It’s hard out here for a blowhard
by digby
Rush is having a good old fashioned cry:
Your average Republican who steps in it — and, by the way, it’s always the media and the establishment that define whether somebody has stepped in it, not the American people. If the media find what Trump said outrageous, that’s all you need, and if the establishment finds that it’s outrageous, that’s all you need.
And then you act like everybody thinks so. And then the perp apologizes, begs forgiveness, and is never to be seen or heard from again. Trump didn’t do any of that. He doubled down. He doubled down on his criticism of McCain. He tried to switch the focus of the issue from him and McCain to Veterans Affairs. In doing so, the American people have seen something they haven’t seen in a long time, and that is a target stand up and refuse to go away, a target stand up and refuse to apologize.
On the basis that the target doesn’t want to be run out of the race by a bunch of media people or the Washington establishment. If the target’s gonna be run out of the race, it’s gonna be by virtue of votes or what have you. So Trump’s not playing by the rules and he’s hanging around, and he doubled down, and the point I tried to make yesterday was we’re now going to see. The American people are gonna be polled over the next few days and weeks, and we will see if what Trump said about McCain actually hurts him or not.
The reason that’s important is because when the outrage originally happens — when the media hears what Trump says about McCain and blows their gasket, then the Washington establishment blows their gasket — that is presumed to be the end of Trump. This is how it works. This is how they get rid of Republicans. Should I throw a name out there? Sharron Angle. Todd Akin. Any number of them. I mean, the list is long. They tried to Sarah Palin over and over. This is how they get rid of Republicans.
It’s always an arbitrary decision or judgment that some Republican has said something so intolerable, so politically correct, so reprehensible that civil discourse demands this person just go away. Maybe even die! But certainly get out of our sight and stop talking. That’s always what happens, because the perps fall for the belief that the majority of the American people share that sentiment. But we never really know. We never know because the perps leave too soon. So there can’t be any polling data a week or two afterwards, based on the perp’s staying in and fighting.
Boo hoo hoo…