Hearing What You Want to Hear

Over the weekend Upfront With Mike Gousha featured a Donald Trump supporter and what he liked about the Republican frontrunner as a Presidential candidate.  The Trump backer said that he liked the billionaires stance on the issues--and that all of the "media stuff" he just "tunes out".  But after The Donald did a tour of major market radio station talk shows on Monday, I have to wonder what this (and really all) Trump supporter has ever managed to hear.

A review of the interviews finds Trump contradicting his own statements and positions repeatedly.  Often in the same interview--sometimes even in the same answer to one question.  There are no specifics when it comes to economic recovery and expansion, fighting terrorism, addressing illegal immigration ("we're gonna build a wall" is not a specific plan) or cutting deficit spending in Washington.  "I'll get it done", "It'll be great" and "It will be huge" are not sufficient answers to instill the trust of people when it comes to solving big problems.

So I have to ask the Upfront guest: what isn't the "media stuff"?  Perhaps the hosts didn't ask Trump the right questions--since there was a lot of talk about nude photos of his wife, pictures of his wife that he tweeted comparing her to Ted Cruz's wife, whose fault it was that the race had become about the candidate's wives, his comments about women, his denial of making comments about women and blaming women for his comments about women.  By the way, you can add Vicki McKenna to his list of "female enemies"--he hung up on her during their interview yesterday.

When he comes to Appleton on Wednesday, I'll have to take the tape and edit out all of the so-called "media stuff" from Trump's speech and play back just the substantive material--the parts where he addresses the serious issues of the day, provides a detailed plan for addressing that problem, and does so in a consistent and plausible way.  I'm guessing Thursday's My Two Cents may be the shortest in history.  Although Trump's hardcore supporters will tell you its the greatest thing they've ever heard.