Days of Change

Fair Game

How could the media fight Donald Trump?

Become more conservative.

The first time I described Donald Trump on a blog, I used the term “dirtbag” in connection with a new NBC show called The Apprentice back in 2005. The first time I commented on Trump as a candidate, I referred to him as “glib.” I was a Scott Walker fan at the time. Walker was interesting in that he wasn’t a gifted orator, whatever the hell that really means, but was an effective administrator. Unfortunately, glib gets people the job of president in the modern era.

My problem with Trump is that he took shallow, meaningless statements to a level where they don’t even make sense, then attacked people based on how effective their burn was on him, rather than how effective his rebuke would be politically. He almost perfectly embodies the prototype of the strongman, a leader who rules by abuse and fear.

I’ve been watching Leah Remini’s series about Scientology and the tactics they use. I’ve been reading about this strange and cruel organization for decades. One strategy going back to L. Ron Hubbard’s leadership is “fair game.” This is where people who are publicly critical of Scientology are subject to the most extreme harassment and gaslighting because they became fair game. They range from lawfare to actually having people befriend the target and then report back to Scientology.

Most of the Alt-Right can be distilled down to people who want to take the fight to liberals. Most of the time, this means calling them out. The problem is that media saturation is not an effective strategy to win hearts and minds. It only serves to make people combative all the time. I tend to prefer living well as the best revenge, or at least proving your policies right to be the best revenge.

Donald Trump has made a life out of living well and making sure everyone know how well he lives. He also makes sure anyone who doesn’t like what he does gets an earful of why they suck and he’s better than they are. He’s like every other egomaniac. He seems to be a man of the people because he likes worship. He’s Barack Obama with a different career path.

Either Trump will engage in a weird form of populism that will hurt the free market, or he will fail to deliver on the protectionist strategies that his supporters swear will happen. His opponents are the entire left and libertarian-leaning conservatives. If the left continues to use Trump to vilify conservatives, Trump can maintain his support for the next 4 years. However, if the liberal media finds ways to attack the Trump agenda on conservative grounds, it would form an anti-Trump coalition that is already 54% of the voting population.

Plus, the media will be better for the additional intellectual diversity.