In Defense Of Donald Trump’s Heidi Cruz Tweet

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by MILO YIANNOPOULOS25 Mar 201611597

There’s been a lot of pearl-clutching lately over Donald Trump’s tweet about Heidi Cruz, in which he compared a flattering picture of his own wife to a particularly dour-looking snap of Cruz’s. Critics say Trump’s not-so-subtle attack on Heidi’s looks was un-presidential and uncalled for.

They’re wrong.

The first point to be made is that Trump didn’t start the wife-baiting. Make America Awesome, a Trump-opposing PAC founded by the mannish Liz Mair, started circulating a particularly raunchy image of Melania Trump, urging GOP primary voters to back Cruz. While Cruz didn’t authorise the ad himself, it was retweeted by many of his supporters. As always, the super PACs acted like a ninja assassins for its candidate. “It wasn’t me, your honour – it was those dastardly, nefarious PACs!”

Feminists call this sort of behaviour slut-shaming. I call it sexy-shaming. I’m really not sure what’s achieved by pointing out that your opponent has an attractive wife. Isn’t that a sign of success? Indeed Melania isn’t just a great beauty: she’s proven herself to be eloquent and willing to speak up about immigration, and she is the only non-dwarf (sorry Jeb) spouse to have gone through legal immigration, unless you count Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) himself of course.

Is there any reason to attack her looks, besides the jealousy of women who apparently have neither looks nor brains?

Trump’s critics have accused him of being over-the-top in his response.  Surely, say his critics, insulting a rival’s wife for being too ugly is simply crass, classless, and rude.

I agree. It’s all of those things. But that’s agood thing.

For decades, politics has been a competition of grievance. Politicians and activists win public sympathy by pretending to be hurt and offended. Those who are the most convincingly wounded win the day — and it’s the left, the masters of faux-offendedness, who tend to beat the competition.

Trump’s crass tweets and objectionable comments may not be comfortable reading for old-fashioned conservatives who appreciate decency and good manners, but they are helping to break the language codes that were primarily set up by the left, for the left. Trump is destroying old notions of what’s acceptable and unacceptable to say, and the primary losers of his new paradigm will be left-wingers and establishment types.

If Republicans learn anything from the unbelievable failure of Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign, it should be that “presidential” and “nice” don’t go together.  Isn’t it strange that elections follow the same rules as dating? Nice guys finish last. 

Republicans typically reject the “everybody gets a trophy” mentality that has invaded our culture, but if you insist, we can add up to the attractiveness quotient of Cruz’s wife and all of his alleged mistresses and compare the total with Melania. That ought to at least earn him a participation trophy.

To beat Hillary, Republicans must focus on getting more people under the tent, which means snagging Democrats. Would Trump gain the support of blue-collar working Democrats by tearfully apologizing to Cruz after the senator’s minions attacked his wife? He could actually alienate them with that behaviour. Outside of the D.C beltway, respect is gained by standing up for yourself, and punching back twice as hard.

You also need balls to tame the beast of political progressivism. Trump is facing attackers from all sides. GOP establishment members planning convention shenanigans to steal the nomination, RINOs like Rick Wilson promising to vote for Hillary Clinton over Trump, and Soros-funded goons from Black Lives Matter and MoveOn planning attacks on the democratic process.  The Donald knows that the best defense is a good offense, and that’s exactly the style we need to win the election.

Trump isn’t just changing politics, he’s changing culture. The grievance wars have created a daily reality of fear for people who fall foul of the hyper-offended, even when the offense is unintentional. When actor Drake Bell cracked a joke about calling Caitlyn Jenner “Bruce,” he faced an internet lynch-mob of people who were offended on Jenner’s behalf and was forced to apologise.

Taking offense is a sort of one-upmanship. If you’re offended, especially on behalf of an allegedly “marginalized” group, it signals you’re a part of the educated, progressive elite. This, from people who’ve never read a book outside 2 years of a Gender Studies degree.

This is the consensus that’s prevailed in politics and culture for more than a generation. There are only two significant forces that are putting up a fight against it: the anonymous pranksters of the internet, who reside on websites like 4chan and 8chan and delight in deliberately offending people, and Donald Trump.

Because Trump’s campaign is almost entirely self-funded, he has leeway to be a total asshole on the public stage. He doesn’t have to worry about what polite society thinks of him, because unlike the other candidates, he isn’t thinking about the next fundraising dinner in D.C.

This has given him the unique ability to smash our culture’s stifling language codes with a sledgehammer. In the process, he’s certainly lowering the tone — but it badly needs to be lowered. Only by totally ignoring people’s feelings can we end the left’s culture of grievance, offense, and victimhood.  It’s what I’ve been doing for years, and it’s what Trump is now doing on the national stage.

Sure, the rudeness is uncomfortable to decent conservatives who appreciate good manners and a civil tongue. But if we really want to beat the left, we need Trump’s crassness. A few mean tweets about Heidi Cruz is a small price to pay to end a quarter-century of grievance culture.

Follow Milo Yiannopoulos (@Nero) on Twitter and Facebook, or write to him at milo@breitbart.com. Android users can download Milo Alert! to be notified about new articles when they are published. 

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Trumpism and Reaganism

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by ROGER STONE AND PAUL NAGY15 Feb 2016

Nearly fifty years ago, former Vice President Spiro Agnew said, “A spirit of national masochism prevails, encouraged by an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals.”

That perfectly sums up today’s self-delegated protectors of American conservatism as, in their desperation to stop Donald Trump at all cost, hurl every pseudo intellectual invective their tiny little brains can conjure up.

Their attempt to define American conservativism is equivalent to the federal government shoving Common Core down the throats of states.

The essence of their criticism is that Trump is no Ronald Reagan because Reagan spent nearly forty years refining his political views. They say, Trump, on the other hand, doesn’t have any philosophical underpinnings except self-promotion and changes his positions on a whim.

Reagan revisionism is quite prevalent as the “impudent snobs” create their own narrative of the Gipper that is at odds with reality.

Ronald Reagan understood the most fundamental lesson of politics — winning. Yes, he had strong policy views, but acted with a strong sense of pragmatism. Growing up in Dixon, Illinois, and surviving the depression tends to put priorities in focus at the expense of useless rhetoric.

Tip O’Neill understood that when he declared, after Reagan took over the presidency, “We will cooperate with him in every way.” And the Democratic Congress did work with Ronald Reagan, most notably passing the 1983 Social Security Reform Act and 1986 Tax Reform Law.

The impudent snobs forget that Reagan raised taxes as governor of California to balance the budget. He also was not a life-long supply sider, but rather adopted the economic model at the behest of Jack Kemp in the 1970s — arguably his most important policy decision since it was the basis for the Kemp-Roth tax cuts of 1981, which in combination with Volcker’s Fed policies, broke the back of inflation and got America working again.

Interestingly, it is these same impudent snobs who castigated and minimized Kemp by saying that he was not really a pure enough conservative since he wanted to help rebuild the inner cities and appeal to blacks.

Another inconvenient truth is that Ronald Reagan had the support of the Teamsters Union. While he had his differences with unions on many issues, he also worked with them which should be no surprise since he had been head of the Screen Actors Guild in Hollywood (when he was a Democrat). And what is underreported is the role the unions played in his foreign policy vis a vis the Soviet Union.

And make no mistake, Reagan’s pragmatism could be construed as calculation. He took on Gerry Ford in 1976 — a sitting president of his own party. The case can be made that he was partly responsible for Ford’s defeat to Carter as he softened up the president in a very bruising primary campaign.

There are important similarities when you juxtapose this Ronald Reagan with Donald Trump.

Leader — sense of purpose — outsider — winner.

At their core, Reagan and Trump are men who know who they are. They were both successful before they entered politics and had an identity outside of politics. Ronald Reagan was purported to have said, in his self-deprecating way, “You know, it takes a little ego to run for president.”

And there is a certain transparency about both of them. They don’t pull any punches. Reagan did it with humor and humility interwoven with toughness. Trump does it with a caustic, in your face New York “state of mind.” And the voters get it — it resonates with them.

This is diametrically opposite those impudent snobs — Rich Lowry, George Will, Charles Krauthammer, Bill Kristol et al — who sit in their K Street offices and Fifth Avenue media towers critiquing others. Clearly the impudent snobs don’t get it as evidenced by the slew of cancellations the National Review has gotten since its blind side of Trump.

And what exactly is “American Conservatism” these snobs are supposedly protecting?

The conservatism of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) who just passed an outrageous federal budget that Barack Obama and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) were proud to support?

The conservatism of Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, who will jeopardize national security by not protecting our borders from illegal immigration and Muslim refugees all in the name of political correctness?

The conservatism of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney who pursued disastrous foreign policies that led to the unraveling of the Middle East — begun under their watch and finished with abandon by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, with a maniacal efficiency or stupidity, depending upon your perspective?

The conservatism of the corporate elites who use the mantra of “free trade” as a battering ram to sell out American workers and small business with adoption of multi-lateral trade agreements such as the Trans Pacific Partnership to enhance corporate profits?

The impudent snobs condemn Donald Trump for philosophical inconsistency and yet their notion of conservatism in 2016 is a mystery to many serious conservatives.

The allegations that Trump lacks a philosophy are a smokescreen to hide the real threat that Trump poses to those snobs and the political elite — access and money.

Simply put, Trump doesn’t need them — they have no leverage over the Donald.

Trump is operating totally outside the nexus of party insiders, the media, and corporate funders. He is truly independent unlike Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who likes to foster that perception, but in reality is owned lock stock and barrel by Goldman Sachs and the Bushes.

As Yogi Berra said, “It is déjà vu all over again.”

The 2016 campaign is becoming more and more reminiscent of the 1980 campaign when the establishment threw everything it had at Ronald Reagan. Reagan was characterized as a crackpot, b-grade movie actor whose foreign policy would cause World War III; his economic policies were “madness” and the tax cut proposal was “voodoo economics.”

Trump is in the same situation as Reagan was in 1976 and throughout the 1980 campaign until the convention in Detroit. And then, inexplicably to some conservatives, Reagan decided to put George H. W. Bush on the ticket as his vice president instead of Kemp.

Thus the political elites, inclusive of the impudent snobs, were able to salvage what would have been a near catastrophic situation — not having access and leverage on the presidency and the business of Washington.

Needless to say, politics is a very big business and, as the New York Timesrecently reported, Donald Trump is a nightmare for the political consulting business. The digital media buy alone for 2016 is estimated to be nearly $1 billion. Jeb Bush has paid one firm over $40 million for advertising through December. Additionally, $3 billion is spent annually to lobby Capitol Hill and the White House.

Donald Trump, like Ronald Reagan, has interjected a positive dynamic into the U.S. political lexicon — an anti-political correctness that resonates with voters. It is healthy for our country and severely needed within the Republican Party.

Americans are embracing Trump’s vison of making America great again, just as they embraced Reagan’s vision of America as that shinning city on the hill. Trump is very much a disciple of Ronald Reagan, contrary to what the impudent snobs say.

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Why Trump may be winning the war on ‘political correctness’

Supporters of Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump try to get autographs after his appearance at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum in Biloxi, Miss., on Jan. 2, 2016. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

By Karen Tumulty and Jenna Johnson January 4 at 9:53 PM   

Cathy Cuthbertson once worked at what might be thought of as a command post of political correctness — the campus of a prestigious liberal arts college in Ohio.

“You know, I couldn’t say ‘Merry Christmas.’ And when we wrote things, we couldn’t even say ‘he’ or ‘she,’ because we had transgender. People of color. I mean, we had to watch every word that came out of our mouth, because we were afraid of offending someone, but nobody’s afraid of offending me,” the former administrator said.

All of which helps explain why the 63-year-old grandmother showed up at a recent Donald Trump rally in Hilton Head Island, S.C., where she moved when she retired a year ago.

The Republican front-runner is “saying what a lot of Americans are thinking but are afraid to say because they don’t think that it’s politically correct,” she said. “But we’re tired of just standing back and letting everyone else dictate what we’re supposed to think and do.”

In the 2016 Republican presidential primary season, “political correctness” has become the all-purpose enemy. The candidates have suggested that it is the explanation for seemingly every threat that confronts the country: terrorism, illegal immigration, an economic recovery that is leaving many behind, to name just a few.

Trump captures the nation’s attention as he campaigns

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The presidential candidate and billionaire businessman leads the field in the Republican race.

Others argue that growing antipathy to the notion of political correctness has become an all-purpose excuse for the inexcusable. They say it has emboldened too many to express racism, sexism and intolerance, which endure even as the country grows more diverse.

“Driving powerful sentiments underground is not the same as expunging them,” said William A. Galston, a Brookings Institution scholar who advised President Bill Clinton. “What we’re learning from Trump is that a lot of people have been biting their lips, but not changing their minds.”

[Donald Trump’s provocative first TV ad raises the temperature of GOP race]

One thing is clear: Trump is channeling a very mainstream frustration.

In an October poll by Fairleigh Dickinson University, 68 percent agreed with the proposition that “a big problem this country has is being politically correct.”

It was a sentiment felt strongly across the political spectrum, by 62 percent of Democrats, 68 percent of independents and 81 percent of Republicans. Among whites, 72 percent said they felt that way, but so did 61 percent of nonwhites.

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“People feel tremendous cultural condescension directed at them,” and that their values are being “smirked at, laughed at” by the political and media elite, said GOP strategist Steve Schmidt.

Trump: 'We can't worry about being politically correct'

 

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Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said, "We can't worry about being politically correct," in remarks to a police association in Portsmouth, N.H. Trump provoked uproar by calling for Muslims to be blocked from entering the country after the recent shootings in California by two Muslims who authorities said were radicalized. (Reuters)

“ ‘Political correctness’ are the two words that best respond to everything that a conservative feels put upon,” added pollster Frank Luntz, who has advised Republicans. The label is, he said, a validation that what many on the right see as legitimate policy and cultural differences are not the same as racism, sexism or heartlessness.

“Allegations of racism and sexism have turned into powerful silencing devices,” Galston agreed. “You can be opposed to affirmative action without being a racist.”

The PC backlash does not necessarily mean that people support the kinds of things that Trump is saying, or the way he says them.

When the Fairleigh Dickinson pollsters added his name to the same question — prefacing it with “Donald Trump said recently . . . ” — the numbers dropped sharply. Only 53 percent said they agree that political correctness is a major problem.

This is not a new debate. It has raged since at least the early 1990s, when college campuses began adopting speech codes. Some went well beyond obvious slurs — with animal rights activists contending, for instance, that the word “pet”was disrespectful and should be changed to “companion animal.”

[The interesting evolution of political correctness]

More recently, the PC wars have flared again in academia, where there is an ongoing argument over whether campuses should be a “safe space” where students are protected from upsetting ideas, and receive “trigger warnings” when course material contains distressing information.

Few would argue that it is wrong to confront and eliminate prejudice. But even some liberals have called political correctness a form of McCarthyism aimed at stifling free expression.

Trump has brought the question from the university quad to the political arena in a way that no leading candidate has in the past.

For many, “it’s satisfying to have a loud tribune like Trump,” said David Axelrod, who was President Obama’s top campaign adviser. “But I don’t think the hunger for authentic plain speech is Trump-specific. One of the appeals of [Democratic presidential candidate] Bernie Sanders is that people think he says exactly what he thinks and is not passing it through a filter. There is a fundamental yearning for authenticity that is probably felt more broadly.”

All the people Donald Trump insulted in 2015

 

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Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump has publicly insulted at least 68 people or groups in 2015, many of them multiple times. Here is a comprehensive list. (Gillian Brockell,Thomas LeGro,Julio Negron/The Washington Post)

The edgy liberal comedian Bill Maher, who for nearly a decade hosted a talk show called “Politically Incorrect,” has said that Trump’s ideas sound “a little ­Hitler-adjacent.”

But he has also noted a yearning for “somebody to say, ‘You know what, I just don’t bend to your bull----.’ And Donald Trump, I’ve got to say, I don’t agree with him on a lot, but I kind of get him. We’ve been doing the same thing.”

Trump sounded the anti-PC clarion call at the first Republican debate in August, when moderator ­Megyn Kelly of Fox News challenged him on comments that he had made disparaging women.

“I think the big problem this country has is being politically correct,” he said. “I’ve been challenged by so many people, and I don’t frankly have time for total political correctness. And to be honest with you, this country doesn’t have time either. This country is in big trouble. We don’t win anymore. We lose to China. We lose to Mexico both in trade and at the border. We lose to everybody.”

[Donald Trump says we’re all too politically correct. But is that also a way to limit speech?]

It is hard to follow the logic of an argument that insulting women could somehow make the country stronger overseas. But the sentiment behind it came through clearly.

And it has been picked up by other GOP contenders.

“Political correctness is killing people,” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), because it prevents the Obama administration from focusing on the communications and activities of potential terrorists who are Muslims.

“Political correctness is ruining our country,” said former neurosurgeon Ben Carson, after he was criticized for saying a Muslim should not be president.

It is corrosive, Carson said in an interview, because “many people will not say what they believe because someone will look askance at them, call them a name. Somebody will mess with their job, their family. This was not supposed to be the way it was in America.”

Last month’s terrorist attack in San Bernardino, Calif., carried out by a Muslim couple who appear to have been inspired by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, has become a case in point for many conservatives.

They say political correctness has made the Obama administration too timid in calling it what it is — which is why Cruz and other Republicans taunt the president for not uttering the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism.”

“What animates ISIS is an ­apocalyptic religious philosophy. People look at that and don’t understand the unwillingness to say red is red and blue is blue,” Schmidt said. “We live in a post-fact America, where the facts are subordinate to the advancement of an ideology.”

Political strategists and others say a number of other forces are behind the backlash. It has both a cultural and an economic component, and it also reflects the continuing polarization that has grown deeper during Obama’s presidency.

“For many of these people, they played the game by the rules, and essentially, they got shafted,” Democratic pollster Peter Hart said.

Trump is “the voice of an aggrieved cohort in our society — lower-middle-income working whites who have taken the hit from the big changes in the economy, and are angry about it,” Axelrod said. “He creates a permission structure for others.”

Cuthbertson, for instance, made a connection between her frustrations over political correctness and the other things she sees going on around her.

“I look at what I get every month — and thank God, I was financially savvy and saved. I can’t live off Social Security. And you look at these people who have never worked and they’re having babies and they’re getting free rent and free food stamps and free medical care,” she said. “I couldn’t afford what they have on my Social Security, and I worked 50 years.”

“Something has to be done because we’re shrinking, we’re being taken over by people that want to change what America is,” she added. “You can’t say it nicely.”