The Republican presidential candidate re-tweeted a quote from Mussolini on the social media site Twitter. The news website Gawker, which set him up, was copying what the French media did with Jean-Marie Le Pen.
Oh, the U.S. media have had a field day. Appearing on NBC this weekend, Donald Trump was not asked about his political platform, but instead about… Mussolini.
What was the reason behind the sudden appearance of Il Duce in the primary? Trump, a compulsive tweeter, re-tweeted a quote by Mussolini (“It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep”). This quote had been tweeted by an account, @ilduce2016, created by journalists at the webzine Gawker, with the aim of “bombarding” Trump with Mussolini quotes to catch him out and show that he will re-tweet anything.
A New Day of Obsession
Gawker sits somewhere between investigative journalism and a gossip site, obviously more comfortable snaring Trump than when it finds itself with its fingers trapped under the trash can lid it tried to lift. In short, it is a click-bait site, with all kinds of click-bait, good and bad, which has played Trump and pulled it off; the major U.S. media outlets talked about nothing else for a whole day.
They talked about that, and about Trump, because the other upshot is this: a new day of being obsessed with Trump. Did you know that it was a quote by Mussolini or not? Answer! The citizens want to know!
Does this obsession remind you of anything? Well of course: Le Pen (Jean-Marie). Correct. Le Pen and the obsession the French media had with him, which lasted for several decades.
Le Pen and Promotional Fear
For decades, the French media did to Le Pen what is now being done to Trump, producing ever-increasing numbers of headlines, polls and retrospective montages to demonstrate the danger he represented.
They never suspected that these repeated attacks were securing the hard core of his voter base. Furthermore, they never prevented him from establishing himself on the political spectrum and staying there, under his glass ceiling, a ceiling against which his daughter is now colliding. That is what is known as promotional fear.
Under these circumstances, the surprising thing is not that Le Pen (the father) declared his support for Trump today, but rather that he had not done it before. The more they repeat that Trump is a fascist, that he is too lenient toward the Ku Klux Klan, the more they will strengthen his position. The Americans who are voting for Trump are buying into transgression and pure energy today.
But Who Is the Real Trump?
Incidentally, who is Trump the candidate? The raging madman depicted by the French media, echoing the U.S. media, is that the real Trump? The increasingly likely possibility that he will be chosen as the Republican presidential candidate is beginning to incite the most daring French journalists to go and examine his program, which he is constantly setting out at meetings now that the time for traditional provocations has passed.
And they are realizing that on some points (like family planning, social welfare), Trump is less reactionary than some of his Republican competitors (though it is true that the bar is set very high).
As Mediapart has said, “Trump has known how to ride the wave of despair of Americans, including conservatives, in the face of the neoliberal policies that they have suffered for thirty years.” Explaining things in that way definitely will not garner as many clicks as messing around with Mussolini, but it is undoubtedly much fairer.
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