John Nolte:
Everyone knows what Donald Trump meant Tuesday when he talked about “Second Amendment people” being able to stop Hillary Clinton from appointing judges. Everyone. It didn’t matter, though, because the elite media and their #NeverTrump allies are out to destroy Trump and therefore nothing matters except the opportunity to do so.
There is no point in raging against the injustice of this any more than there’s a point in raging against any other injustice. The world is what it is. You can either go insane asking Why-Why-Why?, or you can be a grown-up and deal with the hand you are dealt.
Although this unjust world mostly benefits them, Democrats understand this, which is why they refuse to do Fox News presidential debates.
We laugh at their cowardice but deep down inside we know this is smart politics. Furthermore, conservatives wish their own stupid pols were smart enough to boycott those branches of the elite media hostile to their very existence. Especially CNN (which is Hitler).
Which brings me to the teleprompter.
Let me take you back to 2008… Early September to be exact.
Believe it or not, thanks to Governor Sarah Palin energizing the ticket, in early September of ’08 John McCain was ahead of Barack Obama in the polls. It was the only time he would lead, and this lasted until the collapse of the economy when McCain — yet-another disastrous #NeverTrump pick — failed to grasp how serious things were. McCain would eventually implode forever with his fatally stupid decision to suspend his campaign in order to save the economy. Oh, the glorious sight of an old man jumping on a white horse without any idea of where to take it!
Anyway, in September of 2008, the election was slipping away from Barry and that’s when he appeared to call Palin a “pig.” “That’s not change,” Obama said. “That’s just calling something the same thing something different. You know you can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.”
Yikes.
At the time, Obama was doing what Trump is now: speaking extemporaneously with only an outline to guide him. The elite media had already crowned him The Greatest Speaker In The History of the Universe, and he seemed to believe he was infallible. With the “pig” line, though, he stepped in it in a big way and, as was the case with his racist preacher/mentor and terrorist pal Bill Ayers, the elite media banded together to save him. But Barry himself did something even smarter…
Barack Obama may have learned a lesson from his “lipstick on a pig” remark that generated sharp rebukes from the John McCain campaign.
Obama has used a teleprompter when delivering speeches, but normally he hasn’t employed one at standard campaign rallies and town hall events, CNN reported.
However, he did use a teleprompter at two campaign events in Colorado on Monday.
The use of the teleprompter is seen by some as a way to avoid off the cuff remarks like the “lipstick” quip he delivered at a town hall meeting in Virginia.
We all laughed and we still laugh at Obama’s teleprompter addiction, but at the time, like the boycott of Fox News, we all knew that this move showed that Obama had the kind of discipline that wins presidential elections. Barry swallowed his pride and became a little less exciting because he understood that nothing is more important than winning.
Voters also appreciated Obama’s presidential discipline. On paper, Obama should have been shellacked by McCain, but #NeverTrump pick McCain was an erratic drama queen while (with a lot of help from the media) Barry kept his “No Drama” pledge.
In a 50/50 country, presidential campaigns are won and lost on the single issue of competency, and this is why Trump now needs to stick to written text.
Sure, if he whips out the teleprompter, the news cycle will be brutal for a couple of days but voters will see in him what they want and very much need to see (although it might already be too late): a candidate who learns from his mistakes and puts discipline before pride.
At this point, unless he wants to leave behind a legacy as the biggest political loser-punchline in history, Trump has no choice.
What John N. and others in the GOPe have in common with the PC crowd on the Left is that they are willing to lose rather than speak without prior permission from the PC rule-makers.
The alt-right has a term for such ”Republicans,” ”cuckservatives.”
I like what Mike Pence calls PC: the one thousand and one rules of PC.
Expect that there is no rule-book.
The Left makes up new offences as they go along.
Whenever it looks like they’re losing, they make up a new PC offense: you can’t say that!!!
Donald Trump is widening, if not breaking the Overton Window: that once-limited area of allowable political speech.
He did that when he faced 17 other Republican opponents when he spoke the unspeakable: ILLEGAL immigration needs to be stopped and a wall needs to be built.
Donald Trump will not ”moderate” his speech just to please the GOPe if it means losing the election.
Being un-PC is key to his success.
Look at uber-PC Bernie: he wanted to ”move on” from the Hillary email issue. Even when she rigged the primaries so he couldn’t possibly win he acted the perfect gentleman….fuming inside, however.
And where did it get him?
He lost.
Donald Trump might lose, but he is a fighter who will go into the WH fighting or go back into his old life fighting.
@Nanny G:
What he is doing is ringing the death knell of the Republican Party.
OK, so tell me how you build a wall right smack dab down the middle of the Rio Grand.
So what you are saying is Trump will not start talking more like an intelligent 5th grader, instead of the babbling disjointed cr@p he spews now, in order to appear more Presidential and pull others into his camp?
No, it is a Dancing With The Stars mentality that is so prevalent in our modern society.
Well, having the entire DNC against you (like Debbie Wasserman Schultz) didn’t help.
Opinions are actually very much divided on that point.
My own view—and one which I believe is widely held—is that Donald Trump deliberately and knowingly steps over the line to appeal to his rally audiences and to attract the media spotlight, and then backs off and claims he’s been misunderstood and misrepresented by a hostile media when he’s later confronted on the point.
Essentially that’s a reality television strategy, calculated to boost audience ratings. It worked very well until he reached the growth limits of his original audience. What he needs to move beyond that point is a unified message and delivery that will hold his original supporters, while simultaneously appealing to the larger audience he needs to win the general election. The fact that such a message is missing is the fatal flaw. I’m sure he has people that could help him craft such message, but he doesn’t seem to be listening to them.