Monday, November 28, 2016

Donald Trump's First 100 Days (PM Edition): "A Trump White House Preview: Feuds, Turmoil And Conspiracies" - UPDATED


Sunday summed up what a Trump presidency will probably look like after the inauguration on Jan. 20, 2017. The day began with a morning tweetstorm mocking the recount effort by the Green Party's Jill Stein (which Hillary Clinton's lawyers later joined). Hours later, a top Trump aide knifed one of the top choices to be secretary of state, Mitt Romney. "People feel betrayed to think that Gov. Romney, who went out of his way to question the character and the intellect and the integrity of Donald Trump … would be given the most significant cabinet post of all," former Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said on "Meet the Press" yesterday. Then, in the afternoon, Trump tweeted -- falsely -- that millions voted illegally in the presidential election, and that he would have won the popular vote if you didn't count them. Not only did that make him seem like a sore winner, it legitimized the recount efforts out there (if there's voter fraud, shouldn't there be a recount after all?), and it conveniently distracted from a bigger story that day (the New York Times' exposé on Trump's conflicts of interest). So there's your Trump presidency in a nutshell. Thin-skinned rants. Feuding aides. Conspiracy theories. And all a distraction from the bigger issues out there.

How it all delegitimizes the media and democracy

There's one more consequence to the rants, feuds, and conspiracy theories: They end up delegitimizing the media -- and the country's democracy. Think about it: Every time Trump claims, without substantiation, that millions voted illegally, and every time the news media call him out for it, that only delegitimizes the media among Trump's supporters. And then when the same media write and cover Trump's conflicts of interests (or policy proposals or anything else), those same supporters won't believe a word of it. Will the media be alone in this challenge? Or will members of BOTH parties decide that what's happening to two key institutions -- the press and the vote -- is worth fighting for? By the way, who has been the biggest driver of the story that millions voted illegally in the election? Try InfoWars' Alex Jones.... Read More

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