Play Nice 46th President of the United States: Joe Biden (1) O Brave New World
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- #827
That's a bad analogy. Bernie is still an outrider in the Democratic Party. He's an independent, after all. Trump is a former Republican president who remains more popular among the base than the party itself.
On the right, the MAGA crowd outnumbers the establishment. That's not the case with the Democrats, who are still steered and underpinned by the centre and its establishment. But the centre collapsed for the Republicans a while ago.
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- #828
Well, that will be the fascinating part of it. Where does Fox go from here? I don't think Murdoch wants to remain beholden to a former president. He didn't think much of him in the first place. But nor will they want to alienate their audience.
I expect they'll at least try to tiptoe away from Trump. Probably unsuccessfully.
They created this golem. Now they're tethered to it. Even as it goes under, speaking in tongues, like Robert De Niro at the end of Cape Fear.
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At least the Democrats will get a couple of years clear enough run at it now that Trump has accommodated in spunking the Senate majority that the GOP had up against the wall.
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- #830
The wall Mexico paid for.
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Fox are never tethered to anything. it will not surprise one bit if they decide to spend a week or month to destroy Trump just for shits and giggles.
Then they will forget Trump ever existed and move on to attacking Biden. Attacking from opposition is what they do best.
While they are doing this Murdoch will choose his next candidate.
And then we can do it all again.
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To some law firms - she is definitely a whale in terms of wealth and she will likely try to the legal route that lines only the pockets of those law firms.
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- #836
They are tethered to their audience. That's why they had to pivot from attacking him to supporting him during the 2015-16 primaries.
That's true but it also assumes that the Trump base will be so willing to move on. That is by no means a given.
It also assumes that an heir apparent will emerge without Trump's endorsement. Something resembling an alternative to Trumpism. Are we going back to the Republican Party of George HW Bush and Mitt Romney? I doubt it. More likely, whoever follows Trump will embrace his legacy and seek to emulate him. That will make it hard to "forget he ever existed" when his influence remains so obvious and explicit. The idea that Trump will simply fade away is, IMO, wishful thinking. Not while he retains his base anyway.
Is that what happened in the 2015-16 primaries? Did Murdoch choose Trump?
If the audience remains committed to Trump, it won't be that simple.
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Tucker's confused face and Hannity's self-assured narcissism will move on. They won't criticise Trump though, it will be the Deep State's fault.
China Joe. Everything will be that Biden is in cahoots with China and the two nations are so intertwined, it'll be easy to draw a million tenuous links to anyone you choose.
China Joe. Everything will be that Biden is in cahoots with China and the two nations are so intertwined, it'll be easy to draw a million tenuous links to anyone you choose.
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- #838
Sure, they will continue to criticise the Democrats based on the issues of the day. But that's not the same as the party or the right-wing echo chamber moving on from Trumpism.
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Absolutely Fox chose Trump.
This is the weird thing about all of this.
Trump never gets elected without Fox. Fox promoted him mercilessly. Sure he is useful to Fox but lots of people are. Fox will find someone new.
Trump never gets elected without the GOP either. The Trump base is nowhere near big enough.
Also, Trump never gets elected without the Tea Party. Trump simply co-opted the Tea Party base and then grew it and married it to the traditional GOP base.
Trump has not actually created anything. Including his base. It was already there just waiting for the right person to tie it all together. That was Fox with Trump.
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- #840
They absolutely did not. That is a misreading of what occurred. The Fox audience chose Trump. Fox was thereafter obliged to dance to the tune.
Fox was initially as hostile to Trump as the rest of the GOP establishment. Roger Ailes had an affinity with Trump but Murdoch most certainly did not. Go back to the primary debate when Megyn Kelly went after Trump for his comments about women. Fox initially sought to slow his momentum but it then became clear their audience was into him. Only after that did Fox start backing him fully. To suggest he was the preferred candidate of Murdoch/Fox from the outset is incorrect.
That doesn't mean he was their preferred choice at the outset. He wasn't. Fox didn't "choose Trump". Their audience did.
Some of this is pretty unsophisticated. How will that "someone new" regard Trump? You think they're going to disavow him and embrace Mitt Romney instead?
Well, that remains to be seen. If Trump is more popular among the GOP base than the party itself, they're in a pickle.
You're making a series of unconnected assertions. And you're just flat-out wrong about the dynamic between Fox/Murdoch and Trump, at least in the initial stages of the 2015-16 primaries. Murdoch was sceptical of Trump. And that was reflected in the way Fox covered him in the early stages of the primaries.
You need to understand that there has for years been a growing schism between the GOP establishment and its populist wing. The establishment needed the votes of the populist wing but the establishment still generally pulled rank and determined the party's presidential candidates while throwing the populists some red meat on culture war issues. The establishment picked Romney, for example. And the populist wing became increasingly fed up with being force-fed these guys. Trump tapped into those populist grievances and basically led a hostile takeover of the party, bulldozing a bunch of candidates that would have obviously been preferred by the party establishment, including Fox and Murdoch.
That populist wing hasn't evaporated. And the party is still dependent on them turning out. And if they still like Trump, the establishment can't do much about it.
I think I've outlined this to you previously.
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Disagree almost entirely. Fox is built on the discontent you referenced - not the Conservatives of the GOP.
Ultimately Murdoch and Fox back winners - they don’t care where they come from.
Fox brought this whole s**t show together. Fox nurtured the Tea Party. They built their entire network on their discontent and conspiracies. Trump is simply the useful idiot with a huge national profile and the charisma and hide to bring it all together.
Trump has flirted with the presidency before but got nowhere. This time a ready made base (Tea Party) and a huge propaganda machine (Fox) was ready and waiting for him.
Trumps base is no where near big enough on its own. It is not big enough with the GOP. He is zero chance on his own.
The GOP are already fighting a lost war with demographics. So is Trump.
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- #842
Sure, that's what it peddles to its audience. That doesn't mean it's not fundamentally and structurally part of the GOP establishment. I addressed this in my previous post. Fox is how the GOP establishment uses culture war issues to coax grassroots supporters into voting against their own economic interests.
Sure. That's why they ultimately pivoted to backing Trump. But he wasn't the preferred choice of Fox/Murdoch at the outset. That's simply a fact. I think you're forgetting how unlikely Trump's ascent seemed at the outset.
Murdoch likes winners but he's also an opportunist. He likes gaining and leveraging influence even more. If he simply liked winners, he'd have supported Obama.
See above. You're glossing over a lot of the details, I'm afraid. There was a shift during the 2015-16 primaries as it became clear that Trump held greater appeal than any of the establishment candidates. The Fox audience wanted him so the coverage came to reflect that.
But it wasn't. Fox was slow to warm to Trump. Murdoch was sceptical of him. Claiming otherwise is simply incorrect.
There's plenty of good reporting and long-form journalism about Murdoch's attitudes and the internal considerations within Fox during this period. You should check it out.
That remains to be seen.
The more salient question is: how will the GOP fare if they alienate the nailed on Trumpy base?
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Sarah Palin ran for Vice President in 2008 remember. How and why? Trump did not create any of this.
It is not Trumps base. He has simply adopted it. And someone else will do the same.
That is the scary bit. Imagine the GOP and Fox find someone who can appease the Tea Party base and the GOP base and play retail politics properly?
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scary bit it someone saw this coming in 1992. did you ever watch the movie Bob Roberts?
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Saw it at the Keno
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- #847
That was an early incarnation of the establishment throwing more and more red meat to the populist wing. McCain was losing. The campaign needed something. Trump seized on that dynamic and supercharged it. He embraced the populist wing and said "we don't need to play second fiddle to the establishment anymore". And the establishment buckled.
I despise Trump but that was pretty amazing when he did that. He just knocked their heads together. Cruz, Bush, Rubio, Graham etc. Go back to the primaries and look at how savagely they denounced him before ultimately falling in line behind him.
I didn't say he created that base. The grassroots/populist wing was there for ages, used by the establishment for turnout but still largely fenced out when it came to nominating presidential candidates and determining the party platform. But Trump commandeered it in a way the establishment wing had not anticipated and he rode it to a hostile takeover of the party, exposing the establishment as far weaker than anyone had previously realised. It was great TV.
Someone else may well do the same. Someone will definitely try. But they'll have to do it without Trump's unique advantages i.e. name recognition, celebrity, charisma, showmanship, relative independence from the party. That last one is crucial. Whoever follows Trump will likely be a creature of the Republican Party and its donors in a way Trump never was. That's important. Of course, this assumes Trump doesn't run again.
See above. Trump had some uniques advantages that will not be easily replicated.
It also doesn't account for the fact that the GOP establishment (what's left of it) and the Trump base are increasingly at odds. Trump winning in 2016 kept that accord intact for four years. Executive power will do that. It's not clear what happens now, particularly if Trump urges his supporters to turn against that establishment. Consider, how do you reckon the Trump base regards Mitt Romney? They hate him as much as they hate Biden. Maybe more.
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- #848
FireKrakouer did you get tired of winning?
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Well played...
edition.cnn.com
Biden to nominate Merrick Garland as attorney general
President-elect Joe Biden has decided to nominate Judge Merrick Garland as attorney general, people familiar with the matter tell CNN, a long-awaited decision that moved toward completion Wednesday as it became apparent that Democrats were on the brink of winning control of the Senate.
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- #850
And now protesters encouraged by Trump and other Republicans are trying to storm Congress.
Of course they are. I mean, why not?
Of course they are. I mean, why not?
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