Justifying the Extraordinary: Trump and the Debates

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In seven days time the first of four presidential debates between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will take place in Hempstead, New York State. It is probably fair to say that no such debate has been as hotly anticipated in recent memory as this one now is. The debate marks the biggest test Donald Trump has faced since the launch of his candidacy for the Republican nomination back in 2015. It represents a vital trial of the New Yorker’s presidential character, professionalism and natural wit.

Hillary Clinton, now lagging behind Trump in many national polls, will be placing a lot of her hopes on the debates. Unlike Trump, the Democrat is a natural when it comes to conventional political combat. She – and her team – will be hoping (and expecting) Trump to be suffocated by the polite constraints of traditional procedure and to show his unease by lashing out wildly at Clinton’s character, appearance, dress sense, femininity, etc. Put simply, they hope and expect Trump to suffer a meltdown.

Whilst I would love to say that Clinton’s strategy is unrealistic, I cannot, as it is perfectly feasible. Trump’s Achilles heel, as he has proven time and time again, is his volcanic and unpredictable personality, his tendency to hit back after every real or perceived slight with much greater force and immaturity than is required or appropriate. All Clinton has to do in these contests is provoke that kind of reaction. All she has to do is poke the tiger until it growls.

This is the most obvious and likely strategy for Hillary to pursue, but there are other possibilities open to her. The rabidly pro-Clinton Washington Post made the following suggestions for their preferred candidate: “Take (Trump) up on his word. He said he “regrets” certain things. Invite him to apologize to Judge Gonzalo Curiel or the Gold Star parents of Capt. Humayun Khan… Another tactic is to press him on empty and unintelligible answers. Trump rarely completes a sentence or can articulate any level of detail about his proposals. When Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and CNN’s Dana Bash tag-teamed, forcing Trump to explain what was in his health-care plan, it became patently obvious that he had a whole lot of nothing to offer. She can certainly take a page from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s book (used against Rubio) in pointing out that Trump repeats the same platitudes. Tell us, Donald, what’s your plan to reduce crime in Chicago? Have you ever sat down with law enforcement?… There are oodles of issues (such as the nuclear triad) about which Trump knows nothing. Challenge him to spell out his stance on net neutrality, the South China Sea and student loans. In other cases — the minimum wage, repayment of U.S. debt and immigration, of course — he has been all over the lot. Force him to pick a position and explain why he has said the opposite.”

The first presidential debate will be held at Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York

Trump’s strategy for the debates is less clear at this point in time. When asked about his intended approach, the Republican has wisely dodged the question, explaining that he would prefer to not give anything away to the opposition prior to the event. We can thus only speculate.

I have a inkling that Trump’s strategy will hinge on portraying Clinton, as he has done all through his campaign so far, as ‘crooked’, dishonest, corrupt and in the pocket of the financial elite; an image he will then contrast with his own man-of-the-people persona.

The email scandal will undoubtedly be raised repeatedly, with Trump going off track and questioning Clinton directly about the thousands of inexplicably deleted messages. He will also link these questions to the issue of the Clinton Foundation and its highly suspicious ties to foreign leaders (including foreign and Islamic dictators).

The Clinton Foundation is coming under intense scrutiny for its ties to foreign regimes

This approach will carry Trump some of the way, but not all of it. He will need to have more strings to his bow prepared if he is to the win the debate outright.

To arrive at the best strategy for winning the debates, Trump would do best to look at what has carried him through the process thus far. I would say that, more than anything else, it is his credentials relating to the Islamist threat that have won over the hearts of patriotic American voters (including true liberals and Democrats). His positions on ISIS, Muslim immigration, Syrian refugee policy and other connected issues have been wildly popular with a broad cross-section of American society. Pushing hard on Clinton’s weakness on Islamism will pave the way for a very important ideological touchdown.

It is possible that in the days that remain before the November election there will be another Islamist atrocity somewhere in the world, perhaps even in the Western World*. This will serve as a timely reminder of how extraordinary the problems we (as a civilisation) face really are, and thus how inappropriate it would be to elect an ordinary candidate to solve them.

ISIS/ISIL/Islamic State

The Islamist challenge is so total and grave that all other issues melt under its heat. Trump and his team must realise this fact and base their approach on it. Sure, there are problems with the American economy which require ironing out; sure, illegal immigration from Mexico is undermining American sovereignty and nationhood; sure, the trade deficit with China is growing at an alarming rate.  But none of these issues are new or so extraordinary as to justify the American electorate taking a risk on a provocative and unconventional candidate (and that, undoubtedly, is what Trump is). Trump’s presidency is so unique and strange a prospect that he must build an equally strange and unique context in which it will seem appropriate and necessary. The only way he can achieve this, in my opinion, is with reference to the Islamist threat.

At the debates, Trump must be specific about how he will deal with this extraordinary issue. Soundbites, however popular they may be, should be avoided. It simply isn’t enough to say things like “We need to get tough and we need to get smart.” This is so vague as to be meaningless. Trump must map out a strategy for pulverising Islamism, demolishing it so severely that it will not dare raise its evil head for decades to come.

*Today, as I write, debris is once again being cleaned up from the streets of a Western city. In Manhattan, NYC, two bombs have exploded, injuring almost thirty innocent civilians. Meanwhile, in the peaceful, Scandinavian-American State of Minnesota, eight people have been stabbed at a shopping mall, the attacker allegedly interrogating potential victims as to their religious beliefs prior to attacking them.

These are indeed extraordinary times. They require an extraordinary leader. Next week in New York, Donald Trump would do best not to try and make himself seem ordinary, but rather embrace his uniqueness, tying it to the uniqueness of the times in which we find ourselves.

D, LDN

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Right-Wing And Left-Wing Humour

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BBC, bowie, comedy central, daily show, Defend the modern world, defend the modern world blog, DTMW, dtmwdtmw, Facebook, facebook facebook, gene hunt, john simm, jon stewart, Liberal comedy, Liberalism in America, Liberals in America, life on mars, NBC, Selena Gomez, Sunshine bias, Truth and comedy, Twitter, why aren't conservatives funny, why isn't conservative humour funny?

The other day I came across an interesting (if thoroughly flawed) article in the the Huffington Post titled ‘Why Conservatives aren’t funny”. It sought to set out the familiar case that right-wing political concepts do not lend themselves to humour, or at any rate, that right-wing people themselves are not imbued with the gift of comedy to the extent that Left-wing people are.  

“Why aren’t conservatives funny?…” Ellis Wiener asked “We’re compelled to ask this because, what with The Daily Show and The Colbert Report and Real Time With Bill Maher spending most of their time making fun of “conservatives,” it seems like there’s a disproportionate amount of “liberal” humor on TV…”

A similar question was posed in The Atlantic (a largely neoconservative magazine). In an article entitled “Why There’s No Conservative Jon Stewart”, columnist Oliver Morrison wrote that “Liberal satirists are… having no trouble making light of liberal institutions and societies… Jon Stewart has had success poking fun at Obama’s policies…(and)…Alison Dagnes, a professor of political science at Shippensburg University, has found that the liberal Clinton was the butt of more jokes on late-night shows of the 1990s than either George W. Bush or Obama would later be…So if liberals are such vulnerable targets for humor, why do relatively few conservative comedians seem to be taking aim at them?”

While both articles go on to offer their own explanations for this disparity, neither fully convince me. I don’t believe, for example, that reactionary ideas are inherently more straight-faced (as one piece claims). For support of that disagreement look no further than Jeremy Clarkson or the fictional police officer Gene Hunt from the magnificent sci-fi drama series ‘Life on Mars’. Conservatives, that is to say traditionalists, that is to say the inflexible advocates of common sense, are notoriously amusing. Pointing out absurdity or naivety in others (which is a common occupation of necessity for right-wingers) makes the basis of some of the most conventional comic relationships; see Laurel and Hardy, the Honeymooners or The Day Today. Stephen Colbert’s eponymous alter-ago drew laughs for this very reason. People laugh at right-wing caricatures because more often than not they agree with them. They agree with them, but only feel comfortable doing so indirectly. That was the secret of Colbert’s success; the self-denial of a whole generation.

To make ‘liberal’ jokes work on the other hand requires extraneous charisma on the part of the joke-teller. Jon Stewart, whether one agrees with his positions and views or not, is a naturally charming and agreeable fellow. His political positions were often highly warped, but people of my generation and the one before it perceive in him a warm-hearted, intelligent and humane nature. He was – and still is – iconic of America’s reasonable coastal minority – those who view middle America with a coffee cupful of scorn and suspicion, aligning themselves more with the postmodern elites of Europe. People laugh at Stewart’s intelligence, the way he makes complicated things seem simple, counter-intuitive things seem intuitive. They do not laugh in recognition that what he is saying is true – that is, not in the way they laugh at Colbert, Clarkson or Hunt’s feigned personas.

By way of conclusion, liberal comics predominate because the majority of thinking people do not like to acknowledge certain basic realities. They would rather Fox News was making it all up, that terrorists aren’t really hiding behind lampposts or amassing in immigrant processing centres. Sartre had a term for this – mauvaise foi…

Bad Faith.

D, LDN

The Second Republican Debate

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So, did he blow it? Is Trump-mania beginning to die away in the wake of disastrous 2nd debate? That’s certainly what the press seems to think. Take this from The Atlantic: “Trump turned in a remarkably listless performance, buffeted by his rivals’ attacks, frequently sputtering or struggling to respond. His trademark bluster repeatedly failed him; the celebrity who has coasted to first place thanks to his larger-than-life persona seemed decidedly life-size. Pundits across the political spectrum unanimously pronounced him weakened and diminished.”

Or this from the Washington Post: “In the middle of Wednesday night’s main Republican presidential debate – that is to say, well over an hour into it – Donald Trump seemed to vanish. The voluble businessman came out of the gates punching everything in sight and then just… stopped. He didn’t literally leave the stage. But it was like when you only notice that the air conditioning has been humming loudly after it’s been shut off.”

Or this from CNN: “It was a wild night at CNN’s GOP debate.. and it took a toll on Donald Trump as he sparred with Carly Fiorina and Jeb Bush and sustained attacks from just about everybody on the stage.”

I don’t disagree with the basic gist of these points. Trump did have a sub-par debate compared to his first appearance, and other candidates have gained ground as a result. I don’t believe, however, that Trump is ‘finished’ as a candidate. Far from it.

The attempts to humiliate Trump during the debate fell rather flat, I found. Even Carly Fiorina much celebrated put-down – relating to an admittedly stupid comment Trump had made about her appearance – did little to reduce his popular advantage. I remember no comment made by the tycoon that did not attract raucous applause (and often vocal endorsement from identifiably female members of the audience). What’s more, since the debate, Trump’s poll performance has not declined but improved across the board. If this was supposed to be the car-crash of Trump’s campaign, it failed to scratch the paintwork.

Trump will continue to gain in the polls for as long as his rivals choose spin over emotion, and political correctness over honesty. Millions of ordinary people find Trump’s no-nonsense approach exhilarating, liberating and entirely appropriate to the times we find ourselves in. This is, as Trump notes, a world in which Christians are fed to dogs, beheaded and often crucified, in which Mullahs seeking the end of days are actively developing the tools needed to bring it about, and in which challenges to liberal democracy are flourishing on the back of amoral Chinese investment policies. This is an age that requires the old American way of doing things, the way of Macarthur, Patton and Eisenhower. And of the republican candidates featured at last week’s debate, only Trump would appear to offer anything resembling that approach.

Obama has given the enemies of America 8 years of weakness to take advantage of, and in Russia, China, Mexico and elsewhere they have taken it. Trump promises to make up for this. He promises to ‘Make America Great Again’. And with the right support and advice, I believe he may be up to the task.

D, LDN

Pakistan’s Everyday Madness.

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BBC, Children, Christians, Civilisation, CNN, Counter-Jihad, Defend the modern world, India vs Pakistan, Islamism, Massacre of children, Multiculturalism, Muslims, NBC, Nuclear Weapons, Pakistan, Pakistani Taliban, Peshawar, Peshawar attack, Protests, Taliban, Terror

When Taliban gunmen abbreviated the lives of 132 children in a Pakistani school last month, it became customary on social media to report a feeling of ‘shock’. Via facebook and twitter, Westerners lined up to report their disbelief and surprise at an event that seemed to defy understanding.

This wasn’t a bandwagon I could leap onto myself, I’m afraid. To do so would have been dishonest and almost pretentious. Knowing what I know about Islam, about Pakistan and about the abusive relationship between the two, I couldn’t be less surprised by a massacre of this kind. To be sure, I couldn’t really be shocked by any act of bestial violence occurring in that horrible, irredeemable country. If tomorrow, 300 new born babies were slaughtered in a Pakistani maternity ward, my heart would ache, but my mind would be unchanged.

Islam, you see, can only ever end in violence. Those Muslims who do not commit violence really are (as the extremists say) disobeying the spirit of the religion. That those children massacred in Peshawar were themselves Muslim means little. If Islam cannot fight those outside of its tent, it will turn on its own. Like the proverbial shark that must constantly move to survive, the pace of Islamic evil must be ceaselessly maintained. Noise must made (and what better noise than screaming) so that thought and conscience can be muffled and ignored. If the Muslims of the world could stand still and reflect without the presence of an (external or internal) enemy, even for a year, the culture would begin to crumble. Islam is total and permanent mobilisation of the lower instincts; a military-delusional complex.

Unlike Iran, Tunisia and other moderately infected nations, it is increasingly clear that Pakistan cannot be rescued. There is no cultural haloperidol we can airdrop to change the hearts and minds of that delusion-ravaged land. And when things like Peshawar occur, we should have the honesty not to feign surprise.

D, LDN.