Hillary Framed

Bernie Sanders set the frame and the question:  How corrupted is Hillary?

Bernie Sanders framed the issue not about Hillary's emails ("I don't care about your damned emails!") but about the corruption inherent with being a successful practitioner in the modern political game of running for office, getting campaign contributions from donors including special interests, the revolving door of political celebrity that leads to paid speeches and post-officeholding wealth.

The Clintons were successful at this and raised money for themselves and the Clinton Foundation.   Bernie said it was not a sign of political adeptness and success; it was a sign of capture by the special interests.

Donald Trump is making the same argument, only nastier in tone, saying that Hillary is the most corrupt person ever to seek the office of president.   Her crime?   Doing what every other successful office-seeker has done in the past fifty years: raise money from the people who have money to give.

The mainstream press is missing the point completely in its astonished reporting on how little Trump's campaign has in the bank compared to Hillary's campaign.   Sanders and Trump have made having campaign cash a bad thing.  It is a measure of Hillary having been captured by the big business people who are screwing over the average American.

The assertion is that Hillary is corrupt.   Now the question is "how corrupt is she?"   Too corrupt to elect?   Corrupt enough that we hold our nose when we vote for her?   Not all that corrupt considering everything?   Pure as white snow?   These are loser questions for Hillary, which is why the frame is terrible for her.

She is not defenseless.    Hillary can fight back, hitting hard, and changing the frame.   She can argue that she is pure and the criticism of her is from the right wing haters, because right wing haters are obvious and apparent and besides she has 30 plus years of public service.   That does not change the frame, however.

She can argue that she is raising money from the same people who gave Obama and Romney and lots of other people money, although this is a mixed-value argument since those sources are widely seen as corrupting. She can argue that Donald Trump himself is--or via RNC sources will be--raising money from the same sources as she is.  Neither of these change the frame, either.

Hillary can say that Donald Trump is the corrupted con man, the one who is self serving and the thief of the average person's wealth, from neckties made in China to Trump University to Chapter 11 bankruptcies that left venders in the lurch, reversing the direction of the attack.   And she can say her donors demonstrate her fitness and acceptability, reversing the polarity of the charge, making her donations validation of her experience, more donations being better, not worse.  

Hillary cannot deny the frame: she raised lots of money from Wall Street.   What she can do is change the meaning of the frame and try to turn it against Trump.

How well Hillary responds to this attack will be a kind of metaphor or emblem for what kind of Commander in Chief she will be.   Dukakis and Kerry did not fight well.   Obama did, and so did Bill Clinton under the guidance of James Carville and the rapid response team in the 1992 campaign.    A person worthy of being commander in chief demonstrates it by knowing what to do in a fight.

Hillary knows what to do and she has people around her who know what to do.    If she does it she will have proven to the public she can handle the office. 

Fixing what's wrong

Hillary and Trump each have brand problems.    Crooked Hillary and Un-Presidential Trump.

Trump and Sanders each worked tirelessly to define Hillary as a woman deeply entrenched in the modern political system, with alliances and loyalties, old and new friends, and donor connections.   They allowed Hillary to thrive in that system and that is her weakness.   Sanders calls it a corrupt system; Trump calls her "Crooked Hillary."

Hillary--and now Obama, Warren, and Sanders--are describing Trump as a selfish, immature con man whose off the cuff race-baiting and disruption trade and foreign policy make him "un-presidential" and therefore disqualified for office.

Hillary is at work attempting to repair her brand, with ads harkening back to younger times projecting her lifetime of service as evidence of sincerity and integrity.  She cites the Children's Defense Fund, her struggle to create a health care system.   Yes, she is "in the system" but the history lesson shows her to be a "progressive fighter for the weak, within the system."   This re-defines her, from predator to defender of the powerless--an embattled knight, yes, but a white-hat-wearing-knight.

The battle of brand meaning goes back and forth because today Trump is accelerating the Crooked Hillary attack, with the long awaited announcements about sources of Hillary personal income and Clinton Foundation income.   She is only as good as her donors--a charge leveled by Trump and Sanders both--because she is captured by those donors, they assert.

Trump just pushed "reset".  Now he can change.

Trump's burden is that the very things which made him newsworthy--his unpredictability, his apparently unfiltered outrageous comments, his political incorrectness--document the criticism of his brand, that he is unfit for office.   But Trump has just done the two things that are archetypal Trump.    He has done something dramatic--fire his campaign manager--thus very publicly "pushing reset" which allow him to change direction and tone.  

And he is going on the attack, with a counter punch.    The story was "Trump Campaign in Disarray", which helped prove Hillary's point, since if Trump is so unfit he cannot manage a presidential campaign he cannot manage a country.   And Trump going on the attack shifts the story from Trump's problems to Hillary's.

Today is an inflection point for the change:  the new phase of the campaign.  Lewandowski is gone.  The news on cable TV, as I type, is hyping the upcoming announcement: Trump to attack Hillary, stay tuned!   The Orlando shooting delayed this Trump charge but the wait is over.  Trump attacks his opponent--it's breaking news!

Theoretically Trump has the easier job.  It is in Trump's power to appear more steady, more mature, more safe.   You can fix erratic immaturity with steady maturity.   He could stop ad lib comments that offend even his GOP supporters.   He could be "presidential."    Literature has prepared us for the transition: youthful Prince Hal under the sway of Falstaff grows into King Henry, the great leader of his country. 
  

Immaturity is easier to fix than corruption.  Supposedly.

But Trump may well be Trump, deep down and thoroughly, and Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren have identified a true and significant flaw in Trump.   He is thin skinned.  He rises to take the bait.   He actually thought it appropriate and necessary to challenge the "small hands" comment.  And Trump making strong charges is itself somewhat "un-Presidential" which is why Vice President nominees are normally the one assigned that duty, allowing the presidential nominee to be above that battle.  Trump loves being the attacker himself.

So, theoretically Trump is the one who is positioned to do the brand re-set, but campaign students can watch to see whether he actually has the capacity to do it.   I suspect not.  Trump is Trump.

Americans disagree: Letter to my college classmates

People are discussing this election in social media.  One older form of social media is something called a "list serve".  

A list serve is a group conversation in which people post to an email address and all members of my college class, Harvard-Radcliffe Class of 1971, referred to by the president of the college at that time as the "worst class ever", receive the email.     There are a couple hundred people who are involved in the ongoing conversation, which has been going on since 1996, our 25th reunion.

The behaviors of the list serve group are a subject worthy of close attention.   There are a lot of Bernie fans within the list, who write with enthusiasm.   There are possibly some Republicans, but they have been silent, reading but not writing: "lurkers".    I observe the group and participate in it, sharing my observations about the campaign.

This blog attempts to maintain an objective tone rather than a polemical one, which allows me better to see and appreciate the campaign skills and strategies of candidates I have no intention of voting for.  Below is a slightly edited and corrected version of the letter I posted yesterday to the group, written in response to a flurry of letters in support of Bernie Sanders and critical of Obama and both Clintons who were described as ideologically weak and politically ineffective, especially in comparison with LBJ.

My letter:

Dear Classmates,

A previous post to this list reminds us that the supposed Obama 60 votes in the Senate was brief and fragile, with red state senators and DINOs demanding concessions. But there is something else to consider--something I have witnessed myself, repeatedly, at Republican political events.   

Here is the terrible truth: a great many people disagree with progressive politics.  A great many people are vaguely or strongly racist.  A great many people are politically conservative.  A great many people disapprove of homosexuality, hate immigrants, love guns, hate abortion, and dislike Muslims.    And a great many of them exist in a bubble of like-mindedness that is as tight as the bubble of liberal progressive politics that my college-town friends live in.  

A lot of them vote.  

It isn't a matter of progressives like me grudgingly granting them Jeffersonian "consent of the governed" political power out of principled recognition that they, too, have rights.  Nope.  They seize and exercise their power as American citizens.  They have majorities in nearly all rural and exurban areas of our country, and statewide in a couple of dozen states.  Folks like me actually count on these people.   Speaking generally, they grow my food, police my streets, and volunteer to fight in the military of my country.   

They are Americans, too.  Obama got less done than I had hoped because a vast body of people--fellow Americans--disagree with him and with me.  When I internalize and digest this grim reality I confront the fact that the problem is not Obama's for lack of effort or ability.  The problem is mine and the entire culture for not having persuaded enough of my fellow citizens to see the world as I do.   

I don't blame Obama for my failure.  I recognize and appreciate the efforts of national Democrats to help build down-ballot legislative majorities, without which progressive ideas don't get enacted.   

Ideological vanguard politicians--and their supporters--who criticize as weak or soft or sell outs people attempting to survive in marginal political environments injure progressive causes because they undermine progressive majorities.    It takes Democrats in swing states to get robust majorities.  

Peter Sage
Medford, Oregon
(A red part of a blue state)

Censoring the 911 Call.

Obama creates a mystery.   Yikes.

Peter Sage Introduction to a Guest Post:

I will be brief because the Guest Post is long.   I read with dismay the news that the Obama administration was editing out some portions of the Orlando shooter's 911 call.   If they were editing out cries or other sounds from victims I would have understood.   Their privacy was being invaded.   Or maybe there were references to specific people under terror investigation--confederates in jihad--and the Attorney General wants to keep those quiet while the undercover work continues.   OK, makes sense.

Instead, what I read creates the worst possible interpretation for the administration: they are whitewashing references to ISIS presumably so they can maintain the idea that the Orlando shooting was not part of a greater jihad attack.   This is exactly the accusation that Republicans are charging: Obama won't say "Islamic terror."   And it complements the accusation against Hillary, that she lied in saying that the Benghazi killings were due to an insulting movie rather than a jihad plot.

Republicans have raised the issue and the suspicion that Obama and Hillary Clinton have a foreign policy failure--or at least a problem--and they are hiding it.    The censoring of the 911 tapes are apparent documentation for that very charge.   

It damages Hillary.

Here is a Guest Post from Thad Guyer.   I am traveling and have limited access to photos and to the internet generally today.

Thad Guyer Guest Post:

“Orlando Terrorism Scandal and the Fourth Presidential Predictive Model”

Real Clear Politics has published a piece that we better pray does not have the legs of a White House scandal: "Partial Transcript Of Orlando 911 Calls Will Have References To Islamic Terrorism Removed” (http://goo.gl/TKTRMl).  As a First Amendment free speech lawyer, I was somewhat outraged to watch the interview video of Attorney General Loretta Lynch explaining, with vague if not lame rationalizations, why the DOJ would not release at all the 911 call recording, and would censor out from the 911 transcript any references to the ISIS. (The video of her interview on NBC with Chuck Todd is linked in the article.) 

Think about it—the AG almost casually confirmed the widespread reports that the shooter did in fact link his murders to ISIS, but still she insisted that “we” at the DOJ have decided to not let anyone hear or read those words because they would “further victimize” victims. In a nutshell, the now trite if not bizarre Democratic tirade in suppressing “hateful” or “hurtful” words will take supremacy over freedom of the press (1^st Amendment) and freedom of information (FOIA statute). Given that Lynch did not attempt to suggest any legal authority for the DOJ decision, it seems more likely that the DOJ and the White House are intent on preventing Republicans from campaigning using the official 911 shooter’s voice or words. 

This may well become a White House scandal. The censorship thus far by the mainstream media of Lynch’s censorship— i.e., censorship of censorship-- is already a media scandal in conservative outlets.  See, “Loretta Lynch: ‘Islam,’ ‘ISIS’ to be Scrubbed from Orlando 911 Tapes” (Brietbart, http://goo.gl/0lhc7T). I found NBC’s Chuck Todd failure to question Lynch about her censorship decision to be grossly unprofessional, if not being yet another incident supporting Trump’s “dishonest media” meme. Several mainstream media outlets have reported Lynch’s decision as “government to release 911 partial calls” with no mention at all to the censorship of the ISIS references.  See, “Attorney general: Government to release some 911 calls with Orlando shooter” (Washington Post, https://goo.gl/IeKQZX), and “U.S. to release partial transcripts of Florida club gunman's calls” (Reuters, http://goo.gl/eKxMxM).  The Los Angeles Times even shunned the words “partial” or “some” in its dubious headline proclaiming DOJ transparency. See, “Justice Department to release transcripts of calls with Orlando gunman”, (LA Times, http://goo.gl/5kftsS).

If the 911 ISIS redacting becomes a censorship scandal, it will probably simultaneously serve as more evidence against Obama for his ISIS foreign policy failure. If that happens, then I believe the empirical data supports the statistical near certainty of a Trump presidency.  Hopefully, the DOJ and White House will make prompt course corrections.

In two prior guest blogs, I referenced the unanimity of three of the four major political science predictive models forecasting a Trump presidency, to wit, the models of professors Helmut Norpoth (Stony Brook), Alan Abramowitz (Emory), and Ray Fair (Yale). See “Liberal Media Suppresses Trump (or Hitler) Victory Statistical Model” http://goo.gl/P8MrAO, and “Political Climate Change Deniers”, http://goo.gl/jFc39N.  The fourth model, by American University professor Alan Lichtman is more subjective and takes account of limited real time political developments which, this year at least, he says may need to await the nomination outcomes at the Democratic and Republic conventions.  But he has already stated in recent interviews that troubles loom large for Clinton under his model.  See, “This professor has predicted every presidential election since 1984. He’s still trying to figure out 2016” (Washington Post, May 12, 2016, https://goo.gl/PN5x5T), and “Keys Democrats need to unlock the White House” (The National, Apr 2, 2016, http://goo.gl/HQTJbB).  Like professors Norpoth, Abramowitz and Fair, Lichtman agrees that the avalanche of public opinion polls are irrelevant, as are the drumbeat of pundits and the policy speeches of the candidates. 

Where Lichtman is different is that he contends that the incumbent President and party can, in a fashion and to a narrow extent, shape the political phenomenon upon which at least two of his “13 predictive keys” are premised. Two critical keys which are still being formed are whether the Obama administration has or is perceived to have had (a) a second term “scandal”, and (b) any significant “foreign policy failure”.

Lichtman is not just an academic.  He also advises various Democratic party campaigns.  In a former life, I talked with him, Dick Gephart (whose candidacy was by then all but lost to Michael Dukakis), and a few political consultant friends in the Beverly Hilton bar in June1988.  All of us were in town for a wedding. We roasted Litchman for his confident prediction that Dukakis would lose to George H. W. Bush, which seemed impossible to us given our dismal views of Reagan’s second term.  We argued policy and polls with Lichtman for an hour. Indeed the New York Times had just published a poll under the headline “Poll Shows Dukakis Leads Bush; Many Reagan Backers Shift Sides” (May 17, 1988, http://goo.gl/sTqQbn). The poll reassured us Dukakis “led in all regions”, that he had “very substantial advantages over Mr. Bush among women, union members, Roman Catholics and blacks”. Best of all, the poll heralded that Republicans were abandoning Bush: “Strikingly, 28 percent of those who said they voted for President Reagan in 1984 said they preferred Mr. Dukakis over Mr. Bush this time.”

 “All irrelevant”, a young professor Lichtman smirked at us (equally young) as we swilled cocktails, and he went through his soon to be deployed-for-the-first-time “13 keys for winning the White House”. (See, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_Lichtman). “Polls, pundits, policy, all irrelevant” he toasted us.  What mattered, he explained, was Reagan’s White House record, not Dukakis’ gubernatorial record; and the performance of Bush and Dukakis in their respective primaries. Like 2016, the left leaning pundits and press in 1988 sold snake oil in bulk.

Wanting to believe that we write our political destinies in real time, I cling to Lichtman’s model more than the other three, since he believes that various political behaviors, not political rhetoric, can affect a couple of his 13 keys. Unfortunately, I see the Obama administration in league with its media partners, and the Democratic party, to be poised for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory on the keys (a) perceived second term “scandal”, and (b) perceived significant “foreign policy failure”. On scandal, I’m focused less on possible DOJ collusion in Hillary Email-gate, and more on the patently political behavior of Attorney General Lynch in censoring ISIS references in the Orlando 911 call transcript-- and the tape entirely.  She asserts no national security reasons for the censorship, and the voice is that of the dead shooter, not a victim.  Nor does the terrorist have any privacy rights, nor criminal defenses that might be unfairly prejudiced by public opinion.

If this unvarnished censorship becomes, or is perceived as, a White House “scandal”, then it will likely support the collateral perception that Obama has indeed suffered a “significant foreign policy failure”— his failure to make any tangible gains, much less achieve victory, against ISIS. Thus, Trump may be only one or two “keys” away from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  Let’s hope Lynch and Obama know what they are doing in their dangerous censorship gambit to help Hillary Clinton.

Trump's Instincts

Trump hasn't thought things through.   He doesn't have politics or principles, but he does have a gut feel for what makes sense.   He is an authoritarian statist.

Which makes him a kind of moderate.

Trump gives another iteration of Trump-ism and it is worth a reader's time to take 30 seconds and watch it:   Click here: ABC News clip

I don't think Trump is calculating anything here.  He isn't making a principled shift from the NRA stance to a moderate-middle in a careful strategy to pick up suburban soccer mom votes.   That may in fact happen but that is not his calculation.   What I think is revealed here is that Donald Trump has simply not thought very deeply or carefully about gun control, the first amendment, the second amendment, or the fourth amendment.   He hasn't thought about public policy and its constraints and implications.   He thinks about goals and intentions, and stops there.


Donald Trump Open to Gun Law Change, But Says Armed Clubgoers Could Have Stopped Orlando Gunman


Gun control supporters understand that restricting guns has enormous implications and difficulties.  How does government identify mental illness?   How does government respect freedom of speech simultaneously with taking coercive action if a citizen says he may sometime act with violence possibly?   How does government distinguish between a citizen who hunts deer from one who hunts Christians?  How does government distinguish between self defense and shooting up a church?   Or a mosque?   Or a Planned Parenthood clinic?   Gun control opponents understand these same implications.

Trump just assured the NRA that he was a big supporter of theirs and he got their official endorsement.   But then he said, apparently off the cuff, that he wanted to ban even people with an inclination to terrorism from getting guns, a position far more aggressive and confiscatory than anything Hillary Clinton has dared to suggest.

Trump hasn't thought this through in the least.   He just knows that he is OK with good people having guns and terrorists not getting them, so that is what he asserts.   It is as simple as that, and simplicity is exactly what he wants.

It is an enormous weakness for Trump if the professional pundit and political and media people actually care about principles and policies, but it is possible that none of it really matters to them.   The Republicans trust Trump and will settle for him.  Democrats will support Hillary.   Most regular voter citizens haven't thought all that hard about it themselves, just like Trump.   They are citizens, not constitutional lawyers doing briefs for the Supreme Court on issues of prior restraint and the definition of "the people" or "bearing" or "arms."     They just want what Trump wants: good people to have guns and scary people not to have them.

It would be chaotic government but it may not be bad campaigning.

2016: The Mini Series

Pretend for a moment that voters are not paying close attention and are easily manipulated.   Further pretend they are watching TV.   What would they watch?

We like watching interesting characters, especially interesting jerks.

Today's post will be brief.  I am traveling and have limited access to the internet.

I am indebted to Steve Greenleaf, an author of a series of excellent detective genre novels, as well as a lighthearted novel about divorce, The Ditto List.   It nearly got made into a major motion picture--but didn't, which is why almost no one has heard of it, alas.  Had it been created it would have been seen as the successor to "Kramer vs. Kramer" and it would have been considered the better picture.    

I mention this as a plug for Steve Greenleaf but also explanation for why I have been reading books with titles like How to Write a Screenplay.   Advice for a movie or TV Show:   Have interesting characters and put them into dangerous situations where their own character flaws get them into trouble.   Then, using the tools and characteristics of those very flaws, get them out of trouble.

The books reminded me of something obvious, which I will again note is the hardest thing to notice. This election is a TV show and Trump deserves better ratings than Hillary.    The writers have given him a more interesting character to play.

So let's think of this election the way we might think of a TV show, because that is what it is.

Viewers like flawed characters.   I have been binge watching The Sopranos.   I binge watched Breaking Bad and Mad Men.  I enjoy the current TV drama The Americans, about deep undercover Russian spies in 1980s US.   I watched "The Good Wife", whose title character went from sweet victim to complex flawed survivor.   I don't myself watch "House", but I know enough to know the title character is an interesting jerk.  

Some readers will be the right age to have watched Felicity.   Sweet Felicity, played by Bambi-like good girl Keri Russell, is in a 4 year long love triangle, attracted to ernest good-boy Noah and slightly-bad-boy Ben.   Both are buff good looking guys; she chooses the slightly bad boy.   (Possibly after that first marriage to the bad boy falls apart and the girl has 2 kids and debts and stretch marks she will be interested in the good boy in her second marriage, but that is for later.)

Trump's bad boy character is right out there in front, calling Mexicans rapists, accusing Ted Cruz's father of being in a conspiracy, Obama to be a Kenyan, and so on.   Hillary is the nicey-nicey good girl in public.   I realize that Hillary, too, has an aura of shady secrets (having murdered Vince Foster, enabled her husbands rapes, being a lesbian, sold her soul to Goldman Sachs, subverted the US in order to get donations for the Clinton Foundation, and slept through the killing of Americans in Benghazi, to list just a few of the offenses she is charged with.)    But the public Hillary is "the good girl" and these charges are made to destroy that image while Hillary keeps attempting to hold to her public good girl character.   I am good, I am pure, Hillary says.  Don't believe them when they say I am corrupt.  I am "fighting for us", right like it says on the poster, she asserts.   

Trump embraces being a bad boy character.   Hillary resists being called a bad girl who cynically manipulates the system.  Trump can double down when accused of being outrageous because he is affirming his character--the outrageous bad boy fighting for us.   Hillary had to deny the charge because her character is the earnest good girl and earnest good girls don't murder friends and commit treason and the other things she is accused of.

Destroy her "character"

Observing this as a TV series helps clarify the strategy for each side.    Hillary's team needs to show that Trump is, indeed, bad, a fraud, because he is fighting for himself, not the American people, which is why the Trump University attack works.  It affirms his behavior but undermines his motives.   Trump needs to destroy Hillary's character by demonstrating that she is the fraud, Crooked Hillary rather than nice girl Hillary.

Could the Hillary character reverse direction and admit that she is, indeed, the very knowledgeable cynical practitioner of big league politics?   Not anymore.   Bernie Sanders eliminated that route by defining it as corrupt rather than smart, as a sign of sell-out rather than practical LBJ-type hardball politics.   Hillary has to stay in the character that doesn't particularly fit her: innocent good girl.    Which is why dark black and white photos of Hillary looking sneaky are the heart of the GOP attack on her.

Mainstream Sneer

Two crosscurrents:   1. Donald Trump is getting sneered at by mainstream sources.   2.  It might help him.

Sometimes it is hard to notice obvious things, since they hide in plain sight.   Donald Trump is treated like a joke.    He was treated like a joke candidate when he began his campaign a year ago.   He has been treated as a joke over the past year as his campaign steamrolled over 16 candidates and the entire Republican establishment.   And especially in the past two weeks--the post Judge Curiel comment period--the joking has gotten greater.

Serious commentators who laughed at Trump in the past look foolish now.   US Rep Keith Ellison on ABC told George Stephanopolis back in July 2015 that Trump could actually win the GOP nomination.   Stephanopolis scoffed with good natured laughter, "I know you don't believe that."   Watch:  Click here for a 15 second clip

Colbert mocks Trump

Now the laughter isn't that he couldn't possibly win.  It is harder edged:  Trump is dangerous fraud, not an inconsequential one.   Late night TV shows which historically attempt to be non-partisan or at least equal-opportunity teasers, now openly mock Trump.   Seth Meyers' Late Night show devoted some 7 minutes to open insults of Trump:  Click here for Seth Meyers  

Two nights ago Steve Colbert piled on: Click here for Steve Colbert

PBS documentarian Ken Burns was the Commencement Speaker at Stanford, a normally non-political venue:

Click here: Burns starts in on Trump at the 14 minute mark

This may not hurt Trump.   It might even help him.    Trump's support comes in part from people who resent being dissed by the elites of polite society.   This includes political elites, media elites, business elites, university elites.   Polite State Department voices say it is self-destructive for Americans to broad-brush Islam as the enemy because after all, Turkey is in NATO and we use air bases there and the Muslim-faith Kurds are the strongest most reliable fighters against ISIS.  Isn't that persuasive?

TSA gives her a careful screen

No.  It does not persuade people who think the whole system is in a crazy loop of self-delusion.  A recent conversation with a couple of white male Rotarian Chamber of Commerce oriented business people help illustrate the point.   They generally vote Republican and the derision pointed at Trump only strengthens their support of him.   What is persuasive to them was the observation that eleven year old girls in shorts and flip flop sandals are screened and searched for weapons by the TSA  at the Medford, Oregon airport before being allowed on a commuter airline while a 29 year old Muslim in Orlando, Florida with an FBI file and angry Facebook posts and several face to face interviews have their files closed and are allowed to buy weapons.   

It looks like "political correctness gone crazy".   They are afraid to be accused of "profiling".   "The should profile.  Christian extremists aren't doing the killing.   Muslim extremists are."  As they see it, security is sacrificed for the pretense that angry Muslim men are by law--ridiculous politically correct law-- to be considered no more dangerous than little white kids.  Obama and Hillary Clinton spout politically correct hogwash while Trump tells the simple truth on the back of everyone's mind.

Fighting back against political correctness

These men are not hillbilly low achieving stoners; these are educated white men with significant jobs, who hear Trump and think he raises significant points.  (They also think that Trump's ongoing questions about whether Obama was born in America and whether he could be maybe secretly a Muslim or Muslim-sympathizer are open questions.   Where there is smoke, there is fire, they have told me, and why else would Obama voice opinions that are so contrary to common sense, that angry Muslims are legally only as risky as white kids with an i-pad.)

It is possible that the mainstream mocking of Trump will injure his campaign.   Being mocked hurt Low Energy Bush, Little Marco, and Lyin' Ted.   But it may not hurt Trump because being mocked is the Trump brand.