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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: neolib who wrote (298594)	5/6/2016 12:38:05 AM
From: Asymmetric	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 540704

Capitol Journal How did Trump become the presumptive nominee? Blame Twitter . By George Skelton • LA Times - Capitol Journal / May 5, 2016 latimes.com So California’s Republican presidential primary will be a dud after all. Fantasizing about playing kingmaker — or crown denier — was fun for a while. But reality reared its head in Indiana. How an insulting, ill-mannered, public policy ignoramus could be chosen by voters to be the presidential nominee of a major party will be pondered for years, probably decades. Sure, there’s an anti-establishment, anti-government, anti-politician, even anti-party revolt festering. Many voters feel left out economically. Many think they’re oppressed by a powerful, detached government. Many resent being spun and used by the political system. Many are angry at political paralysis. But why Donald Trump — someone who’d be sent to bed without supper, with soap in his mouth, if he were a kid in an earlier generation? There are many answers. Start with this: Trump’s competition was hardly compelling. Never mind Ted Cruz’s philosophy. His persona was intolerable. But here are two root reasons for Trump’s unpredictable ascent to becoming the GOP standard bearer despite acting like a blowhard bully: 1. broadcast media. 2. social media. First, the former. Republican strategist Steve Schmidt — senior advisor for Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential bid and campaign manager for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 2006 reelection — articulated it during an MSNBC postmortem Tuesday night: “The tone is disgusting” on much of talk radio and some cable TV. “This cancer has spread and the tone has infested the whole Republican Party,” Schmidt said. It has been echoing for years, he continued, and “you arrive at this moment.” I asked another longtime GOP strategist, Rob Stutzman of Sacramento, why voters were willing to swallow candidate incivility, including previously forbidden name-calling, such as “Lyin’ Ted.” And only Tuesday, Trump regurgitated an unsubstantiated tabloid report linking Cruz’s father to President Kennedy’s assassin. “That has manifested itself on radio and TV now for 25 years and it matters,” said Stutzman, who had been leading a stop-Trump effort in California. “Over a third of Republican voters want to empty the gas can and light a match.” In short, they hear rudeness and reckless talk in the broadcast media and gradually it becomes acceptable in the exercise of democracy.... <snip>