The Trump Card

So, The Donald has decided to actually run for the Republican nomination. And he was immediately dismissed by that party as "not a serious candidate." Then, to everyone's surprise, his candidacy took off. Polls show him—even after his little spat with Faux "news" personality Megyn Kelly—leading all other candidates.

At first, this was amusing. It was so amusing that Arianna Huffington decided that all coverage of the Donald would be in the Entertainment section in the Huffington Post. True to form, he launched an attack on the Huffington Post, Ms. Huffington and on all media coverage in general. More red meat for the masses.

But the dustup with Megyn Kelly seems to have been "important." One of the things that Donald Trump called her was "a lightweight." and he said "she was reading from her little script." And this points something out. We were not actually watching a Presidential debate. The men (and they were all men, because Carly Fiorina was relegated to the "Kiddie Table Debate") played a role and acted as if though Faux "news" actually does news and has real journalists. And the people from Faux "news" played the part of serious journalists, by carefully reading serious questions that were given to them and designed to actually challenge the candidates. This caught several of the candidates off-guard, especially Donald Trump, because they are all used to the softballs thrown at them by Faux "news" personalities.

Megyn Kelly is a "lightweight," just as all of the personalities on that network are. Despite the fact that she worked for ABC affiliate WJLA-TV, she is permanently blacklisted from ever working in any capacity as a real journalist again. Anyone accepts a job from Murdoch is permanently blacklisted. You will never see one of their personalities hired by CNN or any of the broadcast networks. This is because they do not make news, they do not report it, they do not hold to any of the standards of journalism, they have no ethics and they do not appear to know the difference between what they are doing and real news gathering and news reporting. Real news organizations do not exist to train people up—that is what you are supposed to have done in college.

What you saw on that network was a "reality show," or "reality-based television." where everyone is an unscripted actor (save, perhaps, the Faux "news" personalities reading from their scripts). And, since the ratings were nice and high, Roger Ailes "made nice" with Mr. Trump after having surprised him with the questions asked, because he knows that Donald Trump is the reason why the viewership of this reality show was so high. He wants more ratings like that.

So, now, let's get to the whole reason why Donald Trump is able to run on the Republican ticket.

Donald Trump knows that he needn't be specific as to what policies he would espouse as President. He need not be specific because the Republican candidates do not debate each other. Instead, they launch attacks on a President who is not running for office and try to attack the person they think the Democrats will nominate. And the reason why Republicans are so light on specifics is because the party's platform is specifically designed to harm the majority of the voters, so they would rather talk about their opponent than what they plan to do.

So he ran knowing he would never be asked what he would do if he were President. He can always side-step all of these questions very easily, because none of the other candidates will ever call him on this and because he can always attack the press. Attacking the press is not informational. Attacking Democrats or the President is not informational. When you go on the attack, you cease to state what you will do. Anyone who questions Donald Trump will face a personal ad hominum attack from Donald Trump. And this is exactly why Roger Ailes gave Megyn Kelly the script that called for her to ask about how women see Trump. He knew right away that her ratings would increase after the spat and Ailes is all about the money he can make by having a non-news network.