When a new Fox News Latino poll showed some dismal results for Donald Trump, Fox’s Happening Now show just happened to follow that with “questions” about whether the media has been “beating Trump down in the polls.”
I guess there were not a lot of ways to sugar coat the poll’s findings: Registered Latino voters prefer Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump, 66%-20%. That’s a seven-point swing in Clinton’s favor since May, when the spread was 62%-23%. Trump's “unfavorable” rating has gone from 74% to 82%.
Obviously, Trump’s claim that he’ll win the “Hispinic” vote is not working out so well for him.
These numbers “could have big implications for Mr. Trump,” Fox’s Bryan Llenas reported. “With Arizona and Georgia now considered tossups, the stakes are even higher” for Trump in the battleground states such as Florida. And guess what? It’s not looking so good for him there either. 65% of Puerto Ricans, an important constituency, view Clinton favorably while only 12% do so for Trump.
So what a coincidence that Fox immediately followed such terrible news for their guy with something with at least the potential to make him look better.
In the segment that followed, host Leland Vittert said, “Donald Trump blasting the media for negative coverage of his campaign. There has been a series of missteps that has really captured the media’s attention and turned the spotlight away from the very real controversies surrounding Hillary Clinton.”
Got that? Vittert was trying to suggest that the media was obsessed with Trump “missteps” while ignoring Clinton’s “very real controversies.” Only a Fox News host would characterize a candidate’s suggestion that an opponent be assassinated and calling President Obama and Hillary Clinton the founder and cofounder of ISIS – not to mention his bigoted smears of a Gold Star family - as "trivial missteps."
After running through some more bad poll numbers for Trump, Vittert asked guest Judith Miller, “Is this causation, meaning the media is really beating Trump down in the polls, Judy, or is this correlation, that these things are just happening to happen at the same time?”
Notice how with either choice, Vittert was suggesting that the media was unfair to Trump?
Unfortunately for Trump, neither of the two guests, each a paid contributor, bailed him out. But it wasn’t for lack of Vittert’s repeated efforts.
“So many of his wounds are self-inflicted,” Miller said about Trump. She later said that there would be more coverage of Clinton’s issues if Trump would stop “getting in the way of the stories that would hurt her.”
Conservative Cal Thomas had similar thoughts. “Look, if you jump into a lion cage, you can’t blame the lion for eating you,” Thomas said, “and Trump throws all this red meat out at the journalists and he’s inviting them to attack him.”
Watch it below, from the August 12 Happening Now.
“So many of his wounds are self-inflicted,” Miller said about Trump. She later said that there would be more coverage of Clinton’s issues if Trump would stop “getting in the way of the stories that would hurt her.”
Well, Miller’s obviously hit on the key problem for tRump. He NEEDS (almost psychopathically—sorry, Dr All-blow, if I’m stepping on your psychological analysis by proxy toes) to be the center of EVERYTHING. He simply can NOT allow the media to venture from focusing on HIM. tRump’s a narcissist of the highest caliber. If the media were to “cover Clinton’s issues” as Miller suggests, tRump would start whining that the media’s not giving HIM enough coverage—which would then lead to his making yet another major gaffe.
Of course, Miller does (purposefully) ignore the fact that tRump won’t actually quit spouting nonsense that anyone that’s not FoxNoise could reasonably ignore covering. And when it comes down to a choice between “tRump’s latest stupid bit of horse puckey” and "Hillary’s fill in the blank “scandal” that’s already been covered a million times," the mainstream media’s going to go with the newest horse puckey. (Even Judicial Watch’s most recent “shocking e-mail discovery” turned out to be even less substantial than the first set of “shocking e-mail discoveries.” That whole story largely petered out in less than a day—even with the most hardcore of Hillary-haters—because there was no “there” there.)
In the meantime, 21st Century Fox investigators continue their probe on Nixon Trainee Ailes and the corruption at Fox “News” Channel. The fallout continues with more women coming forward.
The frauds inside Fox “News” Channel are scared that their names will come up in the scandals.
We encourage all the masses to use social media, radio, television, and YouTube to discuss the huge scandal rocking Fox “News” Channel.
Topics to discuss:
1. How big is the Fox “News” coverup of sexual harassment?
2. Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly have been with Fox “News” Channel for several decades? Did they have knowledge of the harassment since they worked closely with producers and senior management?
3. Is the Fox “News” Channel sexual harassment scandal bigger than News Corporation’s U.K. hacking scandal?
Keep this story alive 24/7 nonstop. It’s a massive story you won’t see on The Cable Game-for obvious reasons, right Ailes?
Coming down the pipeline:
1. Huge shocker hits Fox “News” Channel.
2. Criminal activities
3. On air mouthpieces off-air behavior
4. Billy’s retirement
5. Low morale at Fox “News” Channel
NOTE TO MASSES
Turmoil continues inside Fox “News” Channel. Associates talk about the mess that Nixon Trainee Ailes left. Short tempers, angry staff, arguments that the masses won’t read about in major publications.
I’m not the only one speculating Trump is doing this on purpose.
So what we have is Fox News and the right wing frantically trying to wave their arms and yell “Booga, Booga, Booga!!!” during a time when their chosen candidate is literally melting down in front of them. (And he’s even commenting on taking a vacation if he loses) Now, what’s a right wing ideologue like Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh to do? Their candidate is saying all the outrageous things they’d love to say, throwing all the verbal insults and bombs they’d love to get away with, and including several that these guys have actually thrown around. But the American public isn’t responding with adoration. Instead, the public is revolted. I wonder why…
Let’s evaluate how Trump has handled the past week and whether any of it was worth media attention. Let’s see, he joked about having someone shoot Clinton and spent two days dancing around it. He openly stated that he believes Obama and Clinton are the founders of ISIS, and refused to step off that notion even when given every opportunity, only to suddenly declare it a joke another two days later. He challenged the integrity of our very electoral system, not saying that there would need to be recounts but rather that the whole thing is rigged. And he implied that he will try to dictate who the moderator will be at the debates should he choose to show up, because Candy Crowley. (Never mind that Crowley pointed out that Mitt Romney was flatly lying during the debate the GOP is still upset about from 2012) Was any of this newsworthy? Yes. Not just because this was outrageous behavior by a presidential nominee from a major party. But because this man has repeatedly demonstrated that he doesn’t know how to ever say the words, “I’m sorry” or “I was wrong.” I have to say, this is like watching a campaign of Fonzie for President. But at least Fonzie had some basic decency to him, even if he couldn’t ever say the words “sorry” or “wrong”.
And let’s look at what Clinton “did”, as being flung around in the mud by the GOP all week. Let’s see, first we have the nonsense about the Orlando’s shooter sitting in the crowd at a Clinton rally, which didn’t go anywhere and wound up being countered by Mark Foley being spotted behind Trump at one of his rallies. Then we have right wing Judicial Watch posting a couple of emails to show State Dept bureaucrats talking about looking at positions for various supporters, again not finding anything particularly untoward. Then we have a right wing House committee issuing a report that they believe the Pentagon is adjusting its findings about ISIS, presumably to say that the Dems are trying to deceive everyone. (Shocker that the Pentagon would try to adjust intelligence reports, given what we’ve learned over 50 years of disclosures, but I digress…) Again, a partisan conclusion, but one that has an interesting benefit – it means that the right wing must now be ready to discuss the Downing Street Memo from the George W. Bush days, the one that the right wing wanted to ignore when it noted that the “intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy” that Bush had pre-determined for his attack on the country of Iraq. Or maybe the right wing only wants to have this discussion when they think they can pillory someone else? (Kind of the same situation of Sean Hannity suddenly discovering the “under-employed” part of the unemployment stats during the Obama presidency when he had steadfastly ignored them during the Bush years…)
Since The Donald’s political shtick was learned during his tenure weekly appearing on “Fox & Friends,” his talking points tap into right-winger’s flash points. The media – except Fox News – is drooling libs. Elections are rife with voter fraud – but only the Democrats do it. Obama is a secret Muslim in league with ISIS. Hillary like Obama before her are gun grabbers determined to abolish the 2nd Amendment.
The problem for Trump is all the idiotic verbal diarrhea flowing from his mouth only works to titillate conservatives who’ve internalized this manure repeated over and over and over and over again on Fox News and talk radio. This made him an amazing force in the Republican primaries and an epic fail in the general election.
Two competing narratives are driving the polls: Hillary Clinton’s scandals and Donald Trump’s character unfitness.
Following the DoJ announcement Hillary has struggled to put the story to bed and there have been some Hillary minor eruptions like some emails regarding the Clinton Foundation. That said, she’s better at managing the media than Trump who’s entire campaign is based upon using the media to draw attention to himself. Since his entire political stand-up act is all about peddling tried and true Fox News incendiary talking points, he’s lost on the fact they don’t play well when trying to expand upon his base.
Talking of media bias, media expectations of Trump are so low given his reality TV campaign style, when he recently made a big deal he’d deliver a traditional prepared economic policy speech read from a teleprompter, he was heaped with accolades for looking presidential with the media willing to forget all his past outrageousness. It was only Trump’s dogged determination to return to his bad habits by appearing before safe right-wing audiences filled with NRA types where he mouthed off his deliberately ambiguous 2nd Amendment outrageousness which returned all the negative press.