Hip(ocrite)-Hop Music

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Trump surrogates have been adamant about their “defense” (if you want to call it that) for the now… President-Elect Donald Trump. Before the election last night though, an interesting attack on hip-hop artists Jay-Z and Beyonce surfaced after the married duo performed at a Cleveland, Ohio rally for Hillary Clinton just days before the election. Many of the surrogates including Trump campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, shamed Hillary for the choice of these artists and their lyrics saying, “because our children are listening” right Hillary?”. Scottie Nell Hughes continues this argument as well digging deep into the hard right Trump supporters identifying well with the evangelical-Christian audience as she slams Hillary’s choice of musical guests. She goes on to say, “As an Evangelical Christian, I can actually say I think he was more bothered by the multiple uses of the ‘M-F-word’ that night and the N-word that was used, within the lyrics in the songs” (speaking about Trump being bothered). While I find this highly tunnel-visioned and hypocritical, it is a hallmark example of rhetorical disassociation used for the past years and a half by Trump and his surrogates. By slamming Hillary for bringing in hip-hop artists who use expletives in their music and weeding out the fact that Trump himself has multiple videos of him using the exact same language shows that disassociation that doubles down on their Trump cause now and as he eventually becomes the 45th president..

What this does now that the election is over? Well, I can’t say for sure. It has alienated much of pop culture (for better or worse) with Trump openly mocking Clinton, boasting to a crowd in Grand Rapids, Michigan on election day yesterday, “We don’t need Jay Z or Beyoncé… We don’t need Jon Bon Jovi. We don’t need Lady Gaga. All we need is great ideas to make America great again”. While this is identification, it’s identifying with those who conspire against the “liberal media”, “liberal Hollywood” and pop culture. He finds the common value of mostly an older generation who hates pop culture along with younger voters who might feel they are cool or on the “in-crowd” by associating with “great ideas” and “making America great again”.

If I had to guess his rhetoric will continue to divide America on extreme levels. Even if his rhetoric is tamed even a bit, what he has said over the past year has inflamed a scary movement built on fear, divisiveness and anger. That’s something that WON’T “make America great again” or keep the greatness that is the “united” part of our states here in America. What makes this a harder and harder pill to swallow is the real issues that are behind the rage and hate. The real people who have real issues and need desperate help have been hijacked rhetorically and this kind of polarization threatens much of the work our country has done over the past 100 years whether it’s women’s rights, race relations or LGBTQ rights to work for “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” for ALL.

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Once again drawing on the now famous answer to any question whether it’s appropriate, makes sense or not at all, Trump and his surrogates want to make America Great Again… I guess now we’ll find out what that means.

Trump Surrogates…. Being Trumped?

As Trump surrogates continue to stumble their way towards the election finish line, a recent debacle on a CNN panel perpetuates the head scratching by many as to why and what Trump surrogates are doing. If you scratch your head long enough and analyze what theses surrogates are doing in terms of a rhetorical situation focusing on identification and audience, the fog of confusion lifts (slightly) enough, and you are able to put yourselves in the shoes of the primary audience (if you don’t already accept the Trump worldview) and receive it through their lens.

As the Trump supporters in this interview are called out on live TV, we see a crumbling Trump surrogate base confused and scrambling to find anything to try and stick on Hillary. The primary audience (Trump supporters) for these surrogates agree that Trump is ahead and they will win in a landslide. John LaValle goes so far as to make up facts on the spot and is fact-checked live. When LaValle is called out for his inaccurate information, he turns and the whole panel becomes a childish yelling match. His reaction though was important to Trump fans…

Looking beneath the hood rhetorically of this yelling match is a challenge from LaValle against the CNN anchors. It fits a subliminal argument of a surrogate being able to say more specifics about how Trump is in the lead than Trump can. It also feeds into the rigged liberal media argument. His attempts to fight back is a more direct attack back at the media than Trump can do feeding the fire on that rigged election and media story. He looks like the hero for the Trump Republicans standing up to the “crooked” media firing back with claiming unchecked facts and Hillary’s e-mail issues (which nobody knows anything about fully). So again, while it might seem strange what Trump supporters like John LaValle are doing, they are continuing to double down on the Trump base with anything and everything. Sometimes even sporting the tinfoil hat for good measure.

Fascination With Sex > Public Policy?

As Trump surrogates continue to drop and disappear left and right, the few that still remain stand eerily strong as Trump surrogates continue to spout anything to promote their leader amidst a crumbling campaign fraught with all the divisive fear rhetoric and scandals we’ve seen over the past year. One in particular is Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House, in his most recent interview with Megyn Kelly on a Fox News segment has once again raised eyebrows and concern with the deflection of Trump’s sexual assault allegations and his own personal (ad hominem) attack of Megyn Kelly on live TV. Analyzing this conversation rhetorically, one might find an interesting analogy argument deflecting Trump’s comments comparing them to Clinton’s lack of coverage in media, ad hominem attacks on Megyn Kelly and way this can all be viewed in light of gaffes/image-mistakes looking forward.

Gingrich attempts to deflect Megyn Kelly’s question about Trump’s sexual assault accusers by attacking her character (ad hominem), telling her on live TV she is “fascinated with sex, and you don’t care about public policy“. He tries to blame how sex sells in America for why Clinton’s scandals don’t get air time and why Trump gets so much more flak on and by the news. Rather than just attacking the liberal media, the attack becomes personal on Megyn Kelly and she wants nothing to do with it. It pushes the narrative once again momentarily away from the sex abuse accusers but on to Gingrich’s attack (which is terrible in its own right). This is just another example of an analogy saying Hillary is full of scandal (like Trump) but doesn’t get the media attention and that’s the dissociation tactic many Trump surrogates/supporters use to pull apart the bad things about the Trump campaign and try to stick them on Hilary, the media and really anything else.

Going further, prospect.org’s Stan Adele talks about how this wasn’t a gaffe but a part of the larger brand that has become Trump, misogyny. This points out an interesting detail in the way Trump surrogates talk about Trump. Many scapegoats that are produced from Trump surrogates include 50 Shades of Grey, Beyoncé, the liberal media, etc… . This seems to fit in the larger narrative that has continued and will continue to feed Trump supporters doubling down on their support. They blame the media for making Trump comments “gaffes”, Gingrich is just the newest edition to the ongoing frame that Trump supporters/surrogates frame and argue that the media is biased and that the system is rigged. It fits so well! To blame that you’ve been gaffed fits a world view as sabotage to move away from the reality of racism, sexism, xenophobia and fear based rhetoric and feel like a victim of a system that wants to oppress you.

Moving forward, we will continue to see deflections of Trump comments and accusations as gaffes by the liberal media to sabotage the election and be seen as enemies to America by those Trump supporters that buy into the twisted fear based world Trump and his surrogates have created. It’ll be interesting to see how more intense the Trump surrogates/Trump himself will attack those who seem to be in their way, all the while shaking faith (for many) in the foundations of our democratic system one day at a time as we creep towards November 8th.

Key & Peel: Trump’s Anger Translator

Trump’s recent comments in speeches and tweets about the election being rigged while shocking in nature as a candidate for the nation’s highest office, fit a larger and ridiculous narrative doubling down on his audience to keep Hilary voters at home and his fired up to go vote. While it seems many major surrogates for Trump are either pulling their support or magically disappearing, Mike Pence has offered some words of potential clarity acting as Donald Trump’s “anger translator” of sorts to better understand Trump’s message. Trump has repeatedly come out and warned against a rigged election, calling into question the legitimacy and function of our democratic voting process. Mike Pence sorting through Trump’s rigged conspiracy theories is utilizing elements of dissociation to avoid the narrative that Trump is calling into question confidence in our US democracy (one of the elements found in effects of our political debates).

Dissociation:

Pence has responded in multiple interviews saying we “will absolutely accept the results of the election” and sticking to the words from the first debate, “As Donald Trump said in that first debate, and I will say to you today, we will accept the will of the American people”. Mike Pence is attempting to dissociate Trumps current comments about conspiracy of the election and pick apart only elements of bias from the media as the focus on the conspiracy/rigging. Pence goes on in an interview with the Chicago Tribune to argue his point, “the American people are tired of the obvious bias in the national media. That’s where the sense of a rigged election goes here”. Mike Pence’s comments are in an attempt to avoid the next point and issue, an element of effects of our political debates, building confidence in US Democracy.

Building Confidence in US Democracy??

Looking forward through our nation’s disturbing rhetorical political discourse, Trump’s comments offer a chilling prelude to what was said at the end of the third debate tonight with Trump claiming he would evaluate the election results as they came in as to whether he would accept them and move on. A major element of our political debates in the US is to build confidence in our US Democracy, but with statements like that coming from Trump claiming that the whole nation and world is out to get him undermines the function of our debates and calls into question our election process. Not something to be taken lightly. I think Pence in making the comments he did saying they would accept the outcome, it’s one of America’s unique traditions was attempting to keep the Trump election grounded in anyway possible to keep any question away that their campaign doesn’t believe in the US Democratic system. Just like the “Luther” was the angry translator for President Obama at the 2015 White House Corespondents Dinner, Mike Pence has become the “Luther” for Trump. Except this time around it’s no joke and Pence is strategically staying away from the narrative that suggests Trump is questioning our democratic voting system as validated in our political debates that he seems so eager to pick apart like a child.

Donald Trump: Basically Beyoncé and Fifty Shades of Grey

In a desperate attempt to defend Trump’s grotesque comments about women in the leaked tapes from 2005, surrogates for Trump have been spewing weak analogies and empty deductive arguments in dealing with the fallout of these tapes over the past week. While the defense arguments might seem ridiculous, if one analyzes the potential audiences for these messages, they could be continuing attempts at galvanizing the Trump base while simultaneously creating attempts at disillusionment in all other voters, especially those voting for Hillary Clinton.

Example #1

In an interview yesterday (October 11th) on CNN with Betsy McCaughey, former Lieutenant Governor in New York, McCaughey in discussion about Trump’s video scandal attacked Hillary Clinton through Beyoncé. In a desperate attempt to distract the conversation topic, she blames pop-culture for rape-culture and blames Hillary for being part of it. Rhetorically, McCaughey offers a deductive argument: because Hillary Clinton has spoken out her fandom for Beyoncé, Hillary is a promoter of rape-culture and inappropriate rhetoric that is destroying our culture. Of course to deduct Hillary Clinton supports rape-culture through being a fan of Beyoncé is not only weak at best, but misses the point altogether when it comes to Trump’s comments. While I believe it’s a weak and elementary argument, it is strategic in a positive way towards Trump supporters as an audience. We saw in the debate Trump doubling down on his supporters trying to disillusion those not voting for him. This deductive argument McCaughey offers continues to feed into the values of hard line Trump fans while trying to throw any dirt possible on Clinton to keep her voters either at home or not voting for her through attacking Beyonce, rap and even taking a crack at voters who are fans of artists and pop icons (alienating something many Trump fans could probably care less about).

Example #2

Furthermore, Trump supporters Scottie Nell Hughes and former Congressman Joe Walsh doubled down for Trump with a wild analogy. They equated Trump’s comments to the popular book “Fifty Shades of Grey” saying what Trump said should be compared to the book. If the book is accepted, why are not Trump’s statements accepted? While it’s obvious comparing what a presidential candidate said to erotic fiction is crazy, as an Independent article put it, this terrible analogy of Trump to Fifty Shades of Grey once again galvanizes his fan base. Many in his fan base probably hate the book, so taking a shot at it was an easy way to score points with Trump voters. It even caused enough of a stir to have the author of the popular book, E. L. James, tweet out a “reminder” to Trump and his followers that “pussy” is not a word used in his books and that the book is fiction, Trump is real life. And maybe that’s the strategic attempt Trump surrogates are attempting to create, fiction. Political entertainment so insane it might cause people to buy into it.

All of My [Trump] Children

The Trump family, specifically the Trump children have been placed in a unique position during this presidential campaign as their father attempts a run for the President of the United States. Normally, important/key surrogates for presidential candidates come forward from political and/or economic positions to vouch and speak for their candidate usually being able to say things the candidate is not able to say deflecting flack from potentially controversial statements.

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Yet for Trump, he has not only had problems not with finding surrogates, but ones that seem to have any credibility and voice in the mainstream public. Thus, his children have become important voices for his campaign. They try to act as channels for the public to see the “real Donald” acting as voices of reason and focus for a father who can’t seem to stay on tracks very long speaking off the cuff creating controversy and division. While the children are some of the “best” speakers he has, many their attempts at showing a “softer side to trump” are haven’t come off very well. Many of their insensitive inappropriate comments have come off tame compared to the bombastic fiery fear rhetoric of their father. Much seems to be desired in the way the Trump children have handled issues and have even been criticized earlier last month for comments about their father’s lack of tax returns, the media and women (specifically mothers)

Even more specifically, Donald Trump Jr. has been under fire for a tweet recently equating Syrian refugees to skittles (graphic below). Within hours, Donald Jr. received much deserved criticism ranging from accusations of racist undertones, inaccurate understanding about terrorism statistics in the US, and even the Wrigley company (owners of Skittles) quickly coming out to sever any associations of their candy with Donald Jr’s. comments.

This is just another story in the ever growing narrative that Trump’s children haven’t fallen too far from the Trump tree. Not able to articulate our national/international issues in any sort of respectful manner and too disconnected from any average American as their upbringings are rooted in extremely wealthy soil far different than most Americans. Normally, family to presidential candidates are not scrutinized as much about their political comments, but with them being the few people who are surrogates to Donald Trump their voice carries a unique, concerning and closely tied echo to the Republican presidential candidate.