Jon Stewart Criticizes Donald Trump
Published in Info Libre
(Spain) on 30 July 2015
by Ramón Lobo (link to original)
Donald Trump is the ideal man to feed humor shows like Jon Stewart's “The Daily Show.” Recently, Stewart used his journalism skills to analyze the American millionaire's statements on immigration of Mexicans, whom he described as criminals, drug traffickers and rapists, and among whom he believes there are few good people. The Fox News clique, an ultraconservative TV channel to put it lightly, tried to bail their friend out by saying something that he never said — something which is all too common in Spain. Stewart has unraveled their lies.
The electoral campaign to choose the future candidates for the White House in January 2016 in Iowa (as is the tradition) has not yet begun, and Trump has already managed to monopolize the discourse. He also managed to steal the show from the other Republican pre-candidates, especially the theoretical favorite, Jeb Bush. After dropping that pearl of wisdom about Mexicans, which he has not retracted, Trump has turned this apparent error into the focal point of his campaign. Illegal immigration is the new battle and the rest of the candidates had to adapt to that, as Trump has the electoral momentum.
Trump's blunders also include his comments about the Arizona senator, John McCain, also a Republican, who spent five and a half years of his life as a Vietcong prisoner after his plane was shot down. McCain survived the injuries and the torture. In the U.S. he is considered a war hero. Trump said that, for him, a real hero is one that doesn’t get captured. He has just belittled a symbol of the party, but for a certain section of the population, he has attacked the "caste" of Washington, which has not been particularly popular for years now. There was division regarding this attack, even on the conservative Fox News. These divisions damage their ability to obtain funding from key people and groups.
Surprisingly, the polls place this “egotistical monster” (in the words of Stewart) in first place for voting intentions among Republicans. A few days ago, the BBC’s Anthony Zurker offered five reasons for this success. Although various political commentators have left him for dead, those at Salon magazine believe that it is too soon to rule him out.
The fact that a guy like Trump, a loudmouth, xenophobic millionaire with little brains aside from being able to manage stereotypes, can dominate the Republican discourse is proof of how bad their situation really is. It proves how the Grand Old Party has set aside traditional conservative values such as those Ronald Reagan and Bush defended in their day, in order to get into a competition to see who can make the most absurd comments. If we omit Trump’s comments, former candidate Mike Huckabee surpasses them all. The Trump effect propels anyone who opens their mouth to go one step further.
Trump seems to go with the flow, because nothing has been decided yet and as the aforementioned BBC article said, Americans love celebrities, and this guy is a celebrity on a par with the Kardashians. In the long run, we cannot take him seriously. It is unimaginable that he would be the Republican candidate in the elections in November 2016, when Barack Obama’s successor will be chosen. John Cassidy, from The New Yorker magazine, thinks his real problems have just begun.
The campaign of the millionaire, who inherited his fortune and has maintained it more or less by being a major seller of himself, will help to improve Obama, a man whose ratings are still poor in the U.S. and who is the man the far right hates the most. When things go bad for Trump, which they will, the peacekeeping Obama that we have seen in recent months, he who signed an agreement with Iran, who re-established relations with Cuba, and, perhaps, he who will finally close Guantanamo, will emerge. If this were to happen, it would benefit the Democrats and Hillary Clinton, unless the whole country goes mad, and Donald Trump is its most extreme example.
The electoral campaign to choose the future candidates for the White House in January 2016 in Iowa (as is the tradition) has not yet begun, and Trump has already managed to monopolize the discourse. He also managed to steal the show from the other Republican pre-candidates, especially the theoretical favorite, Jeb Bush. After dropping that pearl of wisdom about Mexicans, which he has not retracted, Trump has turned this apparent error into the focal point of his campaign. Illegal immigration is the new battle and the rest of the candidates had to adapt to that, as Trump has the electoral momentum.
Trump's blunders also include his comments about the Arizona senator, John McCain, also a Republican, who spent five and a half years of his life as a Vietcong prisoner after his plane was shot down. McCain survived the injuries and the torture. In the U.S. he is considered a war hero. Trump said that, for him, a real hero is one that doesn’t get captured. He has just belittled a symbol of the party, but for a certain section of the population, he has attacked the "caste" of Washington, which has not been particularly popular for years now. There was division regarding this attack, even on the conservative Fox News. These divisions damage their ability to obtain funding from key people and groups.
Surprisingly, the polls place this “egotistical monster” (in the words of Stewart) in first place for voting intentions among Republicans. A few days ago, the BBC’s Anthony Zurker offered five reasons for this success. Although various political commentators have left him for dead, those at Salon magazine believe that it is too soon to rule him out.
The fact that a guy like Trump, a loudmouth, xenophobic millionaire with little brains aside from being able to manage stereotypes, can dominate the Republican discourse is proof of how bad their situation really is. It proves how the Grand Old Party has set aside traditional conservative values such as those Ronald Reagan and Bush defended in their day, in order to get into a competition to see who can make the most absurd comments. If we omit Trump’s comments, former candidate Mike Huckabee surpasses them all. The Trump effect propels anyone who opens their mouth to go one step further.
Trump seems to go with the flow, because nothing has been decided yet and as the aforementioned BBC article said, Americans love celebrities, and this guy is a celebrity on a par with the Kardashians. In the long run, we cannot take him seriously. It is unimaginable that he would be the Republican candidate in the elections in November 2016, when Barack Obama’s successor will be chosen. John Cassidy, from The New Yorker magazine, thinks his real problems have just begun.
The campaign of the millionaire, who inherited his fortune and has maintained it more or less by being a major seller of himself, will help to improve Obama, a man whose ratings are still poor in the U.S. and who is the man the far right hates the most. When things go bad for Trump, which they will, the peacekeeping Obama that we have seen in recent months, he who signed an agreement with Iran, who re-established relations with Cuba, and, perhaps, he who will finally close Guantanamo, will emerge. If this were to happen, it would benefit the Democrats and Hillary Clinton, unless the whole country goes mad, and Donald Trump is its most extreme example.
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