Thread: Why Teflon Trump is so hard to attack

Why Teflon Trump is so hard to attack

By Ruth Marcus Columnist January 5 at 8:02 PM

The emperor has no clothes. The Donald has no policy.

This is not exactly news, but it is too often forgotten in the substance-free carnival that is the 2016 presidential race. Donald Trump’s bright-shiny-object campaign style serves to obscure the substance void, leaving reporters endlessly chasing after his latest rhetorical bomb rather than pressing him on policy.
Ruth Marcus is a columnist for The Post, specializing in American politics and domestic policy. View Archive

Not, of course, that such questioning produces answers. Trump evades questions about how he would approach a particular problem with airy assurances about management and dealmaking. There’s only so much follow-up that can be done in the face of this bombast.

Join me on a trip through a typical Trump stump speech, this one an hour-long stream-of-consciousness ramble just before the new year in South Carolina:

The crowd size. His poll numbers. Why he must attack Hillary Clinton. The media is the worst. The trade deficit with China. How much money Jeb Bush has wasted. Has he mentioned the polls? Matt Drudge, great guy. How bad a job Clinton did at State. How nice of Vladimir Putin to praise him. (No sarcasm intended.) His Ivy League pedigree and big vocabulary. Back to Clinton: “She just gives me a headache.”

At a campaign event in Hilton Head, S.C., Republican front-runner Donald Trump criticized Jeb Bush for overspending on political advertisements and low poll numbers. (Reuters)

He’s going to build the strongest military ever. Obamacare is a disaster. Common Core’s dead. Trump’s spent no money on his campaign and he’s No. 1. Marco Rubio, nice guy but what about those somber ads with a black background? What great ratings those debates got.

Not smart to answer questions about the Islamic State — he wants to be unpredictable. How bad the Iran nuclear deal is. The Iraq War, huge mistake. The environmentalists’ attack on Trump’s hair spray and how the spray is much better than the pump, with those blobs that get stuck and he needs to take a shower. By the way, he lives in a very nice apartment, and “I don’t think anything gets out” into the atmosphere.

The hoax of global warming and the threat to the universe. Speaking of the universe, Miss Universe, and “oh, did I get rich” off the pageant.

How many televisions he orders a year from South Korea and how we are using our military to support countries such as South Korea that don’t need our help. His wall versus the Great Wall of China. Even his hats are made in America, and you can buy other things on his website, too.

Carly Fiorina’s a nice woman.

China’s building military fortresses in the South China Sea and we’re worrying about the environmental impact of a border wall with Mexico on toads and turtles? Wait until China has to deal with Carl Icahn.

Don’t worry about the cost of a wall. The Old Post Office building is coming in under budget. As is his campaign.

By the way, Clinton has lower energy than Bush. Trump’s a nice person. He actually wants to help Syrian refugees, with a massive safe zone. Can you believe Angela Merkel was the person of the year and he wasn’t? The wall — Mexico’s going to pay.

Ted Cruz, he’s a good guy.

Remember the escalator in Trump Tower? The press that day looked like the Academy Awards. No one would be talking about illegal immigration if it weren’t for Trump. More polls.

Bernie Sanders, a total disaster who wants to raise your taxes to 90 percent.

Back to Clinton: He’s the last person she wants to run against.

Trump will save the Second Amendment. If only Parisians had guns. It wasn’t politically correct for neighbors to report Islamic State sympathizers in San Bernardino, Calif. Trump’s poll numbers went up after the attacks.

The trade stuff is easy. How we messed up Iraq. We’re going to be rich, safe, strong again.

Readers, this is no caricature — it’s Trump unfiltered, alighting briefly on a topic, complicated or trivial, before flitting to the next. And it’s not as if Trump bolsters his stump speech with policy depth in proposals or interviews. If Obamacare is a disaster, what’s Trump’s replacement? If Common Core is dead, what’s his alternative?

The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center has estimated that Trump’s tax plan — one subject he barely mentions — would cost $9.5 trillion over the first decade, not including added interest. In 2000, when a surplus was forecast, George W. Bush proposed cuts costing $1.3 trillion. They were extensively debated — in the campaign.

Trump relies on his ability to dominate the news with provocative distractions, to repel serious questions until interviewers’ time runs out. We in the media must find a way, if not to pierce the bluster, at least to expose it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...1de_story.html

Trump relies on his ability to dominate the news with provocative distractions, to repel serious questions until interviewers’ time runs out. We in the media must find a way, if not to pierce the bluster, at least to expose it.

Ruth,

The beautiful bluster that you have included in your article, is the way someone who is competent, excited, and ready at the gate to go to work talks. This may be new to you, because you've spent your career following politicians who are not competent, excited or ready at the gate to go to work.

You've been covering politicians for awhile. You've listened so you claim to long detailed debates that included the details of their policies. Let examine how well that worked out for voters.

Budget .... as big as ever.

Deficits .... as big as ever.

Trade deficits .... as big as ever.

Immigration .... as big as ever.

Terrorism .... as big as ever.

War/Conflicts .... as big as ever.

National debt .... as big as ever.

Your system that you're used to dealing with and covering in your commentary that involves politicians doesn't work, hasn't worked and won't work. Nothing you have done as a columnist for the Washington Post has done a thing to make our country better, to fix our economy, create jobs, reduce poverty, end unneeded unwanted immigration, balance our trade, help our corporations and employers succeed here in the US, generate tax revenue, balance the budget, restore domestic tranquility or bring peace on earth.

Therefore, your career from an output standpoint is a big fat zero. You've made no improvements or contributions to our political system and have done no good for our country.

The only reason I read your articles is a few times a day I google "Trump in the news", and sometimes your article pops up on the list, you get a click from me and because they're interesting and entertaining, I share them.

But if you weren't covering Trump and his name wasn't in the google search, I would never have heard of you. So you owe him. What do you owe him? Honest reporting. You act like he owes you details. He owes you nothing. There are still 17 candidates in this race. How many of their "details" do you know? You know far more about what Donald Trump is going to do to fix our country than all the other candidates combined.

Hey! You mentioned tax plans. Why don't you go after Ted Cruz and ask him about his funding plan for Social Security and Medicare? I'm sure in your thoroughness and hunger for details you know that Ted Cruz tax plan eliminates all payroll tax funding for Social Security and Medicare without any replacement source of revenue. Maybe you don't understand what this means. I'll explain it. It means Social Security and Medicare will have no money the day Ted Cruz tax plan goes into effect, because there won't be any money for it, because he eliminated the payroll taxes paid by employees and employers that have to date provided all as in 100% of the funding for these two essential retirement programs for our retired Senior Citizens. That's right, Ted Cruz claims he's going to fund Social Security and Medicare out of General Revenue with no replacement tax to fund it.

There's a little secret in his tax plan. One that will blow the top right off his whole deal. Go hunting, Ruth, and see if you can figure out what it is. I'll be googling "Cruz Tax Plan and Social Security", so if you write an article about it, I'll find it.

If you figure it out, it's a great story!

Happy Hunting!

Go figure. Not surprised your post eventually lead to another fairly empty attack on Cruz. Cruz's position in the Iowa polls right now must really have you freaking out.

Not to worry, one primary will not determine the next president.

The Washington Post, AOL, and MSNBC are just going after Trump day after day!

W

Originally Posted by ALIPAC

The Washington Post, AOL, and MSNBC are just going after Trump day after day!

W

Liberal media at its finest.