2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumIs this what it's really about? TBN (Trump Breitbart News), taking on Fox head to head?
Cassidy in The New Yorker: What Are Donald Trump, Roger Ailes, and Steve Bannon Really Up To?
What better way to mark the news that the head of Breitbart.com, the alt-right news site, is now running Donald Trumps campaign than with a conspiracy theory? And, unlike some of the conspiracy theories that appear on Breitbart, this one might actually be true.
The theory making the rounds is that Trumps latest campaign reshuffle isnt really about trying to win the election. In bringing in Steve Bannon, the executive chairman of Breitbart News, and recruiting Roger Ailes, the disgraced former head of Fox News, as an adviser, Trump is making a business play: hes laying the groundwork for a new conservative media empire to challenge Fox.
The official story is that the shakeupwhich saw Paul Manafort, Trumps campaign chairman, eclipsedis all about defeating Hillary Clinton. I have known Steve and Kellyanne both for many years, Trump said in a press release announcing the changes, referring to Bannon and Kellyanne Conway, a pollster he brought in to be his new campaign manager. They are extremely capable, highly qualified people who love to win and know how to win. In an interview with the Wall Street Journals Monica Langley and Janet Hook, who broke the story, Trump added, Im going to do whatever it takes and do it the way I think will win. As for Ailes, the Trump campaign denies that he is playing any official role. (It hasnt denied the New York Times revelation that Ailes met with Trump on Sunday in New Jersey.)
Does this official explanation withstand inspection? Hardly.
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Bannon, a former investment banker who took over Breitbart News in 2012, after the sudden death of its eponymous founder, also has large ambitions, and they involve taking on the mighty Fox News. In a lengthy column posted earlier this month, Bannon compared the burgeoning rivalry between Breitbart and Fox to the Peloponnesian War. The incumbent Athenians might as well know that the Spartans are coming for them, and theres not a damn thing they can do about it, he wrote. Indeed, more Spartans are joining us every day.
<snip>
But what if Trump and Breitbart could team up, raise some money from outside investors, and bring aboard some of the television executives who built Fox News? As part of his lucrative severance package from Rupert Murdochs 21st Century Fox, Ailes almost certainly signed a noncompete agreement. But how long does it last? And does it preclude him from providing some informal advice to an old friend?
Bannon already has some ideas of his own. He believes that Fox News is drifting away from its core conservative viewers, and that, with Murdochs sons, James and Lachlan, increasingly calling some of the shots at Foxs parent company, this process is likely to continue. The Murdoch sons, aka the Minor Murdochs, think Fox is too conservative, too Roger Ailes-like, too Middle American, Bannon wrote in his column. And they have a plan to fix that.
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read:http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/what-are-donald-trump-roger-ailes-and-steve-bannon-really-up-to
apcalc
(4,465 posts)monmouth4
(9,709 posts)SticksnStones
(2,108 posts)Once Trump experiences an utterly humiliating defeat.
I guess Bannon and company are the latest marks to get suckered in to licensing the Trump name.
Trump sure as shit won't invest a penny in launching anything.
Six bankruptcies behind him, collapsing support, vocal worldwide disdain, and a history of stiffing investors. Sure, go ahead and see what that brand will bring in the long run.
My take is it's a pipe dream born in a bubble...
Old and In the Way
(37,540 posts)This may be why he will pursue his own network after he gets his ass handed to him in November. The one thing Trump will have after his election is the Trump cult. Literally millions of rascists, bigots, anti-socialists,brainwashed morons who will follow him wherever he wants to take them. There is money to be made scamming these rubes. Trump knows how to do it with the added feature that he gets unlimited positive coverage in this media network. There is a growing divide between the GOPe and the Trumpsters. Peruse the postings at FR.....it is all hate on the GOP establishment, all devotion for Trump. He, Mannon, Ailes, maybe Hannity, Sarah Palin, and other cons who are hungrey for some easy money and exposure will happily sign on to promote their fearless leader.
SticksnStones
(2,108 posts)That never took off. Glenn Beck tried it and has lost the emphasis his opinion once held.
Ailes karma is coming back to haunt him...It's doubtful the end of that road leaves him much better off image wise, than say, Cosby.
Hannity would never put up any of his own money or take a big risk, a la Beck. He's got a real cush gig. He knows that.
Unless there's really significant money backing this venture I don't see how it gets big. If it's Russian money, we'll shout it to the roof tops. What base of his let's Russian money tell them what to think? I just don't see it.
His brand is shot in all but an uneducated white male slice of this country. And Fox already has most of them as viewers.
It'sa bright and shiny concept right now but I don't see the nuts and bolts of it working out.
UCmeNdc
(9,600 posts)So he hired the best in the conservative business to call in favors and rebuild Trump's image. They will "call off the dogs" for Trump.
Watch how the news media slowly start to look the other way on Trump's failures. You see it already happening on Morning Joe.
BumRushDaShow
(129,376 posts)I believe that Trump is setting up for a cable channel. I even joked in another thread that if he wanted to, he would call it "Trump Broadcasting System" or "Trump Network Television" and would battle Ted Turner for use of the abbreviations "TBS" or "TNT".
SticksnStones
(2,108 posts)It would always be just TRUMP all caps. Of course.
(But I still don't think he'll do it...)
BumRushDaShow
(129,376 posts)"Trump Media Productions"!