Trump will literally insult ANYONE. That he didn’t take five seconds to say something as simple as “White supremacy is bad” speaks VOLUMES about the kind of voter he is targeting.
I live near Huntsville, AL and both Rubio (Saturday) and Trump (today) made stops. The Rubio rally drew (according to the local paper) about 3,000 people. I drove near the Trump rally site about 90 minutes ago, and the outer parking lots were packed and people were arriving in a steady stream, so I expect he will outdraw Rubio by a large margin. It is also sunny and 70F here, which is only helping his turnout.
More impressively, it appeared to be well-organized, with shuttle buses from the farthest lot and signs for parking/police planning. Now it might be the best organization money can buy, but somebody is putting the time and effort into it.
Oh, and like Bill Door said above, I saw a number of large Trump signs that just got put up…haven’t seen anything for any other candidate to date.
The man appears to be serious about this, folks.
This wasn’t really about endorsing David Duke as much as it was about refusing to be led around by the nose by a journalist. For decades outrage has been cultivated and used to manipulate, using words and phrases like Nazi, racist, and KKK. People are tired of it, and are attracted to someone who is too alpha to comply with the expectations of the self-righteous.
Too alpha? I found the statement, especially considering he showed knowledge of Duke in the past, to be cowardly and squirmy - much like an establishment politician trying to have it both ways. A real alpha, IMO, would’ve made a forceful statement one way or the other: repudiate Duke or welcome his endorsement, not try to bob and weave in order to not piss off any potential voters.
It would be if nothing like these would had taken place already:
Another big endorsement today, Senator Jeff Sessions comes out for Trump.
Also, per Jake Tapper:
Anybody who feels it necessary to accept an endorsement by David Duke in order to prove he’s a real man is, in fact, an asshole.
Yeah, right, calling David Duke a KKK member and a racist is sooooo manipulative.
You’re playing the same bullshit game Trump is playing. It’s unforgivable.
QFT
Too bad the senator ignores that Trump “is a walking special interest” as Christie said.
Nah, that was “bullshit politics” it is just once again like a few years back seeing people being enablers of either incompetency or prejudice.
Excellent! Not only is the “anti-establishment” candidate now being endorsed by the establishment, he’s being endorsed by the racist asshole sector of the establishment.
There is no reason an asshole can’t be elected president.
Anyway, he didn’t accept the endorsement, they were talking about groups labeled white supremacist by the ADL, and Trump said he didn’t know anything about the groups, and thus couldn’t condemn them.
According to Trump’s Twitter, he had already repudiated the endorsement by Duke on Friday:
The important aspect is that he didn’t apologize on demand, which would make him look weak. That’s not how he rolls, he forces others to react to him, instead.
CNN is writing his hundredth obituary today, based on what he said. But he will use the KKK/Duke issue to his advantage, when he decides to, and in a way that he chooses to address it. I predict that he will talk about the negative impact of illegal immigration on the job prospects of African Americans. He has already given a press conference with the father of a black high school student murdered by an illegal immigrant. And isn’t his son-in-law Jewish? When attacked with this Trump’s counter-punch will be more powerful than the attack. He will write it off as a ludicrous diversion, and get a slow pitch of a chance to pander to minorities in the process.
First: Yes, the ADL thinks the KKK is a hate group. You know who else does? Everyone with a functional brain. I know the ADL isn’t exactly popular in the right-o-sphere, but give it up.
Second: Everyone knows who David Duke is. Trump certainly knew who he was in the past. Did he forget? Is he getting senile? That’s not a sign of strength.
No, he waffled, whined, and danced around the issue like the incompetent politician he is. Because, when you get right down to it, he isn’t “not a politician”, he’s just a bad politician. That “not a politician” stuff is just branding, and fodder for the gullible.
I like how you consider distancing yourself from a hate group which has lynched people in the past to be “pandering to minorities”. Really shows your hand.
I wouldn’t dismiss the power of that though. What happened to society when moral scolds ran wild, trying to censor dirty movies and books? We’re seeing the same thing happen now to the modern moral scolds.
The way it was phrased in the clip I watched, he was asked to condemn not just the KKK, but an unelaborated number of groups that the ADL had labeled white supremacists. He refused to condemn all of them without seeing a list and checking out the groups, which is defensible. But the important thing is that he didn’t follow the lead, didn’t sound apologetic. He had already disavowed the endorsement anyway, and will again. But he is not going to face the issue framed the way Tapper was attempting, which would put Trump on the defensive.
Saying that he doesn’t know anything about Duke was a way to fight off the attempt to associate Trump and Duke, a rhetorical comeback against a request with a bit of a “when did you stop beating your wife” flavor to it. If Trump would have emphatically repudiated everyone mention on command, he would have looked apologetic, which would hint that he had something to apologize for. That’s not his shtick, which is why he is winning the primary.
Well yeah, he is a politician now, isn’t he?
What are you talking about?
The pandering that I am talking about will be through the rest of the primary and the general, when he will respond to references and allusions to this controversy. He will bring it up on his own, and be able to frame the issue himself. I expect he will claim that both parties have failed minorities, and that all of the illegal immigration under their watch has destroyed the job prospects of blacks.
The art of persuasion relies on understanding human behavior. There is a reason no one watches C-SPAN and the Kardashians are very rich for being who they are. That’s why Kasich is an obvious failure in the primary. He doesn’t do anything to occupy the mind space of the average American.
Too bad that old chestnut failed in South Carolina for the Black voters. (Come to think of it, the same scare tactic failed in 2012)
What you are missing is that they do know what party and supporters of Trump were supporting the confederate flag and other racists there and they do remember recent killings there thanks to hate.
And Trump is not only insulting the intelligence of minorities for telling us that he did not know David Duke, but the intelligence of all Americans.
As it was when he claimed not to know the Telemundo Reporter (after he had made fun of him in Instagram). The choice then is that Trump is getting senile or he is just thinking that many of his followers are dumb.
The GOP will have to pick many poisons after they picked Trump.
I don’t think he is going to get a huge share of the black vote or anything, especially against Hillary. I’m guessing he has a good shot at getting >15% though.
He didn’t say he had never heard of him. He said he doesn’t know him. Which he said in order to distance himself from Duke, to counter the insinuations people are making associating them together, rather than come across apologetic.
I never looked into this, but it sounds like more forced outrage. Just because he made fun of him once doesn’t mean he remembers him or knows him. Or maybe he did, and played dumb, like every politician before him has probably done at one point or another.