We have been silent of late about the election because the time for analysis is past and now is the time to execute campaign strategy. But we must say we have never seen such a mass political attack on a candidate as the one mainstream has launched on Donald Trump after the first debate. It also seems clear that the unnatural posture of Trump laying down & accepting the anti-women attack by Hillary Clinton gave a huge opening to the Clinton campaign. Now it may be too late to get back on the attack dog style. But sarcasm is also an attack form, isn’t it?
Look what Hillary Clinton tweeted after Washington Post published a 10-year old tape of lewd comments by Donald Trump in a private conversation in a bus ride.
- Hillary Clinton
@HillaryClinton – This is horrific. We cannot allow this man to become president.
None of the news coverage seems to point to anything Donald Trump actually did to the women in question or to other women. The horror seems to be because of the words Trump used. And the attack line is anyone who talks like this about women cannot be allowed to become President.
That makes us think – what is worse? Talking about doing bad things or actually doing similar or worse bad things? Clearly the first, at least to the Hillary Clinton campaign & today’s mainstream media.
Because Bill Clinton, both as candidate & as President, did far worse things to women than anything Trump has talked about. The stories about Bill Clinton having sexual escapades with women have been published & discussed for 2-3 decades. Wasn’t there a story about Bill Clinton doing bad things with Ms. Lewinsky in the Oval Office while world leaders waited outside to meet him?
Did Hillary Clinton ever say to candidate Bill Clinton “this is horrific; you cannot be allowed to become president”? Did Hillary Clinton ever say to President Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky media storm “this is horrific; you cannot be allowed to remain president“?
She may have said such to Bill Clinton in private. But there is no record of her saying that to Bill Clinton in public. So does Hillary Clinton believe that doing bad things is OK but talking about them is horrific? Or is it her standard practice of needing both a public & private position?
That also seems to apply to last week’s storm about Donald Trump taking a $900 million tax loss. Both the Hillary campaign and the mainstream media have made Trump the bad guy and a symbol of unfairness of US tax policy. What exactly did Trump do? He took advantage of the prevailing tax policy as every American does & should.
The real question is whose tax policy was it? Bill Clinton was the president in 1996 and so it was Clinton’s tax policy that Trump followed. The buck stops with the President and in this case the entire blame of unfair tax policy goes to the man in charge, President Bill Clinton. And President Barack Obama as well because the same policy has remained in effect for the past 8 years under President Obama.
So how on earth can a private citizen named Donald Trump be blamed for policies of Presidents Bill Clinton & Barack Obama? Because the Trump campaign turned into the Romney campaign before the first debate. They did not anticipate the same old attacks from the Hillary Clinton campaign & no one in the Trump campaign was ready to counterattack & expose the hypocrisy of the HRC campaign.
The tragedy is that the tax attack was a gift to the Trump campaign. They should have come out in attack of the Clinton policy that favored rich real-estate developers who had donated to Bill Clinton. They should said look how the Clintons always do what their rich donors want them to do. Donald Trump was one of the many such donors and Clintons did their donors a favor. Hillary Clinton is doing the same, doing everything her donors want. Only Donald Trump can change the system, not Hillary.
But such attacks have to be mounted immediately including the counter attack of Bill Clinton’s sexual behavior in contrast to Trump’s mere talk. Sadly, the Trump campaign never invested in a George Stephanopoulos type media attack team and they are paying the price for it.
Frankly, the mass ganging up on Trump may give him an opportunity in Sunday’s debate. He has to quickly & succinctly make the case that his talk may have been bad but Bill Clinton actually did everything & far more than Trump ever talked and Hillary Clinton enabled & profited from Bill Clinton’s bad behavior. With a quick & sharp attack line, Trump needs to pivot to his basic theme that his policies are the right ones for America. Hillary knows NAFTA was horrific for America; Hillary knows that we need to bring back jobs to America, Hillary knows wars in the middle east must stop; Hillary knows donor funded policies must end. She cannot deliver any of these and so she is attacking him personally for merely talking about everything her husband actually did in the White House.
But all this has to be done with a sarcastic charm and not by bludgeoning her. Sunday is the time for Donald Trump to show his authentic self & his deep conviction about bringing back America onto the correct path and away from the current path that 70% of Americans know is wrong.
Will he be able to do that & turn the tables on mainstream media & Hillary Campaign? We will all find out.
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