If American politics is mostly clean and honorable, then the issue is Trump corruption.
If American politics is mostly corrupt, then the issue is whose side is Trump on.
Trump's defense against impeachment is that Biden is corrupt and Democrats and the media are lying about it.
Fareed Zakaria's one hour news show on CNN on Sunday detailed the case against Trump. He held up delivery of military aid to Ukraine as inducement for Ukraine to target Joe Biden in an investigation, a plan that involved himself, AG William Barr, his personal attorney Giuliani, his Ambassadors, and career civil service employees. Zakaria's show also reported that the case against Biden was demonstrably false. The Ukrainian prosecutor the Obama administration (and the rest of the world) wanted fired was notoriously and flagrantly corrupt, and was failing to investigate and prosecute misdeeds.
Zakaria's GPS Global Public Square show is serious news, and the story was long and complicated.
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| Click: Look at Biden |
Zakaria's GPS Global Public Square show is serious news, and the story was long and complicated.
An ad came on, 40 minutes into the show. It was short, direct and easy to understand, with a simple alternative truth. Biden was the bad guy, supporting Ukraine corruption.
It is part of a ten million dollar ad blitz.
The ads outline the simple narrative that constitutes the Trump defense against impeachment.
1. Washington is corrupt, especially Joe Biden. Look at Biden. Don't try to pretend that Trump is breaking any nice, delicate rules. The whole of Washington is a swamp. Biden!
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| Click: "Coup" |
3. It takes a tough, rule- breaking, unconventional non politician like Trump to fight the corrupt, swampy Democrats. Sure, Trump plays a little dirty because it is a dirty business, but it is for a good cause, you.
Danger ahead: a warning for Democrats.
Click below to continue:
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| Click: It takes a tough guy to change Washington |
The Democratic field would appear to be well positioned to run as the clean, uncorrupt alternative to Trump. The Sanders image is that of a person so unconcerned with money that he wears rumpled suits and has unkempt hair. Elizabeth Warren makes corporate corruption and a rigged system a centerpiece of her talks. Cory Booker lives in the projects. Kamala Harris was a prosecutor. Buttigieg is young and fresh, the clean kid from South Bend. And Biden took pride in saying he was the poorest guy in the US Senate.
Certainly, compared to Trump, they are clean and uncorrupted. Right?
The problem is that if clean is part of their brand, then Trump will find some basis to show they are not as clean as they pretend, and are therefore frauds. It doesn't have to be real. It just has to be asserted. It doesn't hurt Trump's brand to be observed doing flagrant puffery while in open contempt for Democrats and the media. Trump is understood by both foes and friends as a rule breaker. In a corrupt system--the consensus view now of Democrats, Republicans, and voters, at least Trump breaks rules openly and proudly.
That makes Trump the authentic one.
Will that work? It worked in 2016. GOP officeholders and voters accept Trump for what he is: a dirty fighter against tax raising, abortion loving, gun confiscating, open borders supporting, politically correct socialists. The important thing is that he is on their side.
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5 comments:
It appears to me that once again the DNC, is determined to veer so hard to the center, they will succeed in once again snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. It was not the centrists who took back the House in 2018, but legions of folks who are desperate for real leadership, not a leadership pledging fealty to Corporate America, which seems to think that devout followers of Drumpf will be swayed to switch causes by appeals to their better natures. In my opinion, anyone at this point who swears by Drumpf is just as much a treasonous dirtbag as is the current occupant of the White House, and I specifically include Greg Walden in that cohort.
4
I agree, for the most part with both Eds...interesting since they seem to occupy supposedly opposite sides of the aisle (read Ralph Nader's "Unstoppable"). BTW, we can add Obama to the millionaire class. When he entered office he was worth less than one million; his estimated worth is now apx. 40 million, and I don't think it is just books and speeches.
The problem is neoliberal ideology that commodotizes everything and everyone, even college football players, on God's green earth. It won't be long before kids' lemonade stands are franchised.
Andy Seles
(2nd Attempt)
The Republicans controlled both chambers of Congress for the last 6 years of the Obama Administration and the first 2 years of the Trump Administration. Were the Bidens investigated? This seems rather recent.
Second, for those who are constantly bashing "corporate America," most Americans like having a Job. Do you want more jobs to leave the country?
Anon,
Do you listen to yourself? Yes, we can win the race to the bottom; we can be like Oliver Twist and ask, "Please, Sir, may I have some more." I'm not talking about mom & pop businesses that tend not to compromise one's integrity.
Corporate America refers to transnational corporations that have no allegiance to this country as they follow the two basic rules of laissez faire (unregulated) capitalism: 1) seek the lowest cost of resources and labor as they privatize the wealth and socialize the cost and 2) keep shareholders happy.
It's not about the Bidens, it's not about Trump; it's about corporatist Democratic liberals trying to maintain their neoliberal hegemony against a pseudo-populist Republican oligarch. Corporate mainstream media presents us with the latest shiny object: IMPEACHMENT. Just don't look at the "man behind the curtain" who gives you everything you don't need.
Andy Seles
Peter has hit on the real problem; America is corrupt, and Trump is simply willing to do in the open what others have done in secret.
Another problem is that only a tiny fraction of us are both paying attention and have the critical thinking skills necessary to follow a nuanced argument.
By the time the second debate aired, I was certain that a Democratic victory in 2020 will require that the reality show that is our politics expose #45 as the melodrama villain he really is. I now think it's funny that people are supporting Warren because of her plans. The percentage of voters who can analyze a plan is tiny, but the number who can be moved by a false statement about a plan is huge.
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