Response to Airport Chaos: Democrats are Wimps.

Trump is attempting to change the metaphor by which people understand what is going on at the airports.

Trump calls Democrats Wimps.

Donald Trump and his media allies are selling an idea:  Democrats are wimps.  The chaos at the airports was running the risk of looking like Trump-incompetence vs. order.  Trump immediately went to work to force the frame back into the desired one, disorder vs. order.

There is a deep metaphor idea floating around for the past 150 years in the US and Britain.  It is the notion that the Love Your Neighbor, Matthew 25 kind of Christian is too feminine, too weak, too sentimental.  The response to it was "Muscular Christianity," which asserted Christianity was masculine and virile.    

Democrats, with their dove constituency and their stronger support among women have become the party of women, feminism and empathy to be contrasted with the GOP which is the party of men, hard work, tough-mindedness, and Christianity of the muscular sort.

The frame is made politically stronger for Republicans when Democrats are perceived less as female in all its complexity and more as exemplifying supposed feminine qualities of relative weakness, of sentimentality, of indulgence.   As wimps.  

There is a frame that works for Republican messaging:  Democrats as wimps, Republicans as strong.  It is a frame that has worried Democrats for seventy years, leading back to the immediate post-WW2 politics deciding which party was the more authentic opponent of the Soviet Union, China, and communism.  Republicans took the side of strength, muddled by JFK who switched the frame, with the supposed missile gap.  LBJ, to avoid the frame, reluctantly pushed forward deeper into the Vietnam war.

Today's news:  Airport Bumbling or Schumer's Tears.    The news today has two basic themes, depending on whether one is watching mainstream news or conservative (Fox/Breitbart/talk radio) news.   Mainstream news is about the chaos at the airports thank to the sudden, poorly planned and written ban on entry from some countries.  It created a media scene that framed "immigrant disorder" vs. Trump, a win for Trump, except for the problem that the chaos was being described as caused by Trump bumbling.   This was switching the frame and the blame.  Maybe the disorder was caused by a badly planned ban rather than the natural disorder of Muslim entry.   In this case, Trump was on the wrong side, the side of disorder rather than order.

Trump Tweets: Attack Schumer Tears.

Trump went right to work to fix this, with the tweets attacking Chuck Schumer for "tears."

Conservative news downplayed or ignored the airports.  It focused on attack as well, looking at Hollywood stars speaking at the SAG awards and on Chuck Schumer's tears.

The right loves to hate Hollywood, which represents liberal triviality and out-of-touch excess.    They could have gone two ways with Schumer, but the fact that they went one way and not the other is instructive.   They did not focus on Schumer using his power as Minority Leader to make trouble.  If they represented Schumer as powerful it undermines the opposite frame: Schumer as weak.

They went with weak.  The focus was on Chuck Schemer as sentimental wimp.

Strong vs. Weak.     Clear Headed vs. Sentimental.  

Trump wanted a nice clean frame:  Trump the Fighter for American Safety vs Democrat Chuck Schumer, the sentimental precious weak wimp.   Tears were the perfect symbol.   Trump acts while Democrats weep.

Breitbart jumps in: Trump mocks Schumer

Trump shaped the frame with his twin tweets, shown above.  Fox and Breitbart jumped aboard.   Their news splash page says little about airports.  It headlines Schumer's tears.  In fact Schumer had said they are Lady Liberty's tears, tears down the Statue of Liberty, but Trump, Breitbart, and Fox moved them to Schumer, where they belong to make the case for Democratic weakness.

This is a deep, pervasive set of metaphor currently operating in American politics:  Republicans as the strict father, Democrats as the indulgent mother.  Republicans who favor hard work, Democrats who want handouts.  Republicans who value military power, Democrats who are slacker peace-nics.  Republicans who fight communism, Democrats who are "soft on communism." 

Donald Trump is shoving today's news from "chaos caused by sloppy administration of a travel ban" vs order back into the frame that works for him: "unruly airport mobs" vs order.  More generally that dichotomy is protester, sentimental peace-nic wimps vs. a strong leader who will keep us safe.  Weeping-Schumer vs. Strong Trump.

Fox Website Headline.  Switch story to "Tears"

We are seeing messaging framing in action right now.   Today is an unusually good opportunity to see how it is done, as it is done, in real time.   Trump had a message advantage, but was starting to lose it.    He is scrambling to get it back.

Trump will not win every round in the message war.   This battle started to get away from Trump with the advantage going to the other side as airport chaos was greater than expected.

He is trying to get back the correct frame.