It’s election year 2020 and people still debate details of the 2016 election. The debate is over. Establishment Republicans were behind Republican Donald Trump. But nobody has put it all together until now. Here goes …
CLEAR PRIMARY PATH TO VICTORY
In a field of 19 candidates, Donald Trump was the only one who could win the primary. On one side, there were 18 candidates most of whom represented the same ‘establishment’ Republicans and split that vote. On the other side, there was someone quite different who would absorb most votes of conservatives or ‘populists’ looking for something different. Math says the oddball wins — just like oddball Fox News took the highest ratings when other cable channels split similar audiences.
Republicans knew Donald Trump would win the primary contest almost from the beginning. Once his poll numbers increased enough, it became certain. To undermine this inevitability, Republican oligarchs could have demanded that most of the other candidates drop out, consolidating Trump’s opposition by cutting off their funding. We know funding threats work because we saw Republicans fall in line on the recent giant tax cuts under threat of funding denial. We know that consolidation works because we just saw Democrats drop out and consolidate one side for Joe Biden. This strategy is not difficult. The people at the top surely thought of this simple trick. But they did not act.
THE “OUTSIDER” AND ESTABLISHMENT OUTRAGE
Long-discredited Republican neocon types then rushed to the media to tell everyone how much they ‘hated’ Donald Trump. Some of these people actually believed what they said, but some seeded outrage — understanding that the “outsider” illusion would be helped by child reverse psychology or negative advertising that causes a backlash of support.
Then they completed the LARP by refusing to endorse Donald Trump with some even supporting Hillary Clinton. Regular people and some of the most foolish “woke” people seeing this became convinced that Clinton was more of the same and Trump was an authentic outsider.
MAJOR MEDIA PROVIDES FREE COVERAGE
It is common knowledge that big media companies gave Donald Trump billions of dollars in free positive coverage, showing his speeches live, uninterrupted, and uncensored to say whatever he wanted for months. His campaign could not have succeeded without this coverage. The media made Donald Trump. In 2020, media companies continue to give Donald Trump free time to propagate crazy things about Clorox and Lysol — as if nobody knows that free uninterrupted time helps him.
On the surface, this could just be media desire for ratings and profits. But underneath, there is another purpose: promotion. A Donald Trump administration provides the large multinational conglomerates that own major media with huge tax cuts and deregulation to help the consolidated bottom line for all these businesses.
Ratings alone do not explain all the free coverage. There are innumerable examples of media not covering things despite ratings, for example when MSNBC canceled its most popular show Phil Donahue because he was against the coming Iraq War, or when cable channels cut away from a live Bernie Sanders speech to go to an empty stage to await Donald Trump. Meanwhile, independent progressives get virtually no TV or cable time at all, not even on PBS.
NEGATIVE COVERAGE OF BERNIE SANDERS
I just said that media gave Donald Trump free negative advertising. But what about Bernie Sanders? He got negative coverage too, but it was carefully timed in 2016 to coincide with the most important primaries, and it was not supplemented with billions of dollars in free positive coverage. Republicans and Democrats are different. Republicans share outrage with Donald Trump. Democrats outrage against Donald Trump. Republicans thrive on outrage, Democrats worry about outrage harming “electability.”
LOVE FOR BERNIE SANDERS AFTER THE PRIMARY
If there is anything we can count on from media, it is after-the-fact truth — whether that is about the ‘Dean scream‘ or Iraq War lies, or covering the 1996 Telecommunications Act just hours after it passed, etc.
Also, history tells us that major media cuts back coverage of candidates after they drop out or lose. But in the case of Bernie Sanders in 2016, coverage actually increased. In 2020, Bernie Sanders coverage seems to be improving again, after it is likely too late. The media flaunted Bernie in our faces to keep Democrats divided.
BUT HER EMAILS
Once Hillary got the nomination, major media basked in various fake scandals that Republicans created, none of which has been prosecuted after nearly three years of Donald Trump in office (because they were all lies just like the Hunter Biden and the “whistle blower” thing now neither of which is being investigated officially by Donald Trump).
ESTABLISHMENT REPUBLICAN CHEATING
The same time that people were complaining constantly in vague and personal terms about how outrageous Donald Trump was, Republicans all over the nation were implementing voter suppression laws, purging voters under CrossCheck and ‘failure to vote‘ purges, for the benefit of Donald Trump. Without all these establishment Republicans playing election games, DJT could not have gotten into office. Then there’s Russia, but the media covered that much more than these other election games.
THE POWERS THAT BE THROW A PARTY
In the early morning hours of November 9, 2016, after Donald Trump was declared the “winner,” the stock market (aka the ultimate center of power for the powers that be) jumped into a stock market orgy that lasted well over a year.