Salon: The decades of GOP lies that brought us Donald Trump, Republican front-runner

[ailsagirl]

Donald Trump did not happen overnight. He's the product of a dangerous, cynical GOP strategy that dates back years

by HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

How did America get to such a place that someone like Donald Trump can command a lead in the Republican primaries? Trump is the product of a deliberate Republican strategy, adopted by Richard Nixon’s people in 1968, to attract voters with an apocalyptic redemption story rather than reasoned argument. It has taken almost 50 years, but we have finally arrived at the culmination of postmodern politics in which Republican leaders use words to create their own reality.

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The campaign also hired a young television producer named Roger Ailes to stage “town hall” events for the candidate. Ailes hand-picked “regular” people to question Nixon in carefully managed shows from which the press was excluded. Ailes arranged applause, the set, Nixon’s answers, the camera angles, the crowd cheering the candidate, the careful shading of Nixon’s makeup. “Let’s face it,” he said. “A lot of people think Nixon is dull. Think he’s a bore, a pain in the ass.” But carefully managed television could “make them forget all that.”

It did. And so, after 1968, Republicans increasingly relied on their apocalyptic redemption story. America was in terrible trouble, because grasping minorities, women and workers wanted government policies that would suck tax dollars from hardworking white people. Democrats backed those policies because they would do anything to buy votes. It was up to Republicans to restore America to its former glory. In a time of dramatic economic and social upheaval, this story reassured voters left behind in the new conditions that the answers to their problems were simple, and that coming up with those answers required no great education or thought. It simply required the right principles.

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http://www.salon.com/2015/07/19/how_did_this_monster_get_created_the_decades_of_gop_lies_that_brought_us_donald_trump_republican_front_runner/

[SunSeeker]

1. K & R

[niyad]

2. k and r

[benld74]

3. Scary read for sure

Didn't know where Ailes got his start, really eye opening.

[futureliveshere]

4. Oh Wow!! Thanks for sharing!!

This is such a sad history of our great nation's degeneration into finally producing this orange buffoonish, serial adulterer and sexual predator as a viable candidate. When I think of how close he has come to taking power, I sometimes just want to stay in bed with my eyes closed.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

5. But when I think how his miserable personage has done us all a YUUUUGE favor, I'm amazed.

Because of him, the truths about CONservatism/repukianism and all its players that we libtards have known for decades is FINALLY glaring enough that almost everyone can see it. Even US Pravda Media can't sweep this under their false equivalencies.

Thanks Tronald Dump!

[Bill USA]

6. Reagan took things to a new, even more nihilistic level, with his "the Government is the enemy"

meme.