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Trump v Univision
It’s 3:00 a.m in Paris, and I’m awake owing to a cat-related incident. After realizing that no, I wasn’t going to be able to fall asleep, I checked the news. As one does. Headlining: Donald Trump kicked TV’s most influential Latino newsman out of a press conference. Oh, I thought. Is this really the most important thing happening in the world right now? To judge from the headlines, you’d think so. Here’s the first part of the exchange:
And here’s the second:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7_HaEOIJhM
Two quick observations:
1) The Washington Post says, “The lasting image will be that of Ramos — who serves as Univision’s lead anchor and is effectively one of the (if not the) most powerful newsmen on Spanish-language TV — being hustled out of the room after trying to ask Trump a question.”
Perhaps. But that may be because that’s the easiest image to find. You have to work a bit harder to find the images of Ramos coming back and asking his questions. It’s not impossible. We looked for it backstage and it took us about five minutes. But clearly the Post and many other news agencies quickly decided what the “lasting image” would be and furnished it: In most of the videos in the headline news, the clip ends with Ramos being hustled off.
As you can see from the second clip, however, that’s not where the story necessarily ends. So I’m not sure the Post is correct about what the “lasting image” will be.
2) As we were looking for the full clip — not the “lasting image” clip — I said, “From abroad, it feels as if Trump is already the president.” It wasn’t a deep thought: It was just something that occurred to me. Nachtgedanken, so to speak. The Yeti said, “You should post that.” To which I responded that I wasn’t sure what I meant by it:
Claire: He gets more news coverage; he seems larger-than-life.
Yeti: I assume it means that Trump is suffocating every other candidate’s media oxygen.
Claire: Not only every other candidate — but the seated president.
I don’t know if that observation is meaningful. All I can say is that those words occurred to me while reading the news at 3:00 am in Paris.
And now I can’t sleep.
Published in Elections, General, Politics
Is he really left of center lately? I mean we say people can change their minds, but do we really believe it? Trump claims to have turned corners in his way of thinking on several subjects. Is he not the arbiter of his own positions? Or, Is his back to the future, years younger self, the arbiter of his positions?
Everything you said is accurate except for the litmus test. I’m not advocating that at all, though, I know some conservatives that do. I’m just saying I understand why he is doing so well. I know his history (bankruptcies, comments on women, etc.), and I know his past quotes on policies (wealth tax, Canada’s healthcare is great, etc.), but he’s striking a cord with a lot of people, and he’s saying things that people have wanted our “leaders” to say.
Maybe if conservatives weren’t in such a bad marriage with our Republican party leadership, this wouldn’t be happening. Conservatives have been neglected and lied to for so long that they will fall for someone like Trump even though it doesn’t make sense.
Ramos wasn’t being civil, so he deserved to get the boot. It’s not as though he didn’t get a chance to ask his questions. He shouldn’t try acting like a Black Lives Matter protester.
Wikipedia says dual citizenship with Mexico and The United States, born in Mexico City, Mexico.
So he’s more like Canadians/Americans such as Peter Jennings and Morley Safer who keep their loyalty to the birth nation?
He loves his country, I guess. We just don’t know which country that is. Oh, I think we know.
Fear of anarchy–Trump is exploiting the fear of anarchy that has been mounting since Obama took office the first time.
Post-modernist Texan? Heaven forfend!
Why don’t you ask all the people who continue to insist that Mitt Romney is a “progressive.” Or the ones who say they’ll never ever under any circumstances vote for Rubio or Christie because of their past policy statements. I’ve lost count of the number of candidates who’ve been declared “dead” because of past policy positions; why does Trump get a pass?
Trump Throws Mexican Univision Anchor Jorge Ramos Out of Press Conference – The Yucatan Times
Score one for Mike…
That may have been the single most glorious moment in US politics for years.
Wait right there, while I get a mirror so I can ask them. I’ll be right back
Thanks for the backup. I’m also amazed. And you’re right about Carly. Watch her go. Her speech at the Reagan Library was spot on; I disagreed with no major point in her policy prescriptions.
Re : 68
I’m in shock after looking at the dishonest reporting on the incident in the Yucatan Times. You actually want to pull out a credit card and donate to Trump’s campaign after reading that.
Claire,
The real question is what happens when in the next few days to a week Trump’s poll numbers go up not down. First, Ramos tried to take over the news conference. He didn’t ask a question he invaded the news conference in a false way and never stopped talking. He insisted that Trump can’t deport people and can’t call them illegal aliens. He insisted that Trump can’t win a case against birthright citizenship. All of this without having been given the microphone to ask any question in the first place.
I don’t remember when Charles Krauthammer or any other journalist who happened to be Jewish manufactured a spectacle like this on the basis of their faith or any issue related to Judaism or Israel.
In other news, ISIS just threw another 9 people off the top of buildings. Their crime, they were gay. Also the ISIS destruction of Antiquities has reached staggering level.
In other news, Natalie Portman, a rather wooden actress who has traded on two things, her looks and her Israeli heritage, has made it clear she would throw Israel under the bus for yet another banal role in film and the adulation of a decadent minority. While Mayim Bialik, a Jewish actress who isn’t trading on her looks, is sabbath observant and visits Israel making no political statements but receives death threats.
Just another day in the neighborhood.
Regards,
Jim
I don’t think hinting that someone with dual citizenship isn’t loyal to America is a good argument. It sounds like a cheap innuendo. He’s a naturalized US citizen. That means he’s taken this oath:
If your argument is that no one should be allowed to become a US citizen without relinquishing their previous citizenship, that’s a separate argument, but it’s an argument with US law, not with Ramos.
If your argument is that Americans should default to questioning the loyalty of any citizen who wasn’t born in the United States, I don’t think it’s a good argument, either.
Most Americans were either born in another country or are only a few generations removed from it. I can’t trace my ancestry back to the Mayflower. My grandparents were born in Germany and Poland. I’m as American as any other American citizen. I would be deeply alarmed to read that you’d looked up my name on Wikipedia, discovered that my grandparents were born in Leipzig and Warsaw, and concluded that there was something suspect about me.
It wouldn’t seem to me a natural American impulse.
Not that it matters very much, but Trump was wrong when he said that GW was a poor manager. GW was an excellent manager.
What I don’t understand about the immigration issue in terms of national security is why we put people who wish to immigrate here through so much torment and charge them so much money when we each and every day let in millions of tourists and students and temporary workers for a lot less money and for a lot less vetting. In theory, the only reason we are keeping people from becoming U.S. citizens is to make sure they are not criminals, spies, or terrorists. Am I right about that?
Where does all the money go that the INS takes in from people attempting to immigrate to the United States?
It just seems like we need a ten-year growth plan, and our immigration policies should fit within it. And the numbers of immigrants we accept each year should be the result of calculations on housing, schools, hospitals, police and fire protection, and so on.
And if it cost only a few hundred dollars to become a citizen, wouldn’t our problems be mostly solved?
We need a ten-year immigration moratorium, as Ann Coulter has suggested.
I almost asked you on that other thread if you are related to him. So you are?
and 25 or so for muslims.
That’s not a fair comparison. Jews are good faith participants in American democracy. Latinos are not. The Latino activist community has zero interest in democratic compromise and feels no particular need to stick by its word. They are second only to upper-middle-class progressive whites in political cynicism.
When Jimmy Carter says “It proves They have no interest in changing hearts and minds on the issues. It will be by force.” he is not exaggerating. That really is true.
(Of course, Hispanics are only pawns in the Great White Class/Ethnic Conflict We Must All Pretend Isn’t Happening. But I digress).
Claire, I’m not sure you understand how tense ethnic relations are in America at the moment. I don’t just mean racial tensions, or tensions between whites and everyone else; things are getting pretty bad between white ethnic groups as well. This isn’t the 80s or 90s. Things are getting pretty bad.
The days when American groups trusted each other are over. I will never again trust people from other social groups the way I did ten years ago, and I don’t think I’m alone. It’s just too risky; people do not act in good faith in this country the way they used too.
To quote an article I wrote on the subject:
We aren’t in Kansas anymore.
That doesn’t seem a digression, it seems an important argument. But I’m not sure what you mean by it, even after reading what you wrote carefully (I think). Can you explain?
I do think you’re right to sense “class conflict.” But in what sense do you mean that Hispanics are pawns of this?
It’s entirely possible that I’m not fully in touch with what’s happening in the US right now. When I was last in the US, though, I certainly didn’t sense this level of animosity. That you’re reporting this is very frightening.
The only thing missing from that visual with Trump’s goon moving Jorge Ramos out of the room was a nicely pressed brown shirt with a red arm band emblazoned with a big T on it.
Ramos is a leading figure on Univision and there was no reason/excuse for Trump not to let him ask his question, especially in light of his comments about hispanics and immigrants. The right way to handle it would have been for Trump to ask him to be patient until he would get to him a bit later. But Trump could not resist creating the drama for TV. The man is just a huge construct of made for media gimmicks and catch phrases.
Alas, I think this is correct.
I’d say one reason why is because the people who do not act in good faith never suffer for it, and in fact generally get their way. People have noticed, and trust has waned.
For example, I cannot imagine any other candidate responding to the calculated rudeness of Ramos by booting him out. Normally I’d expect servile groveling from any Republican faced by someone like this, followed up by obsequious deference.
Defending the American people and American culture from the endless insults and lies from people like Ramos or other leftists never seems to be an option.
Advantage: Trump.
In other words, Trump should have groveled, and begged the guy rudely speaking out of turn to wait, when he’d already shown that he wouldn’t.
I do not agree. Trump handled this very well, in my opinion.
You need to readjust those sun shades. A) Ramos is a naturalized American citizen. B) You think that throwing an accomplished journalist out of the room is a ‘gracious’ thing to do?
How is asking someone to be patient “groveling” and “begging”?
Ramos proved he wasn’t willing to be patient when he stood up out of turn and refused to sit down when told.
To his credit, Trump refused to grovel and pretend Ramos wasn’t trying to disrupt his event.
Again, advantage Trump.
That’s ludicrous. I don’t give a damn if he’s a “leading figure”. He was acting like a snotty troll. Trump slapped him down and he deserved every bit of it. He’s snide and dishonest, an activist in disguise as a journalist. He had no right to hijack the press conference, completely walking all over the other reporters to be the center of attention. The right way to handle it was exactly what Trump did: send the petulant child out of the room until it was his turn.