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.
Those are both great examples of Trump’s Campaign Surrogates attempts to keep his base focused on the prize. This Campaign has broken all level of moral obligation to debate real issues, and resorted to character assassinations the likes we have never seen in a Presidential Race. Your 2nd example about Congressman Joe Walsh’s analogy to 50 Shade of Gray is spot on. Trump has been an Entertainer for most of his life. The Apprentice was a very popular show to “Little Trump Wanna Bes”. It appears that Trump has been able to parallel that appeal to his base.
And once a fan… Always a fan.