Trump's poll success is merely a measure of how effective the neo-con fear mongering really was.

[Drew Phipps]

Trump's poll success is merely a measure of how effective the neo-con fear mongering really was. He's not a serious candidate. Nobody really thinks this braggart and blowhard would make a good president. However, the racist and fascist public stance on issues he takes is resonating with a significant share of the American people. Why?

My answer is, since 2001, we Americans have been subjected to a steady stream of fear-mongering and war-mongering from the administration of George W. Bush and his successor, and via the mainstream media, that has apparently decided that the best way to gain a) voter turnout, b) support for some political or economic "reform", c) support for a stupid war, and/or d)advertising revenue, is to try to scare the crap out of us. Here are some of the top hits (not in any particular order):

Anthrax scare (which turned out to be our own Army's anthrax)
Terror alert color system
Weapons of mass destruction
"the terrorists will follow us home"
7/7
Charlie Hebdo
Paris 11/13/15
Sandy Hook
Charleston
San Bernardino
racial tensions in the streets
police use of excessive force

(not to mention 9/11 itself.)

The end result of all of this is the "success" of Donald Trump. Now, he will either tear the Republican party apart with his demagoguery and extremism, (and incidentally, handing the election to the Democrats), or simply tear the whole country apart with his demagoguery and extremism. You fear-mongerers, and the media who have assisted you, and blasted this stuff into our living rooms 24/7 for 14 years, have taken this country down a dark and ugly path which is fixing to (if it has not already) gone out of your control.

It doesn't take a political genius to know that, even if Trump is contained, that any candidate who feels they might be behind can tap into this vein of hatred and fear which has been deliberately sown into the electorate. You will not be able to control this monster you have created so long as you keep trying to scare us. The most extreme and least controllable candidates will continue to rise to the top of the pile like scum on pond water.

Paradoxically, the only way now that you might be able to keep the Republican party from imploding in 2016 is to give Obama some public successes that will serve to reduce the latent fear of the electorate and take some of middle America back to the mainstream alternatives, which we all know the 1% actually favor. But you are fast running out of time.

While waiting to see if either Obama wins the war against terror, or if the Republican party devours itself like a pack of feral dogs, I suggest we ponder whether we should call him "FrankenTrump" or "Trumpenstein."

[Drew Phipps]

http://www.inlander.com/spokane/the-trum...id=2518567

The Trumpenstein Monster

Publisher's Note

By Ted S. McGregor Jr.

Commentators have been having a field day with Donald Trump. He's good for at least one fresh controversy a day, along with one shocking insult per week. He's been called Archie Bunker on a bad-hair day, Lord Voldemort if he was born in Queens and Frankenstein's monster reborn.


I'm kind of feeling the last one, especially when you consider some of the words that Frankenstein author Mary Shelley put in her monster's mouth: "You are my creator, but I am your master; obey!" ("Hey Republican Party," you can almost hear The Donald saying between the lines of his improvised stump speeches, "I'm in charge now. Oh yeah, and you're welcome!")


The politics of the past half-century have, indeed, created the force of nature that is Donald Trump. Politics that reward the outrageous, the simple-minded and that always fall back on what's the most macho are perfectly manipulated by Trump's media savvy. You could also say that Roger Ailes, the visionary behind FOX News, is the Dr. Frankenstein in this scenario. He has practiced the dark science of elections since working for Nixon, mixing wedge issues and well-tested Pavlovian responses to the point where they've been implanted in the American consciousness. Ailes' animating spells seem to make Trump impervious to normal attacks. In fact, some polls show he's the front-runner to be the Republican nominee.


It will be interesting to see how FOX News treats its creation. In Shelley's novel, the monster only wants to do Dr. Frankenstein's will and is confused when his creator is horrified by what he made. Then the monster destroys everything Dr. Frankenstein holds dear. It's no bedtime story. So will Ailes and the FOX team be pleased to watch Trump roam the lands, wreaking havoc on the GOP brand? Or will they get out the pitchforks?


Republican plans for 2016 are already way off script. Too many candidates, again, are a problem. And in a time when the GOP needs to moderate to attract voters, Trump is sucking up all the oxygen with his media stunts. To get any attention at all, the rest of the Republican field may be forced to out-crazy the master. And debate season is still two weeks away.


Sure, it's unlikely that the GOP would ever nominate Donald Trump to carry its banner. But it may not matter. Trump is independently wealthy (to the tune of about $4 billion) and seemingly untroubled by sacrificing his empire. ("The Apprentice is canceled? Who cares!") "Independent" is the key word, as Trump in a move that could make Ross Perot look like Abraham Lincoln may decide to launch and fund a third-party candidacy. And the monster can keep tormenting his creator.

[Drew Phipps]

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/d...n-monster/

By Rod Dreher August 12, 2015, 5:11 PM

Reader St. Louisan writes:

Part of me hopes the Donald Trump bubble continues into next year, because it will serve the "conservative movement" right. For decades now, theyFox, the talk radio guys, politicians and journalshave been stoking the rage of their base. They've convinced their base that the media isn't merely biased, but actively engaged in conspiracy against them, that Washington's incompetence is exceeded only by it's nefariousness, that politics is a sleazy and dishonorable thing and only outsiders can bring sound policy or honest intentions, that "the establishment" is corrupt and even the Republican Party's leadership is willing to sell them out for cocktail party invitations.

I suspect a large portion of conservative thought leaders (including Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes) expected the Trump show to collapse before it became too serious an embarrassment for the eventual nominee, and hoped the first debate would begin that collapse. But they've systematically trained their viewers, listeners, and readers to discount experience, revere "outsiders" and business success, equate long experience in government with selling out, and regard any establishmenteven the establishment of their own movementwith distrust. The degree to which more serious conservative journalists have tolerated and played along with this over the years has been scandalous. If Trump ends up splitting the Republican vote (or hanging around long enough to force the nominee to make nice with him) and costs the GOP this election, it will serve the conservative movement right.

[Tracy Riddle]

The elites in this country don't fully understand that not only have they been cranking up the Fear Factor to 11, they've been implementing policies that are destroying the old white, blue-collar working class/middle class. These people are not terribly well educated (generally speaking); most of them don't read (except for trash); they get their views of the world from TV and movies; their world is changing in ways they don't understand, and they are vulnerable to any demagogue who comes along to appeal to their fears.

Trump may be clownish and laughable, but so was a certain little corporal with a Charlie Chaplin mustache.

[R.K. Locke]

Trump is only there to make Hillary look less right wing. He will drop out at some point and clear the way for her (at least in theory.)