[Other obscure reactionaries the U.S. media has built up and made (in)famous include the crackpot sleazeball Dinesh D'Souza, a convicted criminal; fascist harridan and vicious provocateur Ann Coulter; and bizarre far-rightwing crazed former Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, one of 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives who was singled out for constant television appearances.]
Let us now compare the anti-Muslim invective of the Trump event to the "kinder and gentler" Carson echo of that Islamophobia.
Here's a transcript from the audio of the New Hampshire "town hall" meeting September 17th. (Emphases are speakers.')
Trump: "And we're gonna have some fun now because instead of making the speech which I've been doing over and over and over" [he's going to take questions instead.]
Trump: “Okay this man I like this guy,” pointing to the very first questioner.
Deranged Islamophobe: “[Inaudible] from White Plains. Amen. Okay. We have a problem in this country, it's called Muslims. We know our, current [he spits the word "current" with contempt] president is one. You know he’s not even an American.”
Trump: “We need this question.”
Deranged Islamophobe: “Birth certificate [inaudible]. But anyway, we have training camps, growing, where they want to kill us."
Trump: "Hmm-hmm."
Deranged Islamophobe: "That’s my question: When can we get rid of them.” [Like Hitler "got rid of" "the Jews"? Deportation and...?]
Trump: "We're gonna be looking at a lot of different things. And you know a lot of people are saying that and a lot of people are saying, that bad things are happening out there we're gonna be looking at that and plenty of other things."
Notice Trump's vague threat at the end. Plenty of WHAT "things"? [Audio clip here.]
When I did an Internet search for the details of the incident at the "town hall" meeting with the racist reactionary xenophobe and Trump, many headlines on numerous major corporate media stories were exactly the same, the anodyne "Trump declines to correct man who says Obama is Muslim."
Well, that's certainly putting it mildly. He also "declined to correct" the man that Obama IS American, and that "Muslims" do NOT have terrorist training camps in the U.S. from which they are preparing to "kill us." Those characterizations of the "encounter," an encounter in which Trump didn't merely passively "decline to correct" the man, but enthusiastically egged him on ("I like this guy," "we need this," etc.) and then acted as if he agreed and promised to do something (unspecified as usual with Trump) about the deadly Muslims (all of them want to kill us according to the deranged hater, who said "Muslims" are the "problem" "we" have in America)- those media characterizations are so watered down and so minimize the violent derangement of the man (who obviously is a public menace and may well bomb or shoot Muslims or Sikhs- his ilk can't tell the difference and in fact have killed some American Sikhs already- and may well have already vandalized "Muslim" targets) that they verge on a cover-up.
Trump is a dangerous demagogue who incites and encourages violently delusional emotions among the xenophobes, racists, anti-Muslim bigots, white supremacists (who have been endorsing them on their websites) and American fascists. Whose numbers are constantly inflated by the corporate media, that always tries to give the impression that the majority of Americans are "conservative" (meaning reactionary). This is a manipulative play on people's naturally conformist tendencies in order to drive the public ever farther to the right. People are told year after year how everyone else is "conservative," and they unconsciously conform their own attitudes to what the propaganda is telling them. This is how the corporate media has eliminated abortion in 90% of U.S. counties, and why the abortion-haters are on the verge of driving a stake into the heart of legal abortion in most of the U.S. (Of course, abortion itself will never be eliminated. It will just revert to the butchery of illegal abortion.)
U.S. corporate media constantly inflate the size and influence of the reactionary grass roots. For example, Trump is polling at about 29% support among Republican voters. Now Republicans are about 20% of U.S. registered voters. So Trump is backed by less than a third of 20%- around SIX percent of the voters. But the impression the media gives is that there's a huge groundswell behind Trump.
It just ain't so.
But he can still win GOP primaries, of course, and/or amass enough delegates to either get the GOP nomination or exact a steep price from the party. (He's a fantastic dealmaker, you know. He even says so himself! In fact, he wrote a book, The Art of the Deal, in order to boast about- I mean, to share his secrets of dealmaking with you.)
While inflating their numbers, major media has also always minimized the deranged, delusional, dangerous, and violent mindset of these indigenous fascists in order to legitimize them. Instead of marginalizing, or even criticizing rightwing and racist fanatics, (much less demonizing, as they do with leftists, black militants, "terrorists," "communists," "criminals," "welfare cheats," "drug pushers," "sex offenders," or whatever group- homosexuals used to be one of the groups targeted for hatred-incitement), the corporate propaganda system treats them as a respectable part of the political spectrum, whose deranged ideas are legitimate.
This is part of the long-term policy of that media in pushing the U.S. and public opinion to the right.
And as part of filtering out anyone with progressive impulses from attaining the presidency, "the" media has decreed that the first hurdle- barrier, actually- to anyone being a "serious" candidate for president is to win or do well in two very small, virtually all-white, reactionary and unrepresentative states, Iowa and New Hampshire. FIRST you must pass muster with a bunch of white reactionaries to be a "credible" candidate.
I have long been frustrated that this very obvious fact is ignored by those who should be loudly denouncing it- namely alleged progressives and leftists. That's true of The Nation magazine, which marks the left side boundary of the establishment political spectrum and acts as a get-out-the-vote auxiliary for the Democratic Party. (They really made that obvious by their hysterical attacks on Ralph Nader for daring to run for president. The Nation's plan for political change is to preserve the two-party corporate dictatorship in perpetuity and always force us into the Hobbesian choice of voting for the allegedly "lesser" evil- which has brought us to where we are today, a total police state which has written into law the "right" to imprison its citizens indefinitely in military detention with charges or trial, signed by the Great Redeemer Barack Obama.) It is true of the "alternative" media. There should be a hammering away every four years on this scam. Instead the sheep are left undisturbed in their slumber.
The idea that two tiny, white, reactionary states have near-veto power over who can run for president should be loudly mocked at every opportunity. But maybe some people who pretend to want "change" really don't want to shake up or even challenge the system. I suggest they stop faking it then. Defrauding the public is unethical.
“Don't worry, this Islamophobia I'm injecting into
the body politic won't hurt a bit.”
Why, if you closed your eyes, you'd think you were
listening to a white racist! Fancy that!
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