Okay, this is too little too late and it would've been good to write this a year ago, but I finally put it all together tonight watching South Park. This latest South Park season is about trolling. It has Kyle's dad trolling people online under the name "skankhunt42" and pissing people off. Tonight, when asked by other trolls about what makes his trolling so great, he said that trolling is like setting off a fission reaction and then watching the chain reaction as it happens. One person makes a comment, offends an entire group, this group gets outraged, is seen as annoying by others, who then get outraged at the group that was outraged, and everyone is at each others' throats over the controversy one guy started, while the guy who started it just sits and laughs and watches the chaos from the shadows.
I also watched peoples' reaction to the whole statement Trump made that he would not accept the results if he lost. Everyone's losing their freaking minds over this. "How dare he say that?! This threatens the peaceful transfer of power at the heart of our democracy! This guy is dangerous! This guy threatens the stability of America!" And....looking at the context of the South park episode, and then looking over the course of the past 1.5 years, I really start to reflect and think and put things together.
The only reason Donald is the nominee, besides Clinton's campaign trying to elevate him behind the scenes, is because Trump is a troll. That's the only reason he got as far as he did. The guy lives on controversy. He's basically Gerald Brovlaski in skankhunt42 mode in the flesh. Trump says stupid, offensive thing. Half the country is outraged by offensive stupid thing, the other half defends offensive stupid thing. He starts a chain reaction and watches the country go boom. He gets insane media coverage, this propels him to the front of the polls, and he gets more popular.
Trump would have never gotten as far as he did if the country did one simple thing: if they didn't feed the trolls. If the media didn't focus on Trump, if they didn't give him air time for his stupid comments, if they didn't raise awareness about him saying stupid stuff as a presidential candidate, he never would've taken off. Remember how I constantly complain Bernie lost because the media was rigged against him and didn't give him coverage? It was the opposite for Trump. The media fed the troll. They sensationalized it. And the guy beat out 16 other presidential candidates to become the Republican party nominee. And even now, Clinton's main campaign tactic isn't the issues, mainstream politics isn't about the issues and hasn't been for a long time this election. What we get instead is "OMG look at the stupid things Donald is saying now! He wants to grab women by the pussy! He thinks people with PTSD are losers! He won't accept the results of the election if he loses! How is this guy seriously running for president?" Um...because you fed the troll. America, you built this. Media, you stoked these flames for your own ratings, and perhaps with a little nudging from the DNC, maybe.
Like a troll, if people would have ignored Donald, he would've gone away. It's kind of late NOW for him to go away, since election day is in 2.5 weeks, but honestly, at the very least, I think we could see this election a little more coolly and objectively if we don't focus on the Donald. There's a reason I don't discuss him on this blog often. It's because there's nothing of substance to discuss, and I like to write about the issues, and things important to me. This sensationalist crap the Donald has been pulling all year gets no coverage from me because it's beneath me. There's no point in discussing such blatant, stupid trolling.
It's really a shame that the election has come to this, although maybe it's by design. As I said, it appears Clinton's campaign helped elevate people like Trump intentionally to give her an easier time. And boy, is it paying off. No one wants to talk about the Podesta emails or other skeletons in the closet Clinton has because everyone's too scared of the idea of Trump becoming president to focus on it. So instead of talking about the threat Clinton winning poses to our democracy (given all the shady crap she's been getting away with), everyone thinks the biggest threat to our democracy is Trump refusing to admit defeat. That's the state of elections in 2016, and it's a disgrace. We should've never fed the troll, we should've never fed the Donald. But apparently controversy surrounding a candidate saying incredibly stupid things wins over an open and honest discussion about the issues in this election. Clinton gets a free pass to the white house not because she's a good candidate (quite frankly she's horrible too and even people on the left should be horrified at the amount of crap she's getting away with), but because Trump is so off the wall and out of order. The democrats are feeding the troll because it distracts the American populace too, away from their own candidate's flaws. Once again, everything would've been better if we didn't feed the troll. We could've had a serious discussion on the issues, and focused on controversies that matter. Instead, we got a total crapshow and the media and the Clinton campaign sensationalizing every minute of it.
On a side note, on the idea that the election is rigged, I don't believe that Clinton needs to rig an election to beat a belligerent oompa loompa. There may have been "rigging" in the primaries, but Clinton can win this fair and square because Donald is a weak candidate whose existence gives Clinton the presidency on a silver platter. I think Donald is a sore loser who is trying to appeal to pissed off Bernie people, and at least in my case, I'm not buying it. Regardless, what's Trump going to do if he loses. Pout and moan? File some BS lawsuit? American democracy will move on without him, assuming Clinton's win is legitimate, and I believe it will be. Again, this is nothing like the primaries. This isn't one candidate using their party's establishment to snuff out the competition. This is a candidate and their party machinery up against another candidate with comparable machinery. Trump has been afforded all the advantages access to his party has provided him. If he loses, it's totally on him. Just to give my two cents on that.
I agree with your argument, and I'd add further that while I am terrified by the idea of a Trump presidency, a Clinton presidency has potential to be just as bad on some issues, if not even worse in certain important areas. As the WikiLeaks emails have demonstrated, few even among the electorate are willing to look at her critically (it seems that she has not been vetted at all to fall prey to such pathetic Republican attacks, just imagine if her serious issues were critically considered), she has full backing of the vast majority of the media and the Democratic Party establishment, as well as a sizeable portion of the Republican Party establishment.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that she masquerades as a "liberal", yet in terms of policy promotes center-right ideas, and like most American presidents, has some authoritarian leanings. Unlike Trump, she has tons of experience, which makes her even more dangerous, because much of what she advocates will be in favor of lobbyists, and may even be accomplished with bipartisan approval. Trump, by comparison, probably won't be able to advance much legislation beyond some putrid supreme court nominees because he doesn't even have the support of his own party.
I have doubts on what she will do towards preventing another financial meltdown, due to her Wall St. speeches and close ties to the Clinton foundation (although the foundation is indeed a good charity, it still is a conflict of interest in terms of its scale), and I think few would disagree on how hawkish her foreign policy views tend to be, both during her Senate and Secretary of State tenure. She and apparently even the Obama administration are even publically provoking Russia to a new level of cold war.
The media and the Democrats created this mess, what they will do to clean things up if Trump wins the election is anyone's best guess...