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U.S. Presidential Race: Trump Multiplies Sum of America's Fears (La Stampa, Italy)

"The mainstream media miss the heart of the problem: the real cause of the massacre matters little to voters; everyone applies their 'own' fears, their 'own' anguish - personal or political. For months, veteran political reporters have tried in vain to push Trump into a corner; to pin him on the 'truth' or 'falsehood' of his statements, as if he were Nixon in 1974, unaware that online 'true and false' have been canceled out by the opinions of individual users who seek to confirm their own ideas - and refute anything to the contrary."

By Gianni Riotta
                              

Translated By Martyn Fogg  

December 11, 2015  

Italy – La Stampa - Original Article (Italian)
The massacre of San Bernardino acts on the 2016 campaign for the White House like famed psychological test - the Rorschach inkblot, in which every leader and voter sees what they already feel within. President Obama, Hamlet as always, said "perhaps its terrorism, perhaps it isn't," and reiterated the need to impose tighter controls on firearms and restrict the sale of assault rifles, a measure that, in this climate, has no chance of succeeding.
 

Hillary Clinton, the old fox, limited herself to a good tweet: "I refuse to accept this as normal. We must take action to stop gun violence now," but two other tweets advise that the favorite for the Democratic nomination is wrong - and that this is normality in the 2015 USA. The first was from Oscar-winning director Michael Moore: "On Black Friday, one gun was sold every 2 SECONDS in the USA (nearly 200K guns in 1 day); the second was from the astrophysicist, Neil de Grasse Tyson, star of social media with 4.6 million followers, who tweeted: "400,000 Americans fell in World War II, 400,000 Americans killed by firearms kept at home since 2001."

These numbers fail to impress Republican candidate for the GOP nomination, real-estate populist Donald Trump, who, to the horror of dapper press and TV commentators, still leads in the polls - and with the caucus in Iowa and primary in New Hampshire scheduled for February 1st and 9th. The first this Trump did is praise the police - often criticized by Democrats for heavy-handedness toward African-Americans - then accuse President Obama of not wanting to "talk about Islamic terrorism … there's something strange about him."

 The other candidates of the "Grand Old Party" considered "establishment" are now held hostage by extremists: Rubio, Cruz, Christie and Bush have taken more cautious positions, but Trump, before a group of Jewish voters, first flirted with wink-of-an-eye racial stereotypes about which he is such a master: "I'm a negotiator - like you," before going on to liken San Bernardino to Paris in California and accusing the president of not seeing the Islamic nature of the attack.
Posted By Worldmeets.US

Bernie Sanders, the socialist senior senator from Vermont, is in trouble: on the one hand he wants to be the pacifist, on the other, in rural areas of New England where he hopes to win votes many people have rifle racks over their fireplaces with trophies of the poor deer they've shot.

Was it a massacre by Islamic terrorists or domestic ones, two Muslims or two mixed-up degenerates? Commandos trained to kill or a stupid couple who disguised themselves as ISIS? The cacophonous debate roars on, but the mainstream media miss the heart of the problem: the real cause of the massacre matters little to voters; everyone applies their "own" fears, their "own" anguish - personal or political. For months, veteran political reporters have tried in vain to push Trump into a corner; to pin him on the "truth" or "falsehood" of his statements, as if this were Nixon in 1974, unaware that online - see the studies by Walter Quattrociocchi and Farida Vis - "true and false" have been canceled out by the opinions of individual users who seek to confirm their own ideas - and refute anything to the contrary.

Days ago a confidential Republican Party memo for GOP leaders was leaked that responded to the chilling question, "What if Trump wins the nomination?" It urges senators, House members, governors and mayors to "ride the wave" without going to far: a Trumpism more fake than Trump's shock of orange hair and as inauthentic as stucco would not convince an angry America.  

Thanks to investments in real estate and gambling, but also because he's from outside Washington and Ivy League snobbery, Trump is a good reader of the American mood. Last Wednesday's massacre didn't fall on deaf ears. San Bernardino was the perfect California dream: home of the first McDonald's; British group Christie hit the top of the pop charts in 1970 singing ... "I've been all around this great big world to Paris and to Rome … I remember when I was 16, my daddy said to me, you could travel round this universe until eternity, but you'll never find that peace of mind that you've been dreaming of – not until you find that indeed it's to come on home to San Bernadino…"

No longer: of the hundred largest U.S. cities, San Bernardino is the second poorest. It went bankrupt in 2012 with the loss of 12,500 jobs at the Norton military base. Under the Second St. Bridge a broken water pipe has created a sauna for the homeless and vagrants referred to as the "Spa of Death." The impoverishment of the middle and working classes, a sputtering economic recovery and unhealthy levels of unemployment will dominate the 2016 elections and color reactions to [the attack on] San Bernardino. In cultured, technological, Democratic metropolises, the massacre speaks of too many guns, poorly-assimilated immigrants, stress, mental illness, welfare, and a culture of tolerance. In the suburbs and nearby former industrial areas and community colleges for working students, among the White working class there is talk of "California Dreaming" lost, ISIS terrorism at home, mortgages to pay and unemployed children. Google Trend colors the counties of America in red and blue, where questions are raised such as, "How can gun permits be made more restrictive?" and "where can I buy a rifle?"
Posted By Worldmeets.US

 Only one census really counts: regardless of whether the madness that lay behind San Bernardino is Islamist or urban - whoever gets more voters to polling booths on November 8, 2016 will elect the next president.