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October 24, 2024 - 10:00am
Another week, another extraordinary claim in the legacy media about Donald Trump. This week, an Atlantic story has reported that the former president privately scorned the family of a murdered soldier, referred to her as a “fucking Mexican”, and once said: “I need the kind of generals that Hitler had.” The pre-election dust-up should frighten Democrats, whose champions in the media still do not understand why their fellow countrymen prefer Trump over establishment politicians.
Published on Tuesday, the story is written by Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg. “I’ve been interested in Trump’s understanding of military affairs for nearly a decade,” he writes. “This country had never seen, to the best of my knowledge, a national political figure who insulted veterans, wounded warriors, and the fallen with metronomic regularity.”
Goldberg goes on: “Today — two weeks before an election that could see Trump return to the White House — I’m most interested in his evident desire to wield military power, and power over the military, in the manner of Hitler and other dictators.”
The story is meant to serve as a comprehensive rundown of objectionable comments Trump made openly or allegedly about members of the military, some old and some new. From a journalistic standpoint, problems with the article abound. Key accusations are sourced to an anonymous “witness” and disputed by others who were in the room on the record.
Conservative columnist David Harsanyi pointed out that “in the old days” newspapers simply would not have run the reporting. “You have ‘anonymous’ sources up against a bunch of people who were there [who] deny hearing it. This new one is even less believable. Just complete journalistic malpractice,” he wrote. Meanwhile, former White House aide Ben Williamson seemingly caught the Atlantic changing a quotation he passed along on behalf of Trump’s onetime chief of staff Mark Meadows. The sister of the murdered soldier, along with others who were present at a meeting with the family, have disputed Goldberg’s reporting as well.
Nevertheless, Goldberg’s story immediately became the focus of Beltway media chatter, bouncing around TV news and even landing in a Tim Walz speech before the day was over. Yesterday, Kamala Harris called her opponent a “fascist” who wants “unchecked power”. This is a dangerous strategy for Democrats, but also reveals an even more dangerous misreading of the electorate. Princeton professor Matt Karp revealed this week that the Center for Working Class Politics “surveyed 1,000 Pennsylvania RVs and found that calling Trump a threat to democracy is Harris’s *least effective message* — with all voters and especially working-class voters”.
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SubscribeGreat photo. Well done.
“Trump, the Truculent Immortal”!
Trump went to a well regarded military academy for high school, and is therefore not uninformed about the armed services. He’s also, as a politician, been subject to a never ending smear campaign from establishment politicians and the media, much of it very dishonest.
McCain WAS part of the Establishment, the son and grandson of admirals, and the husband of a brewery heiress. I disliked the insults Trump lobbed at him, but I dislike our current set of elites, far more.
My father’s family served as commissioned officers in the Army in every war from the Civil War until Vietnam. Vietnam was very much a war engaged in by our upper crust elites, and of dubious strategic value. No one in our large family has served since, and why would we? Promotion through the officer corps is no long based on merit, but on skin color, and universities and corporations are far more congenial, even to suburban whites, than ROTC or OCS.
Worst still was how badly Vietnam tore out country apart, showcasing as it did the solipsism of well to do baby boomers versus their working class peers. The latter did nearly all of the fighting and dying in the rice paddies of the countryside, and in the streets of Saigon and Hue. The former ran our country into the ground, with asinine domestic domestic policies and continually bungled diplomacy abroad, from the Clinton era through Obama.
It’s time to hear from the other side of the divide, from the baby boomers and their descendants who didn’t go to law school, or take Harvard MBAs to Wall St and Silicone Valley. Factory workers, tradesmen, and farmers vote.
And those people are in the majority. A lot of them will choose Trump, if only because Biden’s administration has been a continual parade of disasters, from Afghanistan to the Green New Deal. And a lot of them feel Trump pays attention to their legitimate concerns, rather than simply slandering them as retrograde, racist neanderthals.
At least half of America doesn’t believe the things they’re told by our mainstream media. And for good reason.
After Racket News reporting earlier this week I could believe Keir Starmer’s Chief Of Staff could be behind this messaging.
CCDH is a shady organisation that we now know was behind the constant attacks on Jeremy Corbyn because he to was considered a “threat to democracy”
The question is who is Jeffrey Goldberg and to whom does he owe his allegiance?
And why is he engaging on the kind if disinformation that Clinton, Gore and the CCDH keep telling us is a threat to democracy?
He’s an old school neo-con in the Cheney mold.
“Worst still was how badly Vietnam tore out country apart, showcasing as it did the solipsism of well to do baby boomers versus their working class peers“. The most totable thing about Vietnam is how Trump was nowhere near the place.
The author has it right.
On the one hand, Trump speaks with the annoying brashness, hyperbole, and offensiveness of a New Jersey Used Car Dealer. Yet when measured by actions, instead of cheap words, Trump’s previous Administration gave us good economic policy that led to the longest economic expansion in US history. He was also the first US President in over 50 years to have not engaged the US in some sort of foreign war somewhere on the globe. His hyperbole suggested unpredictability which meant that bad actors around the world didn’t start wars (not knowing what he’d do in response). And he gave us new Supreme Court Justices who – rather than making new law out of thin air and against the powers invested by the US constitution – merely uphold the rule of law as intended, thereby forcing duly-elected legislatures to make law.
With Joe and Kamala, we have sickeningly sweet words dripping from their mouths as if they’re being elected to host a very important high-society cocktail party in New York City. But Kamala’s four years of non-action as the Czar of the Border and Biden’s disastrous foreign policy blunders and promises of “transitory” inflation after which we had years of inflation trouble suggest that they’re merely talkers, not doers.
They’ll be far more successful waxing eloquent at future cocktail parties, with fellow wealthy progressive socialites bobbing their heads in the affirmative, than as President of the United States.
And this is largely why Democrats stick with the Hit|er theme. They want people to fear what *might* happen, rather than look at what *has* happened…
…and by calling Trump “Hit|er” (like it’s 2015 all over again) they are defining a future progressive ‘Resistance’ movement against a Trump Administration as if progressive activists will be guerrilla freedom fighters rather than insurrec.tionists or terro.rists. Never mind what they all said about Jan 6. In short, should Trump win, the actions that would label someone an insurrec.tionist during Biden’s Presidency will miraculously be considered patriotism on Day One of a Trump Administration. Because, you know, he’s Hit|er. Or something.
Excellent summary. Actions do speak loudly. Words, not so much.
It is notable that liberals are mostly focused on the things Trump says. Conservatives, on the other hand, are mostly focused on the things Trump has done. Therein lies the difference. If you talk nice, you can get the liberal vote and then do whatever you want once in office.
I’ve heard it put that his enemies take him literally but not seriously, while his supporters take him seriously but not literally.
Conservatives (and others) also focus on what Trump has not done – like taking the US into another ill advised conflict/war. Jaw jaw is better than….
I guess it’s normal for the final two weeks of a campaign for the rhetoric to become ever more shrill, but take a step back and it is transparently obvious that the Harris campaign knows they are losing badly and have run out of ideas to recover.
Forget the polls, look at the betting. The Democrats are going get beaten, even though they will win, as usual, the popular vote. Harris has progressively squandered her ‘joy’ bounce from when she was nominated, and I expect they do secretly acknowledge that it is her that has lost it.
DJT has ploughed on exactly as he always has – he’s a known quantity. Harris, on the other hand, has simply been exposed to the wider electorate and they don’t like what they see (and hear).
It’s almost as if the democratic primaries of 4 years ago, where she won not a single delegate, might have been indicative of something. Hmmm.
I am becoming less convinced the Dems will even win the popular vote. Kamala really is that bad!
The joy campaign was going nowhere so they have resorted to the old playbook – shrill and divisive rhetoric to paint their opponent as the devil. People aren’t buying it anymore. You aren’t persuading undecideds with more of the same.
Even this specific allegation was levied about 4 years ago and is old news from their old playbook. Unfortunately for the Harris and the Dems, everybody actually at the meeting in question, including the murdered womans family, have vigorously denied the allegations against Trump.
I agree. This attack line unlikely to resonate with the small ‘undecideds’ who are going determine the Election. The ‘F*cist’ term way overused IMO to the point it becomes meaningless or completely counter-productive.
That said Trump far from a defender of the Constitution. The notion there is a clear separation of powers for good reason either something beyond his comprehension or he thinks the c10years the Founding Fathers pondered and distilled the principles leading to the most successful Nation ever something worthless, and he knows better…in the way he thinks he knows better than anyone on anything.
He may well win, esp if Harris makes mistakes like this. Quite what we all get then nobody can be sure. It won’t be all the things his supporters might hope for sure. He’s lying to them as much as anyone else.
‘The notion there is a clear separation of powers for good reason either something beyond his comprehension….’
I remember Kamala Harris being educated on this exact point by Joe Biden in the 2020 Democratic Primary debates.
She just laughed.
That’s generally what she does in most situations.
Perhaps Nigel Farage will be over on November 8th to tell her “You’re not laughing any more”.
I question your assumption that the attack/fascist strategy is intended to sway the undecided. If it was a new line, perhaps that might be true, but it is too well worn. The undecideds have heard it yet remain undecided. Hearing it yet again will change nothing for them. I suspect the real strategy behind doubling down on this shrill fear mongering is to motivate the highest percentage of her base possible to vote. That may well be her only path to victory…or so she may think.
There’s no purpose. It’s just desperation.
Yep you might be right on that. Fair point. Alot going to be about who can get the supporters out to vote
Can you show me where this man who is allegedly “far from a defender of the Constitution” has attacked the First and Second Amendments? Because I can show you where Kamala and scores of Dems are hostile to both.
When a candidate takes two days off at this stage of a campaign, she realizes she’s toast. I hope the woman-beating Second Gentleman lays in enough vodka to take the edge of her rages.
They’re both symptoms of a system that’s broken by now – neither is a saviour nor particularly worse than the other. Given the reaction to your post, it looks like Unherd currently caters for “herd the other direction” though, and the emptying of the centre is probably the most dangerous thing against stability. This is exactly what’s happening now.
We humans do like to run in herds. And that’s not such a bad thing. It simplifies complexity, and we humans are terrible at dealing with complexity.
That’s why I favor Donald Trump in this election. He has the best approach to complexity, to probe at a problem and take small steps to solve it. Then see what happens. If an experiment works, follow it up. If it fails, abandon it.
That is much better than a plan or policy approach. And it tacks to the center rather than either extreme. As president, Donald Trump was an extreme moderate, not a conservative.
Kamala enabled the invasion of America. She was figurehead of a coup against Biden. She has never led anything in the private sector. Don’t hide her great achievements.
A masterful display of false equivalents. Well done, sir.
I can agree with this sentiment, but I think the vast, vast majority of all politicians don’t care about the constitution, or separation of powers. I always circle back to the fact there are a dozen Trumps around the globe right now. There’s a reason for that.
I don’t think there is a single “other Trump” anywhere in the world now, and I don’t think there will be in my lifetime. He is entirely unique.
There has always been a dozen Trumps around the World, in fact far more. Think about the Communist Eastern bloc, Franco, Salazar, the Greek Generals, etc and this is before we get into S America and Africa equivalents. The actual underlying trend remains the other way, despite some bumps. It’s about how far back one stands to observe.
Blimey, you do write some hysterical nonsense. Next you’ll be comparing him to Nero and Dracula.
Trump obeyed every court action Judges put in his way. Biden/Harris ignored or flouted them. Trump never had the IRS “visit” journalists uncovering negative news. Trump never backed jailing indefinitely accused violators of trespass laws. Trump never weaponized the bureaucracy to censor and intimidate opponents. Please stop the bs.
Tell him to use some main verbs as well.
He thinks the bureaucratic shorthand makes him appear knowledgeable and au courant with the powers that be, doncha know?
Like he obeyed handing back Classified documents?
He’s promised to lock up up quite a few he doesn’t like and makes no reference to the rule of law.
He’s promised to lock up up quite a few he doesn’t like
Quite a few of them richly deserve to be locked up. Hillary Clinton for starters, plus the bureaucrats who’ve repeatedly lied under oath to Congress and over such matters as the laptop. And you know as well as I do that Joe Biden has been on the take for decades.
It’s stupid to take sides in American politics because there are no good guys.
Under the actual law as written President Trump mishandled no documents.
Under the actual law as written President Trump mishandled no documents. President Trump knew to fulfill border laws. President Trump actually supports law enforcement. And the Constitution. If you missed that perhaps you were distracted.
He may well win, esp if Harris makes mistakes like this.
Do you really think Harris has any agency in any of this? The woman can barely even remember most of the lines they’ve given her.
Bit of sexism seeped off that. Always an indicator when the exponent states ‘the Woman’ or ‘that Woman’. Careful as it then says more about the person using that sort of phrase.
Yawn.
If straw men were soldiers you could rule the world. Fortunately …
Woman that does not feel that comment was sexist in any way.
Are you a woman?
I use phrases like the woman, that blo*dy woman, frequently.
Why the need to be careful? Careful in case of what?
What would your preferred turn of phrase be?
Accusations of “sexism” hurled from a shill for a candidate that treats the concept of “woman” as a mere myth is a fascinating development.
TDS reaching fever pitch is the clearest sign that Dems know they are going to lose and lose badly.
My feeling is that returning to the dictator theme is because they need to shore up a wavering Democrat vote – the Democrats seem to be really worried about male black Americans switching to Trump. It’s not going to win over anyone else.
However, the level of desperation also has a potential side-effect for the journalists involved.
A strange effect of the last eight years is how the name recognition of journalists has changed. In prior times, they would write articles but, in many ways, who they were didn’t really matter to readers – they were just a byline name (with the exception of a very small handful with personal columns). It was the masthead that carried the viewpoint.
Now, there is a much stronger sense of who the writer is. For those who have moved to independent publishing this has been a good thing. But it has also exposed journalists in the mainstream who play politics or who toe party lines, to the point that their names generate groans and instant disbelief or skepticism. So when the next scandal pops-up, readers check who is writing about it and who is saying it, before deciding whether it has any interest. By turning the audience off, and by generating disbelief, these squeaky-wheel ‘journalists’ eventually become toxic to the media brands they work for. Good journalism only works because it is done without fear or favour.
Most journalist in the past tried to come across as dispassionate observers, they were generally accepted by the public as such. When they became activists for one cause or another, they lost the trust of the general public. A lot of the media are now part of the problem, they are no longer messengers
They are ass-kissing parasites, courtiers, courtesans, and court jesters but lack the self-awareness to grasp any of this. And they know nothing — history, economics, science or hard work.
The same revulsion holds for brand names like the NYT, the WaPo. the alphabet networks, cable news, the magazines owned by plutocrats like the Atlantic Magazine, and the “expert” class generally. They blew their credibility in a different way than Kamala and Willie, but the fact remains it is gone.
whose champions in the media still do not understand why their fellow countrymen prefer Trump over establishment politicians.
oh, those champions understand. It’s precisely why they keep using this sort of “argument.” It’s all they have. And not to be overly pedantic but for journalists to be “bad at their jobs,” they must first be journalists. Almost none are, certainly on the Dem side. They are activists, stenographers, and often shills, but not reporters.
These are the same people who insisted time and again that Joe Biden was perfectly lucid until it became impossible to do so. These are the people who spun from viewing Kamala as Joe’s biggest liability to treating like her a female George Washington. These are the people who pushed the collusion hoax, the ‘laptop is Russian disinformation’ lie, the ‘fine people on both sides’ lie, the claim that Trump told people to drink bleach, and on and on and one.
It’s extraordinary they think they can still get away with it. Someone should print up 1,000 copies of The Boy Who Cried Wolf and distribute it throughout the US media as well as at the BBC, Guardian etc.
Biden and Harris want to abolish the electoral college, fiddle the SC so that it has a Democrat majority and quietly get rid of freedom of speech.
And suppress/destroy/jail their opponents. All to “save our democracy”.
Media: Trump is worse that Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin.
What have they got against Pol Pot and Genghis Khan?
Don’t forget Mao.
The playground equivalent of “you smell funny”.
How does Trump differ from Hitler exactly? I mean, I know he is taller, and doesn’t have a moustache. I also suspect Hitler wasn’t orange, although I have mostly only seen him in black and white photos.
Reminds me of an SNL sketch back in 1988 when George Bush and Michael Dukakis were the presidential candidates. The joke was Dukakis would be unfit president because of his height (Only 5′ 8 1/2″).
Maybe the Trump campaigners should run with that playground slur in response to the Harris “fascist” one… it has a similar ring of desperation. Such is the line of intelligent campaigning, as for policies from both candidates “Where’s the beef?”.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heights_of_presidents_and_presidential_candidates_of_the_United_States
Maybe Ron DeSantis should be President. I mean, he is REALLY tall.
The latest disgusting false accusations are blatant dog whistling to inspire yet another assassin to attempt to murder Trump. Nothing more, nothing less.
I think the article suggests that the accusations are unwise, not that they are untrue.
On the question of Hitler’s generals, there was no disagreement among the Allies that they were far better than ours, nor that the average German soldier was better than his British counterpart. They were fitter and stronger and had the benefit of a stimulant that made benzedrine seem like pablum. They could fight three days and nights without rest. Then they collapsed but by then they had accomplished prodigies of war. Churchill often commented how quickly Tommies were to surrender en masse. He was ashamed of how easily a big army surrendered at Singapore compared to the long battle Americans and Filipinos put up at Corregidore. Many in his government commented dispairingly in diaries and memoirs how well Germans fought. Had Hitler not been as mad as a rabid dog — his own drug use was stupendous — the Wehrmacht generals would never have risked a two-front war or brought the Americans into the the fight three days after Pearl Harbor by throwing in their lot with Japan.
The Germans lost against the Russians though.
See “two front war” comment above…
They were beaten by the Russian winter.
It’s hard to win against an opponent with virtually unlimited manpower, and the willingness to use it profligately. Ask the Ukes.
The Russians (then, as now) had no issue with feeding their soldiers into a meatgrinder.
This is not a bug but a feature of the German system of the time though. Had he not been a mad rabid dog, he wouldn’t have managed to do the things he did to get him there in the first place.
When I read the headline to this article I thought it would be about the New York Times, not the Atlantic. The New York Times ran its John Kelly story where a reporter got John Kelly to tell stories that contradict his prior statements. He called Donald Trump a Hitler and a fascist and all manner of things. He came off as unbelievable.
The New York Times also ran a story where an expert on fascism called Donald Trump a fascist. Except if you actually read the story to the end you find that he didn’t. He couldn’t bring himself to call Donald Trump a fascist ,as he is clearly not.
This UnHerd article could easily be about the Wall Street Journal. It too has been calling Donald Trump names like Hitler and fascist, and calling its insults reporting.
The whole news media has gone insane in the last few days. I’ve never seen anything like it. I have no idea how this election will turn out, but I will be glad when it’s over.
“I need the kind of generals that Hitler had.”
That’s really very funny.
‘I’m most interested in his evident desire to wield military power, and power over the military, in the manner of Hitler and other dictators.”’
He missed the news then, where Trump talked about getting rid of nukes, peace with Russia, less war not more war.
‘ . Some Trump fans actually defend and enjoy his crassness,’
That’s because it is funny.
One day America will get its sense of humour back.
At least Trump has a sense of humour. The “peace with Russia” comment is hilarious.
Would you rather a war spear headed by the American woke brigade.
They haven’t exactly done a good job of that so far.
They forgot the necessity of the things you need to fight a war, like ammunition production, and cheap energy.
Comic and tragic.
Well, at least Hitler’s generals weren’t walking around in lipstick and frocks at Alamein and Stalingrad.
Indeed. I doubt they would have had time for such things as ‘climate diplomacy’ either.
“The pre-election dust-up should frighten Democrats, whose champions in the media still do not understand why their fellow countrymen prefer Trump over establishment politicians“. I imaginer that a lot of Americans prefer Trump to Harris for the same reason that a lot of Germans preferred Hitler to von Papen.
The reason many Americans prefer Trump to Harris isn’t easily understood by not-Americans; especially the citizens of a prison colony that surrendered their only defense should an actual fash cyst (edited to appease and o, the irony) ever come to power.
Kamala seems to know so much what Trump will do as a president, but can’t articulate what she will do
So bored of the nazi/ fascist/ far right extremist line of attack from so called liberal progressives with wonky moral compasses. When are they going to grow up and engage like adults?
The people deploying the Hitker smear don’t use it for votes. They use it to inspire violence, preferably Trump’s murder.