"In the gestating
Republican primary campaign, the real estate shark has quickly taken the lead -
as a political clown and caricature of himself. But what’s not so funny is this:
Trump is setting the tone. The fact that an airhead like Trump is able to
determine the content of news reports says a lot about the political state of America."
New York: Donald Trump is
running for president - and picking a fight with Barack Obama. First, he
questioned the fact that the latter was born in the United States, and now he's
questioning his academic background. Behind all the mischief is a calculated
gamble - the real estate shark is flirting with far-right, racist voters. The election
campaign of 2012 promises to be vicious.
Donald Trump isn’t backing
down. Undeterred, he’s barnstorming his way through New Hampshire, ground zero
for every U.S. election campaign. With a black helicopter and a black stretch
limousine, he has completed the compulsory tour for would-be politicians and
combed through the valleys of the “Granite State” on a relentless hunt for
votes and free publicity.
He drops in unexpectedly at
the Roundabout Diner in Portsmouth and puts his hand on the shoulders of
startled customers. Here, before employees of military equipment company Wilcox,
he rails against the malevolent industrial power of China. Then he drops in at
Popovers, a cake and coffee house, the deli in Maine-ly, New Hampshire, and of
course, at the nearby Bellman Jewelers. And armies of reporters and
photographers, along with TV broadcast vans, follow him wherever he goes. “Tell
me if you’ve ever seen anything like it,” he says triumphantly about the high
journalist turnout. “I feel very honored.”
That’s typical Trump hype. And
it's a dubious honor - because the U.S. media is hardly interested in Trump’s political
positions. Or in the irony of the fact that he accuses China of “raping” the United
States, even though most of his own products (shirts, ties, teddy bears)
proudly carry the “Made in China” label.
No. The media here are hungry
for something else: the next Trump absurdity.
In the gestating Republican
primary campaign, the real estate shark and speculator has quickly taken the
lead - as a political clown, comedy act and caricature of himself. But what’s
not so funny is this: Trump is setting the tone. The fact that an airhead like
Trump is able to determine the content of news reports says a lot about the
political state of America.
Without having formally
declared himself a candidate, Trump, with the help of an obliging media, has
already succeeded in dragging the race for the White House deep into the mud. His
absurd contention that President Obama may not have been born in the United
States prompted the latter to present his birth certificate. “A low-point for
American politics,” opined The New York Times. “Embarrassing” and
“worrisome,” seconded The Washington Post.
But that was only the
beginning. No sooner is the "birth debate" over, the next outrage
begins: Now Trump wants to dig through Obama’s college years in search of
inconsistencies. The president, he’s been told, was a “terrible student” - how
on earth did that kind of student get into law school?
There’s something sinister
behind all the mischief. Trump’s most recent assertion that Obama isn't “smart
enough" to have attended Harvard can only be considered “ugly racism.” Legendary
CBS anchorman Bob Schieffer rumbles:
“That’s just code for the accusation that he only got into law school because
he’s Black.”
Welcome to the U.S.
presidential election, or at least its flashy overture. For those who thought the
last episode four years ago had fallen far enough below the belt, with its
escalating tirades and racist overtones, it is time to prepare for more record
lows.
Because Trump openly says what
the angry far-right minority thinks; without filter, without shame, or any sense
of decorum. Cheerfully, he stabs at a hornet’s nest, catering to the racist stereotypes
of Americans who still haven’t accepted the fact that a Black man was elected
president.
The abstruse debate about
Obama’s origin - really no more than cold coffee from 2008 that Trump has reheated
for his own purposes - was just the beginning, the first warning shot in a
battle that is likely to be vicious. Ever so transparently, the Republicans are
cheerfully playing along with the game: Sarah Palin called the long-resolved
birth issue “legitimate,” and Speaker of the House John
Boehner refused to consider Obama’s U.S. birth a closed issue: “The
American people have the right to think what they want to think.”
’Why did that take so long?’
And they will continue to do
so, in spite of all rational evidence. After all, the most recent Gallup poll this
week showed that only 38 percent of respondents said they were “sure” that
Obama was born in the United States. An odd footnote: In the very same Gallup
poll, only a slightly larger number expressed the same level of certainty about
whether Trump was born in the United States. Conspiracy theories proliferate
everywhere.
Sure, that is nothing new in America.
The assassination
of John F. Kennedy in 1963, the crash of TWA Flight 800 in 1996,
the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001: For
every national trauma, an “alternative scenario” is quickly devised. And for
the right-wing swamp, Obama’s election to the presidency was precisely such a
trauma.
A belief in dark machinations
unites these groups. "It becomes part of the believer’s identity,” writes
Joel Achenbach of The Washington Post. So much so that it cannot be
changed even by clear evidence to the contrary - in this case, Obama’s real
birth certificate. And so the circus goes on, even after Obama’s humiliating
revelation. The reaction of his opponents is typical.
“Why did this take so long?”
grumbled Newt Gingrich, also a presidential candidate in waiting, sowing new doubts
about Obama’s legitimacy: “The whole thing is so strange.” Others, like Texas
Republican Leo Berman, assert that the document was forged, doctored or
tampered with. Joseph Farrah, editor-in-chief of the right-wing Web site WorldNetDaily, and a leading figure in the
strident “birther” movement, thinks it, "raises
more questions than it answers."
“I was shocked.”
It is no coincidence that California
Republican Party official and Tea Party activist Marilyn Davenport sent an e-mail
last week with an Obama “family portrait,” depicting chimpanzees and the tagline:
“Now you know why - no birth certificate.”
Davenport has since
apologized. She claims it was just intended as “satire.” But the recipients
clearly got the message. U.S. civil rights activist Jesse Jackson speaks of
“coded and subtle rhetoric to stir up racist fear.” Earlier assertions that
Obama is Muslim were along the same lines. Before long, those assertions will
no doubt be recycled as well.
Whether Trump is aware of the
implications of his words remains unclear. He is a political novice and
inexperienced in the rhetorical subtleties of the business. At any rate, he
denies being a racist - with the hackneyed assurance that his best friends "are
Blacks." For instance, Charles Blow, a Black columnist with The New
York Times, tells
of his first meeting with Trump: He was introduced to Trump at a party, at
which point the latter immediately confided “how beloved he was among Blacks.”
“I was stunned - a smirk frozen on my face,” writes Blow. “Why this speech?Why me?”
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
And it should be noted that there
are voices of caution among the chorus of the crass. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg,
a former Republican who is now Independent, protested
against the Obama smear campaign. “I think the Republicans are making a
terrible mistake,” he said on Fox News. “We have immigration. We have
the deficit. We have the economy. Those are things the public cares about.”
But Bloomberg recognized the
crux of the matter. “Anybody can run for president.”
