On today’s BradCast, the great Heather Digby Parton of Hullabalo and Salon.com joins me to try and help us all make sense — if that’s even possible — of Donald Trump’s whirlwind visit to Mexico on Wednesday and his chilling speech on immigration policy in Phoenix on Wednesday night. [Audio link for show posted below.]
That’s no easy feat, but we give it our best try, including a discussion about the success of Trump’s calculated strategy to scam the corporate media with his daytime meeting with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieta in advance of his evening speech in Arizona.
“All this discussion that’s been going on about ‘softening’ and ‘hardening’ [his deportation policy] and whatever else — in the end it was Trump himself who really wanted to give that speech that he ended up giving,” Parton explains. “We ended up with this very strange, two parallel story lines that were being fed to the press. ‘Look at the pivot! It’s just so wonderful!’ — Then he goes to Arizona last night and basically leads a Nuremberg Rally.”
It was, as we both concur, his creepiest, most truly frightening speech to date. As she notes, Trump was targeting immigrants, “illegal” and “legal” both, as “un-American parasites on the American system” and “the reason for whatever distress, both cultural and economic, that ‘real’ Americans are feeling.”
Parton goes on to argue that his supporters ultimately “don’t care what he says, it’s the attitude with which he says it”, and I unveil my new theory explaining why the GOP nominee keeps holding rallies in states where he is almost certain to lose and/or certain to win, as opposed to the swing-states he’ll need to actually win the Presidency. (In short: Win the popular vote, lose the electoral college, claim to be the most beloved candidate with the added bonus of not actually having to serve as President. Win, win, win. Cherry on top: The scenario can also serve as even more evidence that the entire system is “rigged”!)
Then, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report as two hurricanes and a U.S. President head toward Hawaii, even as another hurricane bears down on Florida and the East Coast…in an increasingly warming — and frightening — world…
I now have a 2nd movie I need to watch: The Great Dicator, and Idiocracy.
Brad – Ezra Klein at Vox completely misstated a summary of the James Okeefe ACORN video in a story about Breitbart. He said Okeefe dressed up like pimp and went to ACORN offices looking for funding for a brothel.
I commented on how wrong this wherever I could and mentioned your blog and New York Times mess up.
I haven’t seen any retraction or correction on their part. Would love for a real journalist to take them to task.
No one seemed to care much but with the whole Trump phenom, I see the things like Breitbart and fake videos andainstrw and lefty media falling for these pack of lies as a well-engineered, well-evidenced move to push public opinion away from questioning elite corrupt forces and getting progess for regular folks.
They smear and make people hate the very things that could move us in a better direction as a nation, democractic insituilns and progessive change, and promote and nourish the things that will doom us, hate genreally hate in particular for democractic processes and democractic government action.