Here’s something the Repubs do that Dems don’t do...and we can start right now. They find a negative, and pound away at it, day after day, never letting it fall out of the headlines. Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals.” Rule #13 — “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." The target is Trump. The ‘freeze’ is the image above. Personalize it? Okay, how ‘bout “Trump is uniquely monstrous — only he is enough of a narcissistic sociopath to break the law by violating the hallowed ground of Arlington, taping a partisan Tik-Tok, and then — worst of all — failing to show the common decency to look mournful. Instead, he’s proud to share an obscene photo of his bad self with a shit-eating grin, with a big ol’ thumbs up. “Standing on the grave of a sucker/loser who got himself killed in combat? Sucks to be him but I’m having a B-A-L-L here on the campaign trail!”
Polarize it? This can be the Dems “But her Emails!”“But her emails” was media catnip because it (wrongly) reinforced every negative stereotype about Hillary. Crooked! Shifty! Hiding something. (yes, bullshit I know, but the Repubs had been building this stereotype for two years, including the publication of “Clinton Cash,” a piece of wholly bogus bullshit that became the media Bible of right-wing media.
Here’s the thing — the Arlington catastrophe has the DNA of every repugnant thing about Trump and the Trump campaign. 1) He, of course, broke the law because he wanted something, and laws don’t apply to him! 2) He was utterly tone-deaf to the idea that America has hallowed ground, and that soldiers who gave their lives to defend our freedom are the opposite of suckers and losers. 3) Once accused of obvious wrong-doing, the Trumpies (of course) ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK. That woman who was assaulted when she did the right thing trying to keep this monster from desecrating our most sacred cemetery? Of course, she’s a “despicable individual” who has having an “obvious mental health incident.”
So how do we keep this alive, in the news every single day? Let’s start with Josh Marshall’s “6 Unanswered Questions About Trump’s Arlington Cemetery Fiasco”:
- What does the Trump campaign video show?
- Who are the two Trump campaign staffers who had a verbal and physical altercation with the cemetery official?
- What does the report filed by the cemetery official say?
- Who else witnessed the incident and what did they see?
- What did the Secret Service do, if anything, about the incident?
And let’s start with Keith Olbermann’s observation/question — the Trumpies claim to have footage that will exonerate them. WHERE IS IT? Let’s see it! Let’s ask this question every goddamn day until they have to admit they made it up!
Remember “But her emails”? It was all about “just asking questions” and “voters have a right to know” and “where there’s smoke...”
Don’t let this story die! It’s got EVERYTHING to remind people what a scumbag Trump is, and what a catastrophe he would be for our country.