Nobody Told Me

[malthaussen]

53. It's a puzzler, but I have a theory...

... the idea is to elect Hillary Clinton. She, and not Mr Bush, is the preferred candidate of the power structure. (The base, not so much, but who cares about them?) By Trumpeting the Donald's appeal and profile, they put the GOP -- now largely in the hands of radicals, remember -- in the awkward position of having a front-runner who is absolutely cuckoo, for whom only an idiot would vote. There, that takes care of the 30% of idiots in the country, now, who gets elected? The alternative, who has been running since the beginning on a "I won't be as big a disaster as the other guy" platform. If there were no Bernie Sanders, Mrs Clinton would be poised to win by the greatest landslide since Ronnie Reagan. As a bonus, the MSM make great profits from Mr Trump's performance art, which is far more exciting and attention-grabbing than Mrs Clinton's.

But Mr Sanders has altered that cozy scenario. I also think overkill comes into play: the parallels between the personalities of Mr Nixon and Mrs Clinton strike one, and I suggest that in both cases, they cannot be secure enough: Mr Nixon would have easily won in 1972, but he was paranoid and insecure, so he resorted to every dirty trick and questionable tactic in the book to ensure his victory. Fortunately for him, this did not come out until the election was over, and he won by the landslide he'd hoped for. By running Mrs Clinton against the worst possible candidate, this need for over-preparation is addressed. Losing to Mr Obama could only have stoked the fires of this paranoia, so the need to have an opponent as hopeless as possible would be only greater.

Consider that no GOP candidate who is even slightly "moderate" got any traction at all from the MSM or the Party. It has been all Trump since he declared, except for brief insurgencies by candidates even worse than him (which one would almost consider to be impossible, but the GOP has a deep field). Mere profit and "news-worthiness" (may I barf) does not account for this, because if similar attention had been paid Mr Sanders (or any attention at all), revenues would also have risen. Ergo, the media must have a reason other than just revenue to promote Mr Trump. The "conspiracy" I have outlined here would seem to account for this, which doesn't mean, of course, that it has anything at all to do with reality.

But Mr Trump did consult Mr Clinton before throwing his hat into the ring.

-- Mal