And looking at it through the special reality distortion field of the current campaign, this could then be seen by the sort of voter he’s courting as the ultimate proof that here’s the guy that doesn’t even have to show up for the media, that makes them come to him on *his *terms if he even cares. And they’ll be pumped to show up to support that.
And the beauty of it all is that the hard-right’s drum-banging of media-hatred culture among the “base” has been going on for a generation now, and now conservative outlets like Fox who aspire to respectability find that very aspiration makes them “lamestream” to that base today. Good job, guys.
That’s fine, as long as he doesn’t gain more supporters. It’s really scary that adults in American could actually consider voting for this guy. I wonder if there has ever been a more unqualified individual get this far in the process.
Excellent. TRUMP realizes the ratings for FOX will crash without his presence gracing the stage and of course he has no reason to walk onto a trap of a “debate” hosted by a hack like Megyn Kelly. Hopefully this shall hasten the demise of that malignant tumour perpetrated by the Australian reactionary on our fair republic especially as TRUMP will host a program worth watching helping out veterans on a more professional program with standards like CNN (as there is talk of).
But he’ll be right. It’s a fact that he makes the ratings go up. If he’s not there and the ratings are down, you don’t have to be a mindless supporter to see that 1 + 1 = 2. Or, in this case that 8 - 1 = 4.
I didn’t realize the difference was that big, but you’re right. I looked up, and this years viewer totals are twice or three times 2012. Though they do appear to be dropping, suggesting even with Trump, poeple are loosing interest in the spectacle.
Sort of an interesting business question though. Do advertisers pay after the fact based on what the ratings were, or ahead of time based on expected ratings? Will they get a partical refund if ratings do end up half of the expected total?
If he’s not there, they’ll still talk about him. He gets to respond afterwards, with time to think about his responses, and of course his response to any trash-talking will be a bigger story than anything in the debate itself.
Decisions made by the unsure likely GOP voter in Iowa and NH will NOT based on policies or facts; they will be based on perceptions and gut reactions.
And those looking to make a final decision in those two states will be over-represented among those who are tuning in, whether Trump is there or not. They will see other candidates performing in a room that does not have Trump sucking the oxygen out of it and will hear Trump mocked in a venue that he has run away from.
Most nationally will not watch (I might now because this is likely more entertaining than Trump’s usual tired out threadworn bombastistic schtick) but there is no question that some choice lines making fun of him will be played over and over again across the mediasphere the following several days, lines they have days to have writers create, lines better than these: “Citizens of Iowa, of New Hampshire, of this great country … this is is what Mr. Trump thinks of you. That you are so stupid that he could shoot someone and you’d vote for him. That you matter so little that he can run and hide from the last debate before voting.” … “Mr. Trump proves the old maxim true: bullies are cowards. The coward has run away. It’s time now for us grownups to decide how we will actually fight for our country even when we feel the battlegrounds are ‘not fair.’ They often actually are not.”
Note that half of his supporters who responded on his Twitter feed, likely his most solid supporters, told him TO participate.
Yes he’ll respond afterwards. And have a few hours to think of them. Responses afterwards are almost always perceived as weak sauce. And his response will only highlight the lines used against him and give them more attention.
This must have the marketing and branding team @ Fox News shitting bricks. Prior to Trump they were the default voice of the Right and could coast on that. Now, with Trump doing his best to splinter the conservative bloc, he has effectively cast Fox News as being a tool of the “establishment”, which, if it continues, will do to their viewership what he’s doing to the Republican party.
Hell, that’s my new theory: Trump is doing this because he wants to start the TRUMP! network, with the centerpiece being TRUMP!NEWS, the far, far-right version of FOX.
Except if he’s on another channel doing a veterans themed charity event, it would make the other candidates look cold hearted for saying that, and could hurt them, by putting them in with the establishment in attacking him.
Trump could probably launch his own news network, but he’s really not that far right. He’s basically a centrist democrat who’s adopted a xenophobic tough on immigrants and an anti muslim stance because it gets a good response. His plan to bring back manufacturing to the US through import tariffs is very very far from being a right wing policy. (And wouldn’t work anyway).
Nope not a trump supporter, but he should be skewered for the right reasons
Except that his support is weakest within the far-right of the party. In Iowa at least those self-identified as “very conservative”, as “Tea Party” and as “Evangelical” all solidly prefer Cruz to Trump. He is stronger among those who identify as “moderate/liberal” (liberal?) … and is stronger among those who have never before attended a caucus than those who have (Cruz leads in the latter).
His supporters believe he is a strong leader. That’s what they care about. I just have a hard time seeing how running away from a debate plays into that persona.
No hiding in a veterans themed charity event will not save him from being mocked: “The man who mocked Senator McCain’s war service while never having served himself now looks to veterans as cover as he hides …”
And they’ll be so bored at the murmurings of the usual pieties and mantras of fusionist conservatism-the paens to soulless Capital, the shrieking praise of unilateral right-Trotskyite foreign policy and the platitudes against abortion and for guns that they’ll tune it out in 15 minutes if they don’t watch something more interesting like BDSM porn.
That’s what they’ve said for the past half-year. Yet it is so self-evidently false that the humble American voter has not fallen prey to these libels. If anything the disgusting mutual masturbation sessions that a Trumpless GOP debate will inevitably be, with all the candidates desperately begging for the moneyshot from the cocks of the Kochs will cause revulsion in all patriotic souls and entrench the support behind the only Republican candidate who even remotely stands for the interests of the middle-class.
Yes, people disagree on tactics, so what?
Yet Trump’s nuggets of wisdom have packed enough fight in every previous case to utterly annihilate and reduce to atoms the carefully amassed, pseudointellectual critiques of him.
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