The Pivot Has Come-- But, Predictably, In The Wrong Direction

By last February, long before it was no longer tenable for even Trump to keep clinging to Manafort-- now exposed as a well-paid operative of Vladimir Putin's-- Glenn Beck was routinely accusing the Breitbart website of being an arm of the Trump campaign and, according to RightWingWatch.org likening its executive chairman, Steve Bannon, to Hitler's propagandist Joseph Goebbels. Referring to Bannon as "a horrible, despicable human being," Beck speculated that Bannon was either angling to become President Trump's chief of staff or is hoping to turn himself "into the next Roger Ailes." Beck to Bannon: "What that makes you is not Roger Ailes. By taking orders from a political candidate and reworking your entire site to promote the lies of a specific candidate without any kind of truth behind these things and just spinning all of it, doing what you've done to Breitbart and anybody who reads Breitbart knows exactly what's going on; if that is what your idea of being Roger Ailes is, you are so sadly mistaken. That doesn't make you Roger Ailes, that makes you Goebbels." Even Andrew Breitbart himself, just before he died after being disgraced in a debate with John Amato, described Bannon as "the Leni Riefenstahl of the Tea Party movement." Now Bannon is the third person in three months to be given the honor of running Team Trumpanzee. One has to wonder what Ivanka, Eric, Donald, Jr, and Barron-- who persuaded Mr. Trumpanzee to dump Corey Lewandowski-- are thinking today. Laura Ingraham's interpretation of what just happened is spot-on:

Donald Trump shook free the last vestiges of political supervision on Wednesday with the appointment of a maverick new campaign chief likely to favour his freewheeling style.

Steve Bannon, a Breitbart News executive once described by Bloomberg as the “most dangerous political operative in America”, will wrestle day-to-day control of the campaign from current chairman Paul Manafort.

“I am committed to doing whatever it takes to win this election,” said Trump in a statement confirming the reshuffle. As campaign chief executive, Bannon will “oversee the campaign staff and operations in addition to strategic oversight of major campaign initiatives”, the statement added.

Despite a tumultuous month in which he hinted at the assassination of Hillary Clinton and attacked the family of a Muslim war hero, Trump is thought to blame his sliding poll numbers on attempts by Manafort and others to rein in his unpredictable campaign style with a more professional approach.

But Bannon, a former Goldman Sachs banker who made part of his fortune through a stake in Seinfeld, has been a key figure in the anti-establishment revolt that has swept through the Republican party, and is likely to favour the “Let Trump be Trump” approach of Manafort’s pugnacious predecessor Corey Lewandowski.

...Trump said that he had appointed Bannon and Conway because they were “big people” who would help him defeat Clinton.

“I’ve known both of them for a long time. They’re terrific people, they’re winners, they’re champs, and we need to win it,” Trump told the Associated Press.

Manafort’s apparent sidelining follows reports about his links with Ukraine and his business ties with post-Soviet oligarchs. Before working for Trump, he spent a decade in Ukraine’s capital, Kiev, advising Viktor Yanukovich, Ukraine’s former president, who fled to Russia in 2014.

I doubt Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell are feeling too comfortable about this, but many far right extremists are excited that Bannon has apparently convinced Trumpanzee-- who didn't need much convincing-- that the rest of the failing campaign should be what Robert Costa dubbed "a bare-knuckles brawl, with full-bore populism/movement politics." America is about to learn what "Alt-Right" means. Ben Shapiro, a former Breitbart editor asserts that it was Bannon who turned the cite into the "cesspool for white supremacists" it has become-- not exactly the way Ryan is trying to reposition the GOP's tattered image. (Oh-- and by the way-- the latest Economist/YouGov national poll out this morning shows Clinton leading the presidential field with 41%, while Mr. Trumpanzee has sunk to 35% and Johnson is at 7% and Stein at 3%.) Bannon's appointment is likely to accelerate the RNC shift of funds away from Trump and towards Republican House and Senate candidates who seem to be about to get flushed down the toilet with Trumpism.

Three weeks ago, long before Mr. Trumpanzee announced he was turning his shattered campaign over to Bannon, RightWingWatch fortuitously presented us with an excellent preview of how a Breitbart-run presidential campaign is likely to differ from any other presidential campaign in history by reviewing Bannon's brutal "Christian war film," Torchbearer, which stars the crazy old crackpot from Duck Dynasty, Phil Robertson and was written by Breitbart editor Rebecca Mansour. Trigger Warning: You can watch the trailer below.

Right-wing moviemaking has been a growth industry in recent years, as conservative activists set out to challenge what they see as the damaging cultural impact of liberalism’s dominance in Hollywood. The latest example is “Torchbearer,” which director Steve Bannon called “a Christian war film” in remarks before a screening in Cleveland during the Republican National Convention...

The idea for Torchbearer came from Robertson’s nephew Zach Dasher, who ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2014. The plan began to gel during conversations at the 2015 Conservative Political Action Conference, at which Robertson was honored with the Andrew Breitbart Award. The film includes a clip from Robertson’s CPAC speech warning about sexually transmitted diseases.

Dasher introduced other pre-movie speakers, calling Citizens United’s David Bossie “Hillary Clinton’s worst nightmare” and celebrating that “Breitbart is waging war on liberalism in America.” Bossie said Torchbearer is the sixth collaboration between Citizens United and Bannon.

Dasher said he didn’t want to make a “typical cheesy Christian film.” Judging by that standard, you would have to say the movie succeeds. But it is hard to imagine anyone, even people who share Robertson’s evangelical faith and political beliefs, could enjoy the film very far beyond the opening sequences, which intersperse shots of Robertson calmly boating, fishing and hunting with sneering critics calling him bigoted and stupid, clearly meant to set up the narrator as a common-man hero despised by the cultural elites.

The film combines Robertson presenting an evangelical message of salvation through Jesus Christ with a theory about religion’s role in human history and society. Says Robertson, “When you take out God as the anchor of your civilization you open the door to tyranny and instead of human rights you have the will to power of the ruler who makes himself the sole determiner of what is true and just. Might makes right.”

More specifically, it is a warning to Americans that societies not grounded in reverence and fear for the Judeo-Christian God, and His teachings on right and wrong, inevitably descend into depravity and brutality.

...It is hard to describe how disturbing this movie is, on multiple levels.

Firstly, it visually and emotionally assaults the viewer by lingering on gruesome images of violence and death, using reenactments and animation as well as the most graphic historical footage from Auschwitz and more recent images of victims of ISIS and Boko Haram being beaten, shot and burned to death. I would call the movie’s infliction of trauma gratuitous, but it seems a very purposeful act meant to provoke and inflame and generate a rage to war.

Also jarring are the vast leaps through time and the excising of inconvenient truths that would undermine the moviemakers’ message, which seems to be that the history of the last 2015 years is a story of barbarity inflicted on Christians and others by those who have abandoned God or worship the wrong God or gods.

The movie’s timeline starts in the Garden of Eden, with Adam and Eve inviting evil into the world with their disobedience of God. Then we’re in Athens to talk about Aristotle’s belief in a “first cause” and four centuries later the apostle Paul’s trip there; then to Rome for the execution of Peter and Paul, the emperor Nero’s brutal massacres of Christians, and the Roman empire’s continued persecution of Christians over their refusal to adhere to the “civic religion” (dog-whistle alert) of the time, which required treating the emperor as a god.

From there, we hop to the pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock, conveniently skipping over a millennium-plus of history that includes abundant butchery carried out by people and societies fervent in their religious beliefs, particularly European Christians in wars against heretics and each other and during the conquest of the Americas.

Then it’s a short hop to the American Revolution. Robertson contrasts the American founders’ reverence for God with the atheistic French Revolution and Robespierre’s bloody reign of terror. The movie does not address the American Civil War, in which God-fearing Christians on both sides engaged in bloody combat.

At the turn of the 20th century, Robertson says, “worship of science becomes the new religion.” The film includes a segment on the development of the atomic bomb, “the first weapon of mass destruction.” It features a clip of nuclear scientist Robert Oppenheimer reciting language from the Hindu Bhagavad Gita: “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” Robertson responds, “So fallen man, unanchored by God, uses the power of creation to destroy. Mechanized war is upon us.”

It is not entirely clear how this segment fits the movie’s thesis that without the Judeo-Christian God as an anchor, there is no protection for human rights and human dignity. Are the filmmakers suggesting that Franklin Delano Roosevelt-- whose public prayers for the D-Day invasion are cited admiringly in the film-- was “unanchored by God” and was wrong to back development of the atomic bomb in fierce competition with Nazi scientists?

Speaking of Nazis, the movie devotes significant time to Auschwitz, where Robertson talks at length about the details of the horrific, systematized mass murder that took place there, which he blames in part on philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s claim that God is dead.

...Moving to the present era, Robertson warns against poll-driven morality – a not-too-subtle reference to growing support for LGBT people – and says a “sentimental need to be nice to each other” is not enough to ward off barbarism. Warning that “sentimentalism falls prey to nihilism,” Robertson says of the Hippies, “what started out as free love and flowers in your hair ended up with the Manson murders.” The movie includes footage of abortion activists’ anti-Planned Parenthood “sting” videos as well as American pop stars in sensual performances. “We are crotch-driven animals following our instincts,” he complains. “The sexual experience is now the high summit of our happiness.”

Sounds like he's talking about his candidate.

What's Going To Happen In South Carolina Tomorrow?

In 2008, the very same NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showing Cruz catching up to Herr Trumpf predicted Hillary was catching up to Obama a few days before the primary-- when he beat her 295,091 (55.4%) to 141,128 (26.7), with 93,552 votes (17.6%) going to next door neighbor John Edwards. I'd say it's not a reliable poll-- not when every other poll shows Herr way ahead. The RealClearPolitics polling average shows him leading by almost 15 points:

Herr Trumpf 32.9%
Cruz 18.1%
Rubio- 17.1%
Jeb- 10.5%
Kasich- 10.0%
Dr. Ben- 6.9%

And the most recent poll (ARG)-- yesterday-- shows Trumpf with 34% and Rubio in second place with 22%, followed by Kasich at 14% and Cruz struggling with 13% in 4th place. A win of that size for Herr could result in him winning all 50 delegates that up for grabs tomorrow. Ad spending doesn't seem to be sway the electorate all that much. These are the amounts each candidate has spent on TV and radio in South Carolina between the beginning of 2015 until today:

A look at the reptile brain impressions of typical Republican voters (see video directly below), largely manipulated not by paid ads but by Donald Trumpf, seem to indicate that the GOP is self immolating. The Deep Bench has been turned into a brutish sandbox-- a politically updated Animal Farm-meets-Lord of the Flies, like this scene of Jeb being murdered by Herr Trumpf.



Perhaps Cruz's religious-right rally today in Myrtle Beach, where Cruz beseeched the nuts to pray "for this country that this awakening, that this spirit of revival that is sweeping the country, that it continues, and grows, and that we awaken the body of Christ." He had been introduced by Duck Dynasty reality TV star Phil Robertson, who, waving a Bible over his head and screaming about gays. "When you start allowing men to determine what is right, what is wrong, what is good, what is evil, you let men do it and they do not vet it through this book. Our founding fathers warned us over, and over, and over again, what you will end up doing is saying, 'Well, I know it sounds like it may be a violation of commandment number six, do not murder, but we’re just going to go ahead and tell these ladies of America, American women, they can kill their children.'" He didn't specify which founding fathers said that but went on making things up about culturally foundational documents: "I know what God says about perversion. I mean, you know… marriage is between a man and a woman. Keep your sex right there. Here’s a report from the CDC, gentlemen. Young men, marry you a woman. Oh, dude, if she’s clean, and you’re clean, and you marry her… you keep your sex right there, you’re never going to get a debilitating disease and/or dead. It’s safe!" He brought Cruz up to the mike calling him a "staunch, Jesus Bible-believing, Jesus-loving, godly man. We better get him in the White House, and we better get him in there quick!" What's better, Duck Dynasty or Bush Dynasty?




What a shame they didn't have a screen set up to show Herr Trumpf's McDonald's ad! Perhaps it would have clinched Myrtle Beach for Cruz-- although the ad doesn't say nearly as much as about the Republican Party, their Deep Bench and the quest for the presidential nomination as does the fine photo at the top of the page!

The Great Trumpf Take Down Falls Flat On Its Face

Louisiana's Duck Dynasty Klan is split on who to support for president. None are following North Carolina Republican Richard Burr's example and pledging fealty to Bernie Sanders, but Phil Robertson, patriarch of the reality TV show went for Cruz while Phil's son, Willie, a former Bobby Jindal backer, is now pumping for fellow TV reality star, Herr Trumpf. "Mr. Trump is a real leader. He represents success and strength, two attributes our country needs. Like me, he is a successful businessman and family man and I endorse his candidacy for President of the United States," said Willie. Willie Nelson, of course, supports Bernie Sanders.

Greg Sargent detects some cynicism among the GOP elites: they're "telling themselves that Trump doesn't mean any of it."

One Republican-aligned business figure says GOP elites prefer Trump to Cruz because Trump “has no obvious core values.” One Republican donor says: “in the middle of the campaign a lot of people say things that they think are going to help them get elected.” Another donor says that while he finds Trump’s demagoguery to be wretched, that’s overshadowed by the fact that Trump is the only contender with the “entrepreneurial spirit” to solve our country’s “big problems.” Bob Dole says that Trump is preferable to Cruz because in reality, Trump is “kind of a deal-maker.” Translation: Trump won’t actually go through with all that crazy stuff he’s talking about.

As I noted the other day, the emerging argument is that Trump’s various pronouncements (even if these establishment types personally loathe Trump’s expressed values) merely reflect an entrepreneurial and adventurous spirit-- they are the inevitable byproduct of thinking big, of a refusal to be constrained by convention. Come to think of it, that’s a good thing, isn’t it!

Yes, they think-- like the German industrialists thought in the early 1930s in regard to their version of Trumpf-- that they'll be able to handle President Trumpf. So just as the Republican Big Money Establishment convinces itself that Trumpf is just fine and is practically one of the boys, as long as he can stop Cruz who they-- and everyone in DC--now hate more... a last ditch effort to stop Trumpf breaks out from the Republican Not-Big-Money Establishment.

The GOP civil war always looks strange but now it looks like the Hate Talk Radio hosts have all turned on Herr Trumpf and are urging their listeners to get on the Cruz train. Limbaugh, Beck, Deece and Levin currently treat Trumpf like the enemy and Levin seems to be implying Trumpf has a private investigator on his tail and is trying to silence him or blackmail him or some kind of crazy right-wing nonsense.

And, as you know, while the Hate-Talkers rally for Cruz, the rightist intellectual base all got together and wrote up little snippets for National Review about why Herr Trumpf is the conservatives' anti-Christ. Now, Erick Erickson, one of the organizers of the anti-Trumpf effort says he would still vote for Trumpf over Hillary (although he hasn't said if he will join Richard Burr and Willie Nelson in voting for Bernie Sanders). Erickson is basing his anti-Trumpism on the Bible: "I take my conservatism seriously, and I also take Saint Paul seriously. In setting out the qualifications for overseers, or bishops, Saint Paul admonished Timothy, 'If anyone aspires to the office of overseer . . . he must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil' (1 Timothy 3:1,6)... Like the angels in heaven who rejoice for every new believer, we should rejoice for Donald Trump’s conversion to conservatism. But we should not put a new conservative in charge of conservatism or the country, so that he does not become puffed up with conceit and fall into condemnation. Republicans have wandered in the wilderness already by letting leaders define conservatism in their own image. Donald Trump needs more time and more testing of his new conservative convictions."

Public intellectual Glenn Beck kicked off the National Review anti-Trump onslaught. "Sure," he wrote, "Trump’s potential primary victory would provide Hillary Clinton with the easiest imaginable path to the White House. But it’s far worse than that. If Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination, there will once again be no opposition to an ever-expanding government. This is a crisis for conservatism." His case:

While conservatives fought against the stimulus, Donald Trump said it was “what we need,” praising Obama’s schemes of “building infrastructure, building great projects, putting people to work in that sense.”

While conservatives fought against the auto bailouts, Donald Trump claimed “the government should stand behind [the auto companies] 100 percent” because “they make wonderful products.”

While conservatives fought against the bank bailouts, Donald Trump called them “something that has to get done.” Let his reasoning sink in for a second: “[The government] can take over companies, and, frankly, take big chunks of companies.”

When conservatives desperately needed allies in the fight against big government, Donald Trump didn’t stand on the sidelines. He consistently advocated that your money be spent, that your government grow, and that your Constitution be ignored.

Cato's David Boaz's case is that Trumpf is not just crazy but that he lets everyone see that he's crazy-- bad enough, but... "From a libertarian point of view-- and I think serious conservatives and liberals would share this view-- Trump’s greatest offenses against American tradition and our founding principles are his nativism and his promise of one-man rule." So... exactly what the right-wing masses want.

Cruz organizer Brent Bozell III uses the Richard Viguerie test: does he walk like us? Trumpf, he says, doesn't. "Trump might be the greatest charlatan of them all."

Mona Charen finds Trumpf too much the boor, a creep and a louse to be president and has the backup:

• "My fingers are long and beautiful, as, it has been well documented, are various other parts of my body"
• "If Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her."
• he tried to bully an elderly woman, Vera Coking, out of her house in Atlantic City because it stood on a spot he wanted to use as a garage.

And he's not a conservative, just an ego-maniac "simply playing one in the primaries."

Who, except a pitifully insecure person, needs constantly to insult and belittle others including, or perhaps especially, women? Where is the center of gravity in a man who in May denounces those who “needlessly provoke” Muslims and in December proposes that we (“temporarily”) close our borders to all non-resident Muslims? If you don’t like a Trump position, you need only wait a few months, or sometimes days. In September, he advised that we “let Russia fight ISIS.” In November, after the Paris massacre, he discovered that “we’re going to have to knock them out and knock them out hard.” A pinball is more predictable.

Is Trump a liberal? Who knows? He played one for decades-- donating to liberal causes and politicians (including Al Sharpton) and inviting Hillary Clinton to his (third) wedding. Maybe it was all a game, but voters who care about conservative ideas and principles must ask whether his recent impersonation of a conservative is just another role he’s playing. When a con man swindles you, you can sue—as many embittered former Trump associates who thought themselves ill used have done. When you elect a con man, there’s no recourse.

Ben Domenech of The Federalist asserts that "the case for constitutional limited government is the case against Donald Trump," not a bad argument, although none of the Trumpf backers would care about it. "Trump assures voters that he will use authoritarian power for good, to help those who feel-- with good reason-- ignored by both parties. But the American experiment in self-government was the work of a generation that risked all to defeat a tyrannical monarch and establish a government of laws, not men. A government of the people, by the people, and for the people is precisely what the Constitution offers, and what is most threatened by 'great men' impatient to impose their will on the nation."

Mark Helprin also makes the Mussolini/caudillo argument and likens him to "a tapeworm [that has] invaded the schismatically weakened body of the Republican party" and that "he is astoundingly ignorant of everything that to govern a powerful, complex, influential, and exceptional nation such as ours he would have to know."

He doesn’t know the Constitution, history, law, political philosophy, nuclear strategy, diplomacy, defense, economics beyond real estate, or even, despite his low-level-mafioso comportment, how ordinary people live. But trumping all this is a greater flaw presented as his chief strength. Governing a great nation in parlous times is far more than making “deals.” Compared with the weight of the office he seeks, his deals are microscopic in scale, and as he faced far deeper complexities he would lead the country into continual Russian roulette. If despite his poor judgment he could engage talented advisers, as they presented him with contending and fateful options the buck would stop with a man who simply grasps anything that floats by.

Should I keep going? How about William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, which probably has even fewer readers than National Reviews? He's posing questions to conservatives: "Hasn’t Donald Trump been a votary merely of wealth rather than of freedom? Hasn’t he been animated by the art of the deal rather than by the art of self-government? ... Hasn’t Donald Trump always been a man inclined to go along-- indeed, impatient to get along-- with history? ... Isn’t Donald Trump the very epitome of vulgarity? In sum: Isn’t Trumpism a two-bit Caesarism of a kind that American conservatives have always disdained? Isn’t the task of conservatives today to stand athwart Trumpism, yelling Stop?"

Dana Loesch writes that she knows Herr Trumpf. "He’s been a frequent guest on my radio and television programs, and I introduced him at the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2015. He has always been amiable and complimentary. I genuinely like him. But not as my presidential pick." She doesn't believe his conversion (to conservatism) story. Does anyone?

David McIntosh, head of Club for Growth, which ran some ineffective ads against Trumpf to try to stop him a few months ago, says Trump isn't a conservative and that he's "no better than what we already have. He’ll say anything to get a vote but give us more of the same if he gets into office." Trumpf's platform, he says are "the ramblings of a liberal wannabe strongman who will use and abuse the power of the federal government to impose his ideas on the country."

If you've been listening to Michael Medved's Hate Talk Radio show you already know he loathes everything about Trumpf and sees him as an embarrassment to the party: "Worst of all, Trump’s brawling, blustery, mean-spirited public persona serves to associate conservatives with all the negative stereotypes that liberals have for decades attached to their opponents on the right. According to conventional caricature, conservatives are selfish, greedy, materialistic, bullying, misogynistic, angry, and intolerant. They are, we’re told, privileged and pampered elitists who revel in the advantages of inherited wealth while displaying only cruel contempt for the less fortunate and the less powerful. The Left tried to smear Ronald Reagan in such terms but failed miserably because he displayed none of the stereotypical traits. In contrast, Trump is the living, breathing, bellowing personification of all the nasty characteristics Democrats routinely ascribe to Republicans... If Trump becomes the nominee, the GOP is sure to lose the 2016 election. But the problem is much larger: Will the Republican party and the conservative movement survive?"

Edwin Meese, Reagan's Attorney General, compares Trumpf to Reagan and finds him negative, divisive and destructive. Another GOP Attorney General, Michael Mukasey, insists that a "Trump presidency would imperil our national security." (I bet he'd vote for him in the general anyway.)

Katie Pavlich from Townhall seems most worked up that "Trump has made a living out of preying on and bullying society’s most vulnerable, with the help of government. He isn’t an outsider, but rather an unelected politician of the worst kind. He admits that he’s bought off elected officials in order get his way and to openly abuse the system."

Can't leave out John Podhoretz, right? He makes an interesting and plausible case that Herr "is the apotheosis of a tendency that began to manifest itself in American culture in the 1980s, most notably in the persons of the comic Andrew Dice Clay and the shock jock Howard Stern: the American id. Guys like the Dice Man and Stern had been told and taught and trained by respectable middlebrow culture to believe that their tastes and desires were piggish and thuggish and gross, and they said: So be it! Clay filled stadiums across the country with young men who chanted dirty nursery rhymes along with him. Stern invited young actresses onto his show to discuss their breasts. The screams of outrage that greeted them were part of the act... The cultural signposts Trump brandished in the years preceding his presidential bid are all manifestations of the American id-- his steak business, his casino business, his green-marble-and-chrome architecture, his love life minutely detailed in the columns of Cindy Adams, his involvement with Vince McMahon’s wrestling empire, and his reality-TV persona as the immensely rich guy who treats people like garbage but has no fancy airs. This id found its truest voice in his repellent assertion that the first black president needed to prove to Trump’s satisfaction that he was actually an American. In any integrated personality, the id is supposed to be balanced by an ego and a superego—by a sense of self that gravitates toward behaving in a mature and responsible way when it comes to serious matters, and, failing that, has a sense of shame about transgressing norms and common decencies. Trump is an unbalanced force. He is the politicized American id. Should his election results match his polls, he would be, unquestionably, the worst thing to happen to the American common culture in my lifetime."

There's more, of course-- read it all here-- but how can anyone top the Trumpf/Andrew Dice Clay comparison? By the way, you can contribute to the antidote to all this Trumpism here.

Positive vs Negative-- The Story Of Progressives vs Conservatives... At Least On Social Media

Last month Arianna Huffington sent a memo to her staffers telling them that Facebook readers are more interested in reading "the stories of people and communities doing amazing things, overcoming great odds, and facing real challenges with perseverance, creativity, and grace" than the kind of negative stories that have often led online. That doesn't cross over the political spectrum, though. As John McDermott explained in Digday yesterday, "For publications that self-identify as conservative, the most Facebook-friendly stories typically have a 'negative' tone."

CrowdTangle analyzed the Facebook page activity for the past 12 months for 16 media companies that self-identify as conservative-- including Breitbart, Drudge Report, Fox News and IJ Review-- and 16 that bill themselves as liberal/progressive-- The Daily Show, The Huffington Post, Salon, Slate and Upworthy, to name just a few.

And the data elucidated some fascinating contrasts regarding what works best for conservative and liberal media companies on Facebook, CrowdTangle CEO Brandon Silverman told Digiday.

...“For conservative outlets, a lot of their biggest posts from the last 12 months were usually about a concrete, perceived injustice and why that meant the audience’s way of life was under some sort of attack,” Silverman said. “They were more specific and more negative. In a lot of ways, the stories were less about celebrating values than triggering the audience to stand up and defend them.”

...“Liberals want to confirm their bias that everything is okay in the world. Conservatives on the outside can only confirm their biases that the world is spinning out of control. If the world is spinning out of control, then a strong case for change is made,” [said Alex Patton, a Republican political consultant].

...“It’s a massive death spiral for public discourse,” Patton told Digiday. “It’s also well known and not new. But it is accelerating due to social media. Both sides use it as a strategy.”

There is one thing both sides of the political media aisle can agree on: The best way to get engagement on Facebook is to play (or pander) to their audience’s emotions.

Is it fair to point to Duck Dynasty actor Phil Robertson as an avatar of the political right? They certainly play him up to the hilt in their own circles and they were proud to present him as one of them at CPAC this year. What kind of stories does ole Phil tell? Well, he's been claiming that liberals like Obama are liars led by Satan and are worse than Nazis. That's certainly playing down to the Republican Party base. Right Wing Watch:

During a prayer rally speech last Friday in which he opined about an atheist family getting raped and murdered, Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson employed remarks similar to the speech he delivered at CPAC earlier this year about how Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, the Japanese Emperor in World War II and ISIS terrorists were all capable of killing scores of people because they didn’t believe in Jesus.

But in his Friday remarks, he added one more group to this list of violent, Satanic evildoers: liberals.



In fact, Robertson said that demon-possessed liberals in America have killed more than Stalin and Hitler, and he even found time to suggest that President Obama is among the liberals championing Satan’s lies in the U.S.:

I gave you four ideologies in the last one hundred years, I see a pattern. You say, ‘why do they do what they do, why is there always murder?’ You know what the scary thing is? The fifth ideology right in behind all of this bunch of stuff we’re dealing with now, has its roots in the United States of America? You know how many they’ve killed? You say, ‘who are they?’ People call them left-wing loons, Bill O’Reilly calls them, political correct crowd, orthodox liberal opinion. You say, ‘what are they famous for?’ They’ve killed 63 million of their own children. 63 million. More than Hitler, more than Stalin. We’re slaughtering ourselves. You say, ‘who is behind it?’ Their father is, he was a murderer, from the beginning, they are slaves to sin, they are controlled by the Evil One. Duh.

Any Jesus with them? No, no. They don’t want Biblical correctness, no siree, they will not touch this, they are trying to get around it, they want political correctness. Well, what is it? What is political correctness? Orthodox liberal opinion in matters of sexuality, race, gender. They’re arguing and debating is there a difference between a male and a female? I’m like, dude, go in the bathroom, take your clothes off and take a look, you’ll figure it out.

Satan was a murderer from the beginning not holding to the truth so there’s no truth in him, when he lies- am I dreaming? Have you ever heard this many lies coming out of Washington D.C. since you’ve been on the earth? Have you ever heard more? You say where in the world is it coming from? They champion perversion, they champion murder, aborting their children and they are champions of lies. I mean I’m listening to them and thinking, ‘dude, what?’

‘Yeah, this bunch here, they’re the kind that clings to their guns and their bibles,’ I’m thinking, yeah, we may need them. How in tarnation do you think we ran the Brits back to where they came from back there 240 years ago? It took guns and it took bibles, right? You better stay with what brought you. He was a murderer from the beginning, there’s no truth in him and when he lies he speaks his native language, the relationship between these guys and Satan. He is a liar and the Father of Lies.

Crackpot Utopia: The Year in Republican Crazy, Part 9

• Pompous Blowhard of the Year Award: Bill O'Reilly
• FOX "News" announces new spinoff: The FOX Benghazi™ Shopping Channel!
• Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 11: DiGiorno Pizza


In Crackpot Utopia it was still the Year of Benghazi -- see No. 2.

Crackpot Utopia: A dream world as envisioned by republicans; a manifestation or expression of the deranged, warped alternate universe inhabited by republicans, at least in their minds. See also: Bachmannism, Boehneresque.

by Noah

1. Pompous Blowhard of the Year Award: Bill O'Reilly

When I thought about who deserved this award, there were more than a few candidates screaming out the windows of the Crackpot Asylum. But one truly bizarre person has built a reputation that is so synonymous with the words "pompous" and "blowhard" that there can really be only one true champeen!



The following pearls from the worm-eaten mind of Bill-O are not just breathtaking in their Outer Limits trans-dimensional scope of irony; they are as breathtaking as what would happen if you were sitting in a spaceship orbiting Pluto and suddenly all the windows blew open and in an instant all the air, the contents of the ship, and you were sucked out into the vast vacuum of ice-cold space.

Heeeerre's Bill-O!

"When you hear something on a partisan-driven program, do not believe it!"

And, mere seconds later:

"Distortions are how some people make a living."

Hmmm, good to know, Bill-O! Good to know!

It's worth noting that O'Reilly actually, really cut short his August vacation to bless us with these pearls of his unique genius. It seems he got paranoid and felt the need to rush back and defend himself against people he calls "race hustlers" (no, he wasn't looking in the mirror, although it's reasonable of you to assume that he was), by issuing a diatribe about people who dare to criticize republican icon Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot an unarmed suspect Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO.

Bill-O seems to think that having bravely acknowledged that Michael Brown shouldn't be dead offsets the rest of the nonsense he's spewed about Ferguson. But then, he doesn't have to listen to himself.


"My pal Jon Stewart, basically a comedian, but he's taken seriously by some of his fanatical followers. . . . Stewart mocked me for coming back from vacation. . . . Stewart distorts the [Ferguson] issue, and he has been known to do that. [Plays clips including one showing him saying, "What happened to Michael Brown should never happent to any American," and another saying, "If Michael Brown did something wrong, it doesn't mean that you wind up dead in the street."] So here is the Factor Tip of the Day: When you hear something on a partisan-driven program, do not believe it. And that includes the Net! Don't believe this stuff! Distortions are how some people make a living. Stewart is going for the laugh. He doesn't reallycare if it's true or not. And his audience, watching me, they don't know. Yuk-yuk-yuk. Come on!" (Watch the clip here.)


2. FOX "News" announces new spinoff: the "FOX Benghazi™" Shopping Channel!



Watching FOX "News" during the last year -- in fact, over the last two years, has been like watching a blinding bright yellow flashing road sign, a sign that screams "Benghazi!," flashing it over and over again. Don't worry, when you pass the first one, there'll be another, even bigger flashing Benghazi! sign every 50 yards. Benghazi. Benghazi. Benghazi! Benghazi! After all, the old sign that said "Birth Certificate!" burned out.

It got so bad that in just a two-week period in June, FOX devoted an insane 225 segments to what will go down in history as "The Great Republican Benghazi Hoax." For the FOX asylum, Benghazi is some sort of manifestation of Tourette's syndrome.

Then, a few weeks ago, the report from the republican-led congressional investigation of the Benghazi tragedy came out. After spending millions and millions of our precious taxpayer dollars that Congress could have been put to so much better use, it turned out that, as all non-crackpots knew, there was no scandal. There was no conspiracy. There was no cover-up.



The reaction from Fox? Silence. It was almost like FOX simply went off the air.

Alas, it was not to be. It took all of about three days, but they got their wind back. The republican committee that issued the report had dumped it out after 5:00 on a Friday afternoon in a classic news dump at the time of week when they thought no one would notice, and much of the media, including the so-called liberal media, only lightly mentioned the findings. But on FOX, nothing at all, not even on their Sunday "news" shows.

Not to worry, FOX has regrouped, and they have hopes for a brand-new republican-crackpot committee that will also spend more of our hard-earned money investigating Benghazi. What's that about the definition of insanity? You know, the one about doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?

FOX is all in. They already pushed all of their chips on Benghazi to the middle of the table a year ago. Now they've taken off all their clothing and added it to the pile. Damn, the idea of seeing a nude Sean Hannity or Neil Cavuto sitting at the poker table is not a pretty sight. ‘Scuse me a minute, I have to go barf.

OK, I'm back. What is it with Benghazi for Republicans? Benghazi might as well be Walter White's blue crystal meth to these wackos. They just can't get enough of it. They constantly need more, more, more! They look under every pillow and rock for what has become the Loch Ness Monster of scandals. Benghazi has become a myth that has fervent bug-eyed believers. The more they chant the word, the more they believe. You could tell these people that the sky is blue and they will scream that it is green.

Recently FOX "News," in their desperation to put literally anybody in front of the camera who will back their nihilistic insanity, called upon Duck Dynasty crackpot Phil Robertson as an expert on foreign policy for their Sean Hannity program. His mission was apparently to convince viewers that "Benghazi is real, my friends." Well, if the Duck Commander says it, it must be so. Hey, that's even better than Krauthammer.

Then there was Hercules, aka Kevin Sorbo, as an expert on Benghazi for FOX's Outnumbered show. (Even the show name reflects the paranoia that is integral to the republican mindset.) In discussing the NFL's very real domestic abuse horrors, Sorbo managed to draw a direct line from Benghazi to the NFL.

And he wasn't the first loon on FOX to do so! Lizzie Hasselbeck had beaten him to it on her miserable little slice of village-idiot theater called FOX and Friends, managing to draw some sort of line between Benghazi and the NFL's domestic-abuse scandal -- as, er, expressed in her Tweet:



It just goes to show that not everyone in Hollywood is a liberal commie pinko. Give it time and crazies like Sorbo will be on FOX connecting Pearl Harbor to Benghazi, complete with tales about Obama using a time machine to lead the Japanese attack. There will be claims of covered-up old black-and-white photos of him shaking hands with Admiral Yamamoto (who also went to Harvard, by the way -- say no more!) and bowing to the emperor.

If FOX keeps going in the direction they've been going, we will see, in time for the 2016 election, a completely made-up scandal based on people and places that don't even exist. Some building that has never been built, in a town that has only existed in republicanland, will be blown up and people that never existed will disappear. Maybe they can call it Roswell, but I think that's already been done. Submit your names for the town of republican myth-mongering now! You might want to get the Web domain name registered. Reaganville, anyone? That's the next step in republican lunacy. Rest assured, though, that it will all be some Democratic front-runner's fault.

The republican masterminds of the crypto-scandal of Benghazi have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams in getting the gullible and the haters to believe. Why did they perpetrate this hoax? My guess is that the real Benghazi cover-up is that the Republicans don't just want to exploit the tragedy in order to politically damage President Obama and Hillary Clinton. They also want to divert attention from the fact that it was they who cut the dollars for the security of our embassies in the first place, and they certainly wouldn't want the media pointing that one out, now would they? If you take away embassy protection, bad things happen.

The way I see it, it's inevitable. FOX already has FOX Business, FOX Sports, and who-knows-what-else, all designed to fatten Rupert Murdoch's wallet so he can invest more money in backing China. So it's only natural that FOX "News" would spin off a FOX "All Benghazi, All The Time" channel: FOX Benghazi™! Your Benghazi Channel! They'll have Lizzie Hasselbeck and Megyn Kelly offering a full line of FOX Benghazi™ merchandise. I can see it now: T-shirts, handbags, socks, AR-15s, all emblazoned with some sort of FOX Benghazi™ logo, even sick little flag-draped FOX Benghazi™ coffins.


3. Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 11: DiGiorno Pizza



It's bad enough that DiGiorno makes a virtually inedible product, which even New York City rats ignore when it's tossed out the window and into back alleys, half-finished, by slob citizens. And it's bad enough that said product contributes to the growing obesity problems of those who actually eat it.

Now, in the wake of the sad tale of footballer Ray Rice cold-cocking his then-fiancée-now-wife in an elevator, DiGiorno goes and comments on a twitter account, #WhyIStayed, which someone set up so battered women could explain why they stay with their abusers. Many of the reasons are poignant, even if they aren't quite enough for many of us to fully understand. Reasons offered often deal with things like staying so my unborn child will have a dad or because they believed that every time would be the last time, etc.

In a fine example of typical corporate arrogance, stupidity, and insensitivity, some genius at DiGiorno added what he or she saw as a perfectly reasonable reason to stay with the man who may, some day, kill you:



Is there no depth to which corporate a-holes will not sink in an attempt to separate us from our money and give us diabetes or colon cancer in return? DiGiorno later claimed they didn't know what the Twitter account was about, or even what the phrase "Why I Stayed" means.



I suppose if you live under a rock, it's possible.

DiGiorno's marketing goons may be the Mariana Trench of marketeers, but what should we expect in a world where the likes of Jamie Dimon and Mitt Romney roam free and a whole political party can make light of rape? It seems that it's only a matter of time before some fast food chain uses pictures of the starved prisoners of Auschwitz, saying if only they had our tacos, or pizza, or whatever.


TOMORROW IN PART 10: Beyond Drudgery; and Crazyspeak of the Year nominees Nos. 12 and 13: Michele Bachmann and Kimberly Guilfoyle

NOAH'S 2014 IN REVIEW --
Crackpot Utopia: The Year in Republican Crazy

Part 1: Princess Liz Cheney tries for the Smoothie of the Year Award; "Miss Beck regrets" -- Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 1: Glenn Beck; and the Crackpot Party reacts to President Obama’s State of the Union speech [12/19/2014]
Part 2: Republicans wonder why normal people call them racists; Sean Hannity wants to self-deport; and the First Annual Mr. Burns Award, to ABC "shark" Kevin O'Leary [12/20/2014]
Part 3: Using fear, loathing, and paranoia to sell stuff; Arizona legalizes crack!; and Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 3: Bill O’Reilly [12/21/2014]
Part 4: A celebration of Michele Bachmann: Pray away the crazy?; What "War on Women"?; and the "Obama angle" on Malaysian Flight 370 [12/22/2014]
Part 5: The GOP and the kiss heard 'round the world; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 5: Joe the Plumber [12/23/2014]
Part 6: A word about South Carolina; Pat Robertson and his magic asteroid; and I'll have a pack of Twizzlers and an IUD to go, please [12/24/2014]
Part 7: And so it begins: The running of the buffoons; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 7, George Will has no idea what rape is; and Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 8, Rick Wiles calls for a coup [12/29/2014]
Part 8: Things to come: Forward into the past! (11 Presidential Dream Tickets); Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 9: Former republican VP nominee Paul "Crazy Eyes" Ryan; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 10: Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association [12/30/2014]
Part 9: Pompous Blowhard of the Year Award: Bill O’Reilly; FOX "News" announces new spinoff: the "FOX Benghazi™" Shopping Channel!; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 11: DiGiorno Pizza [12/31/2014]
Part 10: Newsmax -- Beyond Drudgery; and Crazyspeak of the Year nominees Nos. 12 and 13: Michele Bachmann, Kimberly Guilfoyle [1/1/2015]
Part 11: GOP and FOX whip up the hate over a POW exchange; and Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 14: Iowa asylum escapee Rep. Steve King [1/3/2015]
Part 12: Arizona Republican protests busload of YMCA campers; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee(s) No. 15: the Impeachment Variations (group nomination); Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 16: NM Rep. Steve Pearce [1/4/2015]
Part 13 (and last): TV for Dummies: Sarah Palin launches her own channel; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 17: Arizona schools superintendent John Huppenthal (rhymes with Neanderthal); and the final Crazyspeak of the Year nominee -- and also the winner! [1/5/2015]

NOAH'S 2013 IN REVIEW --
A Prayer to the Janitor of Lunacy

For listings and links, see Part 1 of this year's series.

#

Duck Dynasty Beats Cantor And Boehner In Louisiana Congressional Race

People pay less attention to politics in one-party states. And with the decline of the Louisiana Democratic Party following the 1964 Civil Rights bill, that state has become more and more of a right-wing Republican bastion. African Americans dominate one (of 6) congressional districts, LA-02, basically New Orleans and the black neighborhoods on the north side of Baton Rouge, 80 miles away. That shockingly gerrymandered district attempts to pack as many African-Americans (and Democrats) into one district as possible and it is 63% African American (the state is 32% African American). Louisiana went for Romney over Obama 58-41% but LA-02 went for Obama with 76%. The PVI of the district is D+23.

LA-05 has a PVI of R+15. Saturday there was a congressional runoff election there that I bet you didn't even know was taking place. Vance McAllister is America's newest Member of Congress. He's replacing Rodney Alexander, who switched to the GOP in 2004 after first being elected as a Blue Dog Democrat 2 years earlier, and has decided to retire in the middle of his term. Last time Alexander ran for reelection, the Democrats didn't even put up a candidate against him; nor did they in 2010 or 2008. The sprawling district encompasses all of northeastern Louisiana and includes two cities, Monroe and Alexandria. Of the 24 parishes that make up LA-05, Obama won 4, East Carroll, Madison, Tensas and the part of St Helena in the district.

So what happened yesterday? It's being called a big upset by folks in Louisiana and DC who pay attention to obscure congressional races. The winner, McAllister, played up to working class folks rather than the aristocracy. He even advocated for expanding Medicare as long as the GOP couldn't repeal Obamacare-- heresy among most Republican politicians.

"The election of Vance McAllister to Congress in Louisiana's 5th District reflects the appeal of being an outsider in today's poisonous political environment," Mark Kennedy, former Republican congressman from Minnesota and director of the Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University, told Newsmax Sunday. "And it demonstrates the power of pop culture to influence political campaigns and the attraction of a businesslike focus on seeking results."

Kennedy was referring to the much-discussed endorsement of businessman and first-time office-seeker McAllister by his friend Phil Robertson, partriach of the "Duck Dynasty" family on the popular A&E reality show.

"Duck Dynasty folks voted for McAllister," former Rep. Bob Livingston, R.-La., told Newsmax, pointing out that the television series about the duck-hunting family is very popular in the Pelican State and that Phil Robertson has a home in Monroe, Louisiana, in the 5th District.

Wealthy businessman McAllister edged out fellow Republican and State Sen. Neal Riser. Both spent roughly $800,000, with McAllister using his own resources exclusively and Riser raising his campaign kitty from political action committees and individual contributors. [DWT Note: that's incorrect. Riser outspent McAllister by around $200,000.]

In a state where candidates compete on the same ballot and the top two vote-getters regardless of party face each other in a run-off if no one wins 50 percent plus one, conservative Republicans Riser and McAllister placed one-two in the initial 14-candidate balloting.

Moreover, Riser was the candidate of both the "establishment" and the "insurgents." Along with having the endorsement of former Republican Rep. Rodney Alexander (who resigned to take a position in GOP Gov. Bobby Jindal's Cabinet), Riser was backed by several tea party groups and FreedomWorks, the national conservative group that supported the recent government shutdown to defund Obamacare.

The candidates disagreed on next-to-nothing. Both were strongly pro-life, pro-marriage, pro-Second Amendment, and opposed Obamacare.

The sole difference, as several published reports noted, was that Riser supported outright repeal while McAllister said repeal would not work until Republicans took the presidency and Senate and instead supported fixing the healthcare measure. A few observers speculated that this convinced some 5th District Democrats (who had no horse in the run-off) to vote for McAllister over Riser.

Riser was the GOP Establishment pick, and Eric Cantor was rallying support for him against McAllister, who had trailed Riser by 12% in the primary. The 54,449 (59.65%) to 36,837 (40.35%) win for McAllister, a rich oil man who spent around half a million dollars of his own on the run-off, is a slap in the face for Cantor and the Establishment. McAllister won because he rolled up huge margins in the district's two cities, Monroe and Alexandria, and in most of the areas there Obama had done best. And Monroe Mayor Jamie Mayo, the Democrat who had finished a strong third in the primary, endorsed McAllister over Riser.

Maybe McAllister watched this video explaining the benefits of expanding Medicaid and perhaps that's why he campaigned on a plank hated by professional Beltway GOP politicians but… apparently not nearly as anathema to actual voters in pretty red districts! Republicans should think this through carefully.



UPDATE: Looks Like The House Has Its Own Version Of Lisa Murkowsky

After Alaska Republicans tried to smother Murkowsky's career by backing Tea Party sociopath Joe Miller, she ran for reelection without the help of the GOP and has charted a very independent course back in the Senate. Vance McAllister is already signaling he's going to be as independent-minded as someone who was elected by a coalition of mainstream conservatives, Democrats and independents should. First up: immigration. He said he believes that there should be a path to citizenship for the undocumented.

McAllister said he would support a path to citizenship for those immigrants already here illegally.

“We have to secure the borders, but (citizenship) has to be attainable for those people already here,” he said. “It has to be a tough path, but it has to be attainable.”

Among the requirements McAllister would advocate: identify yourself; understand and speak English; pay two years in back taxes; obtain a general equivalency diploma; and have a clean criminal record.

“Then we can bring great new citizens to the country,” he said.

And this may well have been the Riser ad that gave McAllister that incredible come-from-behind victory in the heart of Dixie: