A Revolt Against the Double Standard
By Noah Rothman
Commentary
May 17, 2016
With both the Democratic and Republican primaries all but settled (don’t tell Bernie), we’ve reached the stage of the election cycle in which both sides of the political divide loudly profess that just cannot believe their luck. Republicans and Democrats claim with reasonable certainty that the opposition party’s nominee is hopelessly flawed and headed toward inevitable defeat.
Democrats take solace in polling which so far mirrors the trajectory of the 2008 and 2012 races, but not everyone on the left is taking 2016 for granted. Hillary Clinton’s opening salvo against Donald Trump was wide of the mark, designed to ding a different kind of Republican, and prompted nervous rebukes from her liberal allies. Republicans who backed Trump must be pleased with his initial attacks on Clinton. His brazen assault on her character and record is exactly what the right has wanted to see from their representatives for decades. Trump’s approach to the general election represents a valid critique of Republican timidity and the rules of political discourse, which appear rigged to favor the left. Trump’s methods, however, will also help Clinton to right her own ship.
According to the presumptive GOP nominee, the traditional trappings of a national presidential campaign – data analytics, micro-targeting strategies, and state-level grassroots organizations – are highly overrated. The candidate confessed that he would prefer to invest primarily in himself; namely, in his outsize persona and in massive outdoor rallies where he can practice his brand of extemporaneous riffing on his opponents’ flaws. On Monday, the New York Times gave Republicans a window into the content of those forthcoming riffs. “Donald J. Trump plans to throw Bill Clinton’s infidelities in Clinton’s face on live television during the presidential debates this fall,” the Times reported, “questioning whether she enabled his behavior and sought to discredit the women involved.”
The Times noted that Trump will seek to hold Clinton accountable for her role in the Benghazi attacks, her conspicuously profitable investments in cattle futures in the 1970s, and the evolving scandal surrounding her emailing practices at the State Department. These leaks about Trump’s approach to debates nearly five months prior to those engagements is probably less a shot across Democrats’ bow and probably more an attempt to comfort of the type of Republican who reads the New York Times. Trump’s strategy is questionable and probably deeply ill fated, but it is also precisely why Trump’s supporters within the GOP adore him and believe he can win in November.
As I wrote late last month, Trump-backing Republicans are inclined to dismiss the polls that suggest a head-to-head matchup with Clinton will not be a close race in November precisely because of the candidate’s brash and unapologetic attacks on Clinton’s personal and professional record. They believe that Clinton, like Barack Obama, has had an easy go of it, in part because her Republican opposition is too cowed by a double standard promoted in the political press that holds Republicans to a more sophisticated code of conduct than Democrats. To some extent, they have a point.
These Republicans have watched the President of the United States refer to them as “crazies,” the “enemies” of Latino voters, and skinflints who would rather “tank the entire economy” than see the uninsured receive health care. This is a president whose senior advisors have compared congressional Republicans to suicide bombers, arsonists, and hostage takers. This is a party led in the U.S. Senate by a lawmaker who called private citizens with whom he disagreed “un-American” from the floor of the upper chamber of Congress. This is a party led in the House by a figure who insisted that racism among her Republican colleagues is all that stands in the way of a consensus solution to the issue of illegal immigration. Meanwhile, even obscure Republicans who make ill-advisedly controversial observations about abortion rights, Medicaid benefits, or the president’s daughter’s style of dress at public events are pilloried and often forced to resign after they become the subject of national media attention.
For a certain segment of the GOP, the outcry over Donald Trump’s acerbic rhetorical attacks on Democrats is overwrought and disingenuous. They think the rules of the game are rigged, and they’re glad that someone has finally agreed to stop playing by them – even if he isn’t a consistent conservative.
This reaction may not be entirely unjustified, but it is entirely self-defeating. The notion that Hillary Clinton has not been held to account by Republicans over the last quarter-century is, to put it mildly, is deluded. The whiff of scandal surrounding Clinton’s personal investments, the revelation of which coincided with the White Water investigation, has been the subject of numerous GOP and press inquiries since 1994. Hillary Clinton’s role in the Benghazi attacks has been litigated again and again, and she has been grilled over it in testimony before both House and Senate Republicans. In October of 2015, Clinton spent over ten nearly consecutive hours enduring withering inquiry from GOP lawmakers on the subject, and Clinton came out looking better for it. What’s more, the hearings and Clinton’s display of transparency eased voters’ concerns about the still-evolving scandal regarding her mishandling of classified information in a “homebrew” email server, too.
Furthermore, the notion that Trump will erode support for Clinton by shaming her on live television over her decision to stand by her cheating husband is indescribably foolish. Aside from titillating the converted, for whom the notion that Clinton’s fealty to her husband was the calculation of a power-obsessed aspiring politician is an obvious and accepted fact, what will this approach accomplish? While the celebrity candidate’s tactical approach to campaigning against Clinton might provide Republicans who are still bitter over the lost battles of the 1990s a brief but satisfying moment of catharsis, it is unclear what adopting the ethos of the talk radio will achieve beyond that. Will it win new converts, or is it more likely to alienate those who take a more suspect view toward the Trump campaign, particularly the seven in ten women who already have an unfavorable view of the candidate? While the benefits of this idea are dubious, the course is a fraught one, and the risks far outweigh the potential rewards.
Republicans who have turned to Trump to litigate the case against Clinton in the harshest possible terms have every right to feel embittered by what appears to be a double standard when it comes to appropriate political discourse. Anger, however, clouds judgment and the GOP primary electorate’s judgment appears substantially impaired. Hillary Clinton thrives when she can portray herself as persecuted, and she will revel in her opponent’s abuse. For some, the celebrity candidate will provide a release for their frustration with Clinton, political media, and a popular culture that mocks and denigrates their values. As the polls look now, that’s about all the benefits that Donald Trump’s candidacy will yield them. There are better ways to invest $700 million.
With both the Democratic and Republican primaries all but settled (don’t tell Bernie), we’ve reached the stage of the election cycle in which both sides of the political divide loudly profess that just cannot believe their luck. Republicans and Democrats claim with reasonable certainty that the opposition party’s nominee is hopelessly flawed and headed toward inevitable defeat.
Democrats take solace in polling which so far mirrors the trajectory of the 2008 and 2012 races, but not everyone on the left is taking 2016 for granted. Hillary Clinton’s opening salvo against Donald Trump was wide of the mark, designed to ding a different kind of Republican, and prompted nervous rebukes from her liberal allies. Republicans who backed Trump must be pleased with his initial attacks on Clinton. His brazen assault on her character and record is exactly what the right has wanted to see from their representatives for decades. Trump’s approach to the general election represents a valid critique of Republican timidity and the rules of political discourse, which appear rigged to favor the left. Trump’s methods, however, will also help Clinton to right her own ship.
According to the presumptive GOP nominee, the traditional trappings of a national presidential campaign – data analytics, micro-targeting strategies, and state-level grassroots organizations – are highly overrated. The candidate confessed that he would prefer to invest primarily in himself; namely, in his outsize persona and in massive outdoor rallies where he can practice his brand of extemporaneous riffing on his opponents’ flaws. On Monday, the New York Times gave Republicans a window into the content of those forthcoming riffs. “Donald J. Trump plans to throw Bill Clinton’s infidelities in Clinton’s face on live television during the presidential debates this fall,” the Times reported, “questioning whether she enabled his behavior and sought to discredit the women involved.”
The Times noted that Trump will seek to hold Clinton accountable for her role in the Benghazi attacks, her conspicuously profitable investments in cattle futures in the 1970s, and the evolving scandal surrounding her emailing practices at the State Department. These leaks about Trump’s approach to debates nearly five months prior to those engagements is probably less a shot across Democrats’ bow and probably more an attempt to comfort of the type of Republican who reads the New York Times. Trump’s strategy is questionable and probably deeply ill fated, but it is also precisely why Trump’s supporters within the GOP adore him and believe he can win in November.
As I wrote late last month, Trump-backing Republicans are inclined to dismiss the polls that suggest a head-to-head matchup with Clinton will not be a close race in November precisely because of the candidate’s brash and unapologetic attacks on Clinton’s personal and professional record. They believe that Clinton, like Barack Obama, has had an easy go of it, in part because her Republican opposition is too cowed by a double standard promoted in the political press that holds Republicans to a more sophisticated code of conduct than Democrats. To some extent, they have a point.
These Republicans have watched the President of the United States refer to them as “crazies,” the “enemies” of Latino voters, and skinflints who would rather “tank the entire economy” than see the uninsured receive health care. This is a president whose senior advisors have compared congressional Republicans to suicide bombers, arsonists, and hostage takers. This is a party led in the U.S. Senate by a lawmaker who called private citizens with whom he disagreed “un-American” from the floor of the upper chamber of Congress. This is a party led in the House by a figure who insisted that racism among her Republican colleagues is all that stands in the way of a consensus solution to the issue of illegal immigration. Meanwhile, even obscure Republicans who make ill-advisedly controversial observations about abortion rights, Medicaid benefits, or the president’s daughter’s style of dress at public events are pilloried and often forced to resign after they become the subject of national media attention.
For a certain segment of the GOP, the outcry over Donald Trump’s acerbic rhetorical attacks on Democrats is overwrought and disingenuous. They think the rules of the game are rigged, and they’re glad that someone has finally agreed to stop playing by them – even if he isn’t a consistent conservative.
This reaction may not be entirely unjustified, but it is entirely self-defeating. The notion that Hillary Clinton has not been held to account by Republicans over the last quarter-century is, to put it mildly, is deluded. The whiff of scandal surrounding Clinton’s personal investments, the revelation of which coincided with the White Water investigation, has been the subject of numerous GOP and press inquiries since 1994. Hillary Clinton’s role in the Benghazi attacks has been litigated again and again, and she has been grilled over it in testimony before both House and Senate Republicans. In October of 2015, Clinton spent over ten nearly consecutive hours enduring withering inquiry from GOP lawmakers on the subject, and Clinton came out looking better for it. What’s more, the hearings and Clinton’s display of transparency eased voters’ concerns about the still-evolving scandal regarding her mishandling of classified information in a “homebrew” email server, too.
Furthermore, the notion that Trump will erode support for Clinton by shaming her on live television over her decision to stand by her cheating husband is indescribably foolish. Aside from titillating the converted, for whom the notion that Clinton’s fealty to her husband was the calculation of a power-obsessed aspiring politician is an obvious and accepted fact, what will this approach accomplish? While the celebrity candidate’s tactical approach to campaigning against Clinton might provide Republicans who are still bitter over the lost battles of the 1990s a brief but satisfying moment of catharsis, it is unclear what adopting the ethos of the talk radio will achieve beyond that. Will it win new converts, or is it more likely to alienate those who take a more suspect view toward the Trump campaign, particularly the seven in ten women who already have an unfavorable view of the candidate? While the benefits of this idea are dubious, the course is a fraught one, and the risks far outweigh the potential rewards.
Republicans who have turned to Trump to litigate the case against Clinton in the harshest possible terms have every right to feel embittered by what appears to be a double standard when it comes to appropriate political discourse. Anger, however, clouds judgment and the GOP primary electorate’s judgment appears substantially impaired. Hillary Clinton thrives when she can portray herself as persecuted, and she will revel in her opponent’s abuse. For some, the celebrity candidate will provide a release for their frustration with Clinton, political media, and a popular culture that mocks and denigrates their values. As the polls look now, that’s about all the benefits that Donald Trump’s candidacy will yield them. There are better ways to invest $700 million.
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