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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
How do you say “Don’t tase me, bro” in Spanish?
Well I am glad you are so content with the whole thing. At what time and on what channel is the next episode?
I am sure Joseph has much more coherent things to say, but allow my $0.02.
The progressive/conservative split in America has become more pronounced under Obama because the normal checks & balances that slowed progressive creep are cast aside and the progressive agenda is relentlessly funded by moderate republicans.
The true progressive, borderline communist, soul of the democrats are still a minority. They don’t need $’s they need numbers. They need a new group of people beholden to the fallacy of central government to boost their numbers. Hence illegal immigration from the south.
There are very distinct differences between invaders/conquerers and immigrants. The wave of illegal immigrants is vast majority the former and ripe for exploitation.
The white, upper middle class/elite progressives are firmly entrenched against traditional Judaeo Christian values associated with the founding of our republic. Hence we have two groups of white activist citizens with diametrically opposed thinking on governance, one of which is exploiting southern invaders.
As far as I can tell, this is the reason for Trump’s popularity. I may be missing something, but it seems to me he’s popular because he’s willing to say things that are generally considered politically out-of-bounds. People are deeply fed up with being told what they can and can’t say. And they’re right to be: our culture has become one in which everyone ordinary men and women afraid to speak candidly, and this is an abhorrent development.
But as far as I can tell, that’s the only reason he’s popular. Literally: the only one. I can’t see that he represents any other principle worth defending.
I’d like Donald Trump just fine as a businessman or a reality TV star. I’d consider his influence useful and healthy if he wanted to use his wealth and showmanship to expose the dark path — not just the emptiness, but the danger — of policing language and thought.
But I don’t want the President of the United States to be a man who says the first thing that comes into his head wherever and whenever it occurs to him. That’s someone who for good reason cannot just say whatever he wants, whenever he wants.
Donald Trump would be excellent at playing the role of President of the United States. It would be a great movie, with perfect lights and staging. But it’s not a movie.
The sovereignty of the nation isn’t worth defending? Because that’s what illegal immigration ultimately comes down to. Does a nation have the right to decide who can come in or not?
That’s one of those statements that needs to be re-written. There are plenty of Latinos who are good faith participants in American democracy. My wife is one of them.
And the AP lead story is…. wait for it… “Trump starts media feud“.
Trump started it. Not the guy who stood up and like some snotty black lives matter punk, tried to hijack the whole room. It’s Trump’s fault.
[Gosh-damn] I hate the press. I hate them. I despise them. Lying comes as naturally to them as breathing. We don’t have a press. We have propaganda wing of American Liberalism.
Given how Ramos was behaving, yes. Ramos isn’t a journalist, he’s an activist. By his own account.
If someone from Code Pink had stood up and started monopolizing the Q&A, they would have gotten the boot too. With any candidate.
Trump behaved quite well, and even welcomed Ramos back.
I agree. I would say that statements of the form “Member of ethnic group X are morally Y” should be eschewed not only because they’re offensive, but because they’re intellectually empty.
I can certainly serve up examples of American Jews who haven’t been “good faith participants in American democracy,” for some definition of the term “good faith participant in American democracy.” I don’t know what argumentative purpose it would serve; it certainly wouldn’t convince me that I, in particular, am not a good-faith participant, or that the majority of Jews aren’t. And absent a stringent definition of “good faith participant,” it’s an empty statement.
My objection to the phrase isn’t that it’s “hateful” — although it’s surely not pleasant. It’s that it’s empty.
I suspect it’s at root tautologous, too: I have a feeling that any American of Spanish origin who agrees with us politically would end up being defined as “not really Latino.” As Mike LaRoche often reminds us, he’s got lots of Latin-origin blood. He’d be defined as “Latino,” if we that’s how we measure it. Is he an American of good faith? I reckon so.
I disagree. I think he’s popular because he appears willing to defend the interests of the United States and its people as if the US was merely a country responsible for itself instead of the entire world. E.g., his immigration plan. And he lacks the instinct for servility that most Republicans have in spades. E.g., booting Ramos.
I note that in 2012 he was able to get Obama to release his birth certificate. That alone displayed more political influence than the entire GOP, which was petrified of the thought of even asking Obama to release any documentation about his life. Of course any fact about any Republican will be leaked immediately, which the GOP meekly accepts.
Pitiful.
Is anyone actually arguing that a nation has no right to decide this? Or that illegal immigration is legal?
I think the open borders crowd i.e. democrats and U.S. chamber of commerce are arguing exactly that by their actions. Will they argue it literally in words? No, that would be short-term political suicide and that isn’t how the progressive agenda advances.
Always watch what people fight for, not what they say. Words are easy, deeds are hard. The conduct and capital expenditures of progressives and the chamber et al make the point that nation sovereignty, like our Constitution, is a relic.
I agree with you on the point that Trump is mostly a cult of personality, but one topic he is on point – immigration.
Perhaps, but surely that’s not a vision of American greatness. The United States created the modern world. It’s functioned since the Second World War as a guarantor of the postwar order. If the secret to his appeal is the promise of a smaller America, why not stick with Obama?
Laughing at this. Know thyself, physician.
And he polls better than with Hispanics than his average poll numbers, maybe not Mexicans but everyone else. From limited polling I have seen, I think there is a big resentment in the legal Latin migrant community at the illegals.
Oh, oh yes. This is so to the heart of our current sickness. This is so true and so exact.
We can no longer pretend that we do not see it. The burden we have had placed on us is to be the child who points out that the emperor has no clothes.
At the same time, we have been under the sway of a toxic narcissist for the past six tears, and I don’t think we can let another one into the seat of power. Have we fallen so far that we can no longer resist the call of yet another flavor of the man on the horse?
I once dreamed of a politics of ideas rather than simply one of identity and personality. So much for that, I suppose.
You can many things about Trump, but this ramos was behaving badly.
Because there’s a “smaller” (I would say “has fewer foreign entanglements”) America that’s wealthy, free, proud, and likes to do business with the rest of the world, and there’s a “smaller” (scared, insecure) America that’s poor, increasingly totalitarian, and views everyone else as an enemy to one degree or another. I know we disagree on the “world police” point, but surely you can see the difference between what Trump projects and Obama delivers.
I agree. But if you consistently quack like a duck after becoming a naturalized American citizen, it’s fair to question whether you’ve really renounced your loyalty to the Anatidae community.
This is why I can’t abide Trump. And between that and 92% of African-Americans voting for Obama—a level of consistency you wouldn’t find in the Politburo in Moscow—it’s crystal clear:
Human beings are irrational, tribal animals just a few tens of thousands of years off of the Savannah; the idea of “self-government” is a noble delusion that understandably arose out of a misguided burst of optimism late in the “Enlightenment” period. A couple of hundred years, and we’re back to tribes being bribed with bread and circuses. Now the only relevant question is how best to protect kith and kin, because kith and kin is all, politically at least, anyone cares about.
Context:
“Right now Donald Trump is, no question, the loudest voice of intolerance, hatred and division in the United States.”
– Jorge Ramos, August 18, 2015 on “America with Jorge Ramos” Fusion TV
Those who don’t know anything about Mr. Ramos could be under the impression that he is a reporter just trying to do his job. Obviously, he is an advocate and known by Mr. Trump to be just that.
Trump’s issues with Univision go beyond just the illegal invasion activist Jorge Ramos, of course. Miss Universe… lawsuits promised…
Here’s where I put the obligatory disclaimer: I’m not a Trump supporter for the Republican nomination.
I’m not being glib, I’m genuinely unsure what you mean: Which one is which, in your view? Trump projects the latter to me, and Obama is delivering it.
Hispanics are like gays; they provide a means for upper-crust white people to feel morally superior to everyone else while fulfilling an emotional need to epater le bourgeoisie. Upper-middle-class Americans do not wish to be constrained by middle-class morality, and often seem to take the constraints of middle-class society as personal slights against them.
And then there is the ethnic factor. What you might call New England whites (Germanic/Scandinavian) seem to have reached some sort of tipping point in their dislike of those of us of Irish or Southern/Central European descent. I don’t completely understand the former’s prejudices myself, but they seem to find the way the latter prioritizes family and religion over individual interests threatening.
Right. I wasn’t sure how to phrase that myself. I just meant that Latino leaders and activists by and large do not act in good faith.
“¡No me dispares con una pistola eléctrica huey!”
Yeah, some things just don’t translate well.
-E
Have you seen the Ellen Page surprise attack interview with Ted Cruz. Effective. Demolished her arguments so that she had no response other than to sulk away. Yet, he was respectful and acted like an adult.
Unfortunately, people who act like adults don’t get noticed in the summer before an election year. Too bad, that event (or Carly’s demolitions of various media surprise attacks) doesn’t get noticed amidst the fog of Trump.
Yes. People who declare their cities s sanctuary against prosecution. Presidents who pardon whole classes of people who emigrated here illegally. Cabinet secretaries who sue states that decide to enforce existing immigration laws. You are right that no one really says it explicitly, but their actions sure do.
I was about to say something like, “It’s always good to have a Sister Souljah moment on national TV.” But when I was double-checking I learned from Wikipedia that a Sister Souljah moment involves “a key moment when the candidate takes what at least appears to be a bold stand against certain extremes in their party”. Well that’s not what happened at Trump’s presser because Ramos certainly has no association with the GOP.
Thank you, Wikipedia, for saving me from embarrassment. Again.
It also didn’t seem to be akin to “I paid for this microphone”.
The more I think about it the more I am coming around to regarding what Ramos was doing as akin to heckling Trump because he was causing a disruption. Except that Ramos is an anchor and anchors are expected to not behave like unruly provocateurs.
But isn’t handling a heckler part of what you learn in Politics 101? (By now Bernie Sanders regrets cutting that class the same way Teddy used to regret cutting Drivers Ed.) And if so, are we swooning too easily at Trump dispatching a reporter who was disrupting his presser?
In this particular case I think not. This is because, for professional politicians anyway, certain considerations made handling Ramos’ disruptions more complicated:
Thought experiment: Would ejecting a reporter who was disrupting a press conference–anybody’s press conference–have been considered noteworthy if they weren’t a member of a “oppressed class”? I don’t see why.
What passes for noteworthy today is Trump treating a disruptive member of a “oppressed class”, Ramos, the way any disruptive person deserved to be treated. In doing so Trump exhibited a comprehensive disregard for Multicultural imperatives, which is what I think is generating this reaction.
I cannot believe that I am typing these words, but Trump is setting a positive example for others to follow.
This really doesn’t sound like the America I grew up in. Prejudice against those of Irish descent? That was true of the New York my parents grew up in, but now?
That reminds me of a story I’ve been meaning to share … and now’s as good a time as any. The analysis is entirely correct. And the video is priceless.
23 unlikes! A new record. Who’s the jokester…