This kind of smear (from Salon)…
Washington man stabs kissing interracial couple, cites Donald Trump when arrested
…has got to stop.
It doesn’t matter which candidate some despicable, hateful wacko “cites.” It’s not news, it means nothing, and it proves nothing positively or negatively about the individual so mentioned, praised, or referenced. Any news source that highlights it to suggest otherwise is playing despicable cognitive dissonance games, and is devoid of fairness and honesty.
Of course, this is Salon. But it is not alone.
In the same unethical category is drawing significance from who attends a candidate’s rally, as the conservative media did when the father of the Orlando shooter attended a Clinton rally. Candidate endorsements from disreputable individuals are also beyond a candidate’s control, and are weak indictments of the candidates themselves at best. Admittedly, when just about every troglodyte, uncivil and boorish celebrity under the sun endorses the same candidate, this begins to suggest a reason worth pondering. No single endorsement individually, however, qualifies as significant. John Hinckley, I hear, may be a Hillary supporter. So what?
No, this is not the same issue posed when a mass killer announces fealty to ISIS, or when a cop-killer invokes Black Lives Matter. Those are organizations and movements. They are accountable for the messages they employ to inflame and recruit. The stated believe in such a group is genuine evidence in assessing a societal danger. One can belong to such movements without paying dues or attending a meeting. Unless there is a legitimate nexus between the illegal act and the rhetoric of a candidate, a captured wrongdoer’s mention of that candidate should be treated as the trivial detail that it is, not splattered on a headline. When has Trump ever expressed animus towards interracial couples? Never.
The news media has so much legitimate ammunition to attack both of these candidates, it is inexcusable to manufacture evidence like this.
_____________________
Pointer: Fred
Ethics Alarms 
I think some of these stories are appearing because it’s late August when nobody’s paying close attention to the news media, whoever they are.
Jack,
How is Donald Trump not a movement?
-Neil
How is he? Every candidate isn’t a movement. Few are. Go ahead, dsscribe “the movement.”
They call “Trumpism” ethnocentric white economic populism.
Always a formidable force in American politics, it hasn’t really been appealed to explicitly since the 60’s. Trump has been behind the resurgence of that movement.
http://www.vox.com/2015/7/15/8962821/donald-trump-third-party
Trump’s followers see an epidemic spreading over whiteness, with the white working class stumbling to find a kind of rebirth or new life. Suicides, cancer, drugs, despair is sweeping a white world that in the Reagan years prided itself on humble family values. It would appear to the left that, after decades of the ravages of the big box economy that signaled the gutting of middle America, this bloc of voters would begin acting in “their own class interests,” but the problem is that they do—and that’s what Trump represents.
Class interests are always defined on a complex terrain of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, and sexual politics. To unite with other workers in opposition to the ruling class would actually imperil the traditional interests of many white workers, who seem themselves as belonging in a natural, patriotic hierarchy of God and flag. Class interests then take the form of racism and anti-Semitism where privileges enjoyed by white workers over others signal a kind of status elevation, a dignity manifest in tired slogans Trump drags around the country, like “You built this country!”
The image Trump projects is not simply of recovery, but revenge. In the perspicuous words of Sakai, “To the increasing mass of rootless men fallen or ripped out of productive classes—whether the peasantry or the salariat—[fascism] offers not mere working class jobs but the vision of payback. Of a land for real men, where they and not the bourgeois will be the ones giving orders at gunpoint and living off of others.” With his “mad as hell” rhetoric against Wall Street, his promise to deport 12 million people, and halt immigration of Muslims, Trump promises an official satisfaction for the feelings of resentment and animus of the white working class. His other promises at mollification lead to his position as the only Republican candidate supporting unions and promising to maintain Social Security, placing Trump’s campaign at a junction point between poor whites and a middle class afraid of losing its privileges.
https://itsgoingdown.org/trumpism-chapter-3-propaganda-deal/
Except that’s a projected movement entirely in the minds of anti-Trump analysts! His website says nothing about that, any of it. He doesn’t either: he’s incoherent. That’s not a movement, that’s an indictment. You can’t be serious: having Vox define Trumpism is like having ISIS define Christianity. Why do you swallow junk like this? It’s not good for you.
Then we have to get into the definition of “movement”. I’m going y this definition: a : tendency, trend
b : a series of organized activities working toward an objective; also : an organized effort to promote or attain an end
I think “Trumpism” qualifies as a movement. He is definitely working towards some solid objective using organized activities. I don’t know how else you would put it. His followers definitely believe that he has their interests at heart (e.g. “Build a wall!” “Ban all Muslims!” ect.) and definitive objectives. Whether the movement outlasts the man remains to be seen.
I think you still failed to address Jack’s main point.
There’s a lot of obviously biased speculation in Vox’s definition.
Ya think?
Just a little.
i never understand how anyone can claim what “his followers” are like or what they believe. unless you interview them all, their reasons for voting for him are as diverse as each person.
it’s incorrect when we label any group of followers as being one way.
since this whole trump/hillary thing has been going on, i’ve been asking all sorts of people in my walk of life, from doctors to lawyers, to strangers what they think about “the 2 choices.” (much to my husband’s horror)
i ask in cafes, malls, lines at the grocery store, walking my dog, at doctor appointments, anywhere and everywhere i can. i wanted to see for myself and NOT from what the media tells me. and… i’ve been shocked to find out how many are voting for trump (even my husbands gay married doctor!) – my doctor, 2 lawyers i know, 3 life long democrats, some hispanics i know, some total strangers i met from NYC, and countless others. i’ve been shocked to find out NONE of them match the “angry white males who are uneducated” that the media tries to lump his supporters as. NONE were that at all. and the one thing they all had in common? want to take a guess?
they are NOT telling anyone.
I’ve heard the same thing from multiple sources.
so basically, the Trump campaign is the Occupy Movement?
Bowel?
My wife gets mad at me when I make that joke.
Well do you think Salon does any fair and balanced reporting? I’d say that they are functioning on the level of the National Inquirer, except that would be an insult to the tabloid.
Sure they do. They put the correct date at the top of the page.
Back to the “movement” issue: If Trump fails (as we all pray), does it mean that his followers will disperse? I think another hero will arise; the tigers are still out.
I remember reading many years ago a James Thurber short story that i think was entitled “The Owl Who Was God.” Does anybody else remember that one?
http://www.k-state.edu/english/baker/english320/Thurber-The_Owl_Who_Was_God.htm
The Salon writer took from a piece from http://komonews.com/news/local/african-american-man-stabbed-in-olympia-attacker-mentions-black-lives-matter and embellished. Unless you clicked on the link you might gather this was original reporting. As far as I am concerned while these are isolated cases, the underlying issue is that Trump incites people who might otherwise not act out violently. As I wrote today if he looses he may do more of this because of his psychological make-up. see http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/8/22/1562659/-It-s-Time-We-Talk-About-Narcissistic-Rage
I think you are stretching to draw the slightest comparison between the father of the Orlando shooter and this perpetrator. We don’t know whether Danial Rowe would have become violent without Trump instigating it, but I don’t see how anyone can deny that some of his rhetoric is inflators and might push someone over the edge. It seems to me the perpetrator has drawn the nexus between Trump’s rhetoric and his action.
Trump has been vocal about how he feels about Black Lives Matter:
Trump: Black Lives Matter helped instigate police killings …
Trump: Black Lives Matter has helped … Donald Trump said Monday he believes the Black Lives Matter movement has in some cases helped instigate …
Search domain http://www.cnn.comcnn.com/2016/07/18/politics/donald-trump-black-li...
Donald Trump on Black Lives Matter protester: ‘Maybe he …
“Maybe he should have been roughed up because it was absolutely … began chanting “Dump the Trump” and “Black Lives Matter” during the …
Search domain http://www.cnn.comcnn.com/2015/11/22/politics/donald-trump-black-li...
Donald Trump BLASTS “Black Lives Matter” Movement in a MAJOR …
Donald Trump BLASTS “Black Lives Matter … That whole scene was thoroughly embarrassing and does not represent all black people nor black lives. I agree with Trump
Search domain http://www.thepoliticalinsider.comthepoliticalinsider.com/donald-trump-blasts-black-lives-matter-mo...
Black Lives Matter protester disrupts Donald Trump
A Black Lives Matter protester who disrupted a Donald Trump stump speech Saturday was beaten and kicked by Trump … TRUMP TO BLACK LIVES MATTER: …
ISIS deliberately recruits people to be violent.
Black Lives Matter doesn’t.
Hal, Black Lives Matter maintains that police and white society deliberately target blacks for death. It’s inciting language. Nor do Trump’ s comments regarding BLM impugn blacks generally in any way. I don’t see any nexus at all to this guy, and the implication is brutally unfair, as is the whole “Trump is a racist” theme. Among his many, many disqualifying flaws, that’s illusory.
I wonder why his most vocal opponents use that theme though. Is it because they think racism is the worst evil, the unforgivable sin?
An example of a race-baiting attack against Trump is the claim that he published a “full-page ad calling for the death penalty against five black teenagers in New York City who were accused of rape — wrongly, as it turned out.”
The ad in question is here.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/point/260095/see-trumps-awesome-1989-bring-back-death-penalty-daniel-greenfield
Note that it does not mention the crime in question, nor identify the accused.
Furthermore, at the time the ad was published, the accused were awaiting trial. Nobody could have predicted the outcome of the trial, nor its aftermath.
Another view: http://komonews.com/news/local/african-american-man-stabbed-in-olympia-attacker-mentions-black-lives-matter
African-American man stabbed in Olympia, attacker mentions Black Lives Matter
The suspect said he “took a blood oath to fight on the street, and if he was let go tonight, he planned on heading down to the next Donald Trump rally and stomping out more of the Black Lives Matter group,” court documents say.
He told police several times that he was defending them and that he had their backs.
“At one point he stated that he knew we couldn’t hurt the black groups on the street so he wanted to let us know that he takes care of them for us.”
Let me see if I’ve got this right: An apparent “skinhead” does a typical skinhead thing by engaging in a racially motivated attempted murder.
Said skinhead then mentions his desire to attend a Donald Trump rally expecting to find Black Lives Matter protesters there to attack. I noted no report that said skinhead considered himself a Trump supporter, but rather suggesting his rallies were a honey-pot for BLM protesters — apparently his targets.
Salon conclusion: This makes Donald Trump all the more evil.
This is not logic, it is character assassination based on the an unrelated third-party psychosis. Suppose Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (the leader of ISIS or ISIL or whatever) said he was sending terrorists down to the next Hilary Clinton for president rally to attack anti-radical Islam protesters. That same logic would apparently make her an even greater evil, since ISIS embraces mass murder in the name of religious ideology rather than random racist assaults in the name of counter-attacking a racist movement.
Trump is “evil” enough. He doesn’t need help from Salon or anyone else trying to dazzle us with their apparent inability to grasp the most rudimentary form of logic.
In this case, it is good old guilt by association. Never mind that the association is about who’s likely to be there rather than Trump himself. These aren’t the droids you’re looking for. Move along.
Well explicated, Glenn—this exactly encapsulates my reaction.