I can see a glimmer of a point if one were to suggest that Trump does not do anything so subtle as a “dog whistle”. He wants to say something nauseatingly repulsive, he just goes ahead and does it.
For him, “second amendment people” just means ballistophiliacs and ammosexuals.
Here’s a one minute clip surrounding the “dog whistle”:
Before it he says how much money Clinton’s planned number of refugees would cost, after it he says how crime has gone up like crazy in Germany because of it. Now, I’m sure he’s full of shit but the dog whistle isn’t really different from the plainly spoken content.
The time for Trump to use dog whistles is long past. He’s got the dogs.
The problem is that he needs to start winning over swing voters. Babbling about Angela Merkel isn’t going to get anywhere with them.
His major problem isn’t the enthusiasm of his base; he’s got that in spades, and it already figures into the polls. The problem he has is his massive negativity rating, and I don’t see how Angela Merkel helps him here. Trump needs to - and God, I hate to again trot this out - start looking Presidential. That means simple, direct messages that try to mitigate the damaging parts of his image.
He’s actually tried this, I hasten to point out. He’s tried tying his anti-Muslim stance into support for LGBTQ rights. He gave a speech reaching out to African American voters. He had not said anything insane in several days, which is a good record for him, and looks like he’s trying to be more controlled when he speaks. But he has not delivered the message with the same simplistic, memorable pithiness that he used with negative messaging to win the GOP nomination and get a solid redneck base.
On top of that, all evidence suggests his latest round of campaign hires are NOT the right people to get his campaign to deliver the proactive, swing-vote-capturing messages he needs.
I just don’t get why you think “Clinton wants lots of refugees, I don’t. They’ll bring crime, terrorism and cost us money” is not simplistic and memorable. Why get hung up on Merkel’s name recognition? Trump’s position was loud and clear.
Have you been to Germany? The place is a wasteland, a scorched, blackened hell hole, vultures everywhere!
Acually , I just came back from my third visit. It never ceases to amaze me, it is an amazing country, and it if weren’t for the horrible weather, I’d move there one day.
Yes, that is a discrepancy but you are comparing Breitbart claims and reality, not Trump claims and reality. In fact, the Breitbart article you linked has a Trump quote that gives a much lower and different number than nearly a million Muslim migrants ie “Hillary Clinton’s plan would mean roughly 620,000 refugees from all current refugee-sending nations in her first term,” So you are kind of mangling your point. Don’t get me wrong, Trump’s claims don’t match reality either, and not just refugee numbers: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/08/16/trump-says-german-crime-levels-have-risen-and-refugees-are-to-blame-not-exactly/
But the fact remains that 65,000 Syrian refugees would probably double the total number of refugees usually allowed in a normal year. There’s not a lot of support for that amongst Americans so it’s a solid campaign point of differentiation.