 Joe Honick |
It’s remarkable how powerful people, no matter what they’re accused of, manage to sell their dubious wares to new buyers. Such is the reality for Roger Ailes and his new “client” Donald Trump.
Ailes, charged with all sorts of sexual misconduct that, so far, has cost the Murdoch empire about $20 million, remains a brilliant strategist and tactician, which may make him even more dangerous or helpful to the election process, depending on your politics.
Having been taken on by candidate Trump, the changes were already obvious the night of the NBC questionable venture almost comically titled “Commander-in-Chief Forum.” Trump suddenly lowered the volume while looking very serious, almost impassioned, as he delivered the same kinds of personalized invective about Hillary Clinton and anyone else who had the chutzpah to challenge him. Without breaking a smile, Trump was just as passionate about why he and Russian boss Vladimir Putin could almost be good buddies, disregarding American security, politics or almost anything else. And Trump was effective as the salesman he’s been, the same kind of salesman now under indictment for selling an allegedly fraudulent real estate “university” and a real estate tip sheet it turns out he did not even write.
Somehow, despite all the efforts of a revolving door of previous advisors who tried to get Trump to tone down his freewheeling accusations, Ailes seems to have made his point with the candidate quickly. What this portends for the rest of the campaign cannot simply be predicted because, as usual, so much depends on the complexity represented by candidates who are hardly “as usual.”
Back to the matter of Trump’s affection for Russia’s Putin, how will he handle the many allegations of Russian interference with the American electoral system which Trump says is already “rigged?” No doubt Ailes has been working hard on this issue as well.
For the Clinton campaign, however, the Ailes effect cannot be dismissed or categorized. It must be met with the same or more effective strategy that does not trap Hillary into trying to act as nasty as Trump.
It might be useful for her strategists to make note of Americans falling for the Hitlerian tactics that were powerfully launched in the 1931 Proclamation to the German nation just to give his party “four more years” to demonstrate how to make the country “great again.” From that time, and until WWII actually engulfed the United States, major American universities and industrialists not only embraced Nazi visitors and business partnerships, but some of the latter helped finance the Hitlerian regime. The media also played to the isolationist concerns of the Depression-wracked Americans regarding our need to avoid any foreign involvements. Sound familiar?
With debates scheduled to begin only days from now, no doubt what “Ailes” Trump will be a powerful measure of the candidate’s conduct to be watched very carefully. What must also be watched are the so-called “media” that suddenly emerged to propagandize for the Trump campaign to American voters short on attention span but strong on response.
How Clinton contends with these realities will be clear right from the debate start on September 26.
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Joseph J. Honick is president of GMA International in Bainbridge Island, WA.
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