Trump Bullies, Boasts and Bullshits in Bernie's Burlington

By Terry J. Allen, In These Times

11 January 16

 

Sitting in the audience was like watching blood dry—a convergence of the compellingly grotesque and the mind-numbingly boring.

onald Trump held a private party disguised as campaign event on January 7 in a 1,400-seat theater in in Burlington, Vt. Sitting in the audience was like watching blood dry—a convergence of the compellingly grotesque and the mind-numbingly boring. Grotesque, I had expected, but having seen clips of Trump, I anticipated being entertained by his clownish braggadocio and fact-challenged hyperbole.

No such luck. The rambling, disjointed speech he burbled in the heart of Bernie’s base was a exercise in dull, smug narcissism. Like a kitten distracted by a shiny object, Trump rambled from point to point. His only unifying themes were bullying, bullshit and boast. The bullying was aimed at people either too politically weak (refugees and immigrants) or too distant to counter his weak-wristed slaps (every other candidate—none of whom could match to his exemplary standards of deal making, intelligence, courage, wealth, and charm).

But for his fans, the verbal effluvia fertilized their enthusiasm. And the boasts, a simulacrum of substance, formed the core of the talk. On video, the bragging seems amusingly ridiculous, but in person, mouthed by an actual human, it is strangely childish, sad, and barely coherent—like listening to lonely, beer sodden frat boys declare their drinking and sexual prowess.

Waving his arms like a stoned discus hurler, Trump referred endlessly to himself. He declared, with mock amazement that people called him “plainspoken.” But I went to an Ivy League School, Wharton, and have the most extensive vocabulary of any candidate. Maybe plainspoken is a compliment, he pondered. He went on to prove the point by patting himself on the back for nailing his rivals, all of them, with just the perfect word: “stupid.” He also crowed that he had the highest IQ of any candidate.

The crowd swallowed the red meat and spit out the facts. One attendee said she loved Trump because he represented the idea that anyone who works hard can get rich—not just people who are given things for nothing or—creating her own irony-free zone—get $1 million handed to them. (That exact sum, which Trump described as “a small loan” from his father, was Trump’s start-up money, later enhanced by a $40 million inheritance.) What did she think of the fact that the greatest predictor of wealth in America is parental wealth? “I disagree,” she replied.

On the rare occasions Trump referred to actual policy or politics, he created an alternative universe in which he held, or deserved, the starring role. The Iran deal was a negotiating disaster—Obama is the worst negotiator in the world, he declared—because America paid billions to Iran to sign. (The deal mostly freed Iran’s own frozen assets.) He would have solved the Iran negotiations by walking out of the room until the intimidated Iranians caved.

Misinformation, deception and lies marked the planning and execution of the event as well as the content. The campaign apparently feared opponents and Bernie supporters might pack the room or get tickets and boycott the show, leaving an embarrassingly empty hall. So to ensure an adequate selection of true-believers, Trump issued 20,000 online tickets— for a 1,400-seat venue. The exponential overbooking created a pre-event line that stretched for blocks. At the theater door, Trump’s minions screened the ticket holders and turned away anyone who admitted not being a supporter or even being undecided.

The ruse not only dissed his own followers, who had stood for hours in the cold, but risked sparking public disorder. After word came out regarding its massive ticket dump, the Trump camp “stopped returning the department’s calls,” said annoyed Burlington Police Chief Brandon del Pozo.

A secret service officer regularly detailed to campaign events across the country said he had never seen or heard of such overbooking.

The city of Burlington, less than thrilled by Trump’s high handedness and disregard for public safety, also lamented the cost to taxpayers of dealing with the circus. A spokesperson said the campaign will get a bill for the mess, but since, as Trump boasts, he runs a self-funded vanity campaign, the bill will go straight to The Donald—and presumably The Trash Bin.

Nor was the theater’s executive director delighted. He had been promised a no-sign event only to have Trump people distribute stacks of campaign signs inside the elegant old hall. “They lied to us,” he told VtDigger.com, shaking his head, telling an assistant to not bother to try to take them back.

Meanwhile hundreds of protesters, including several state politicians, filled the street opposite the theater to chant, play music, and rally the anti-Trump and pro-Bernie forces. Anger at Trump’s fascism, racism, misogyny, and anti-immigrant and refugees attacks was blended with humor. One group, in Star Wars storm trooper garb, held aloft a large sign proclaiming “The Dark Side for Trump.” The Kountry Kart Deli, adjacent to the theater, offered a Donald Trump sandwich: Bologna on white bread, “filled with B.S. (bacon slices).”

As the evening wore on the hundreds of protesters outside were joined by the few who had made it inside, raised a ruckus, and were ejected by Trump goons. In his speech, after claiming he loved the 1st amendment as much as the 2nd, Trump informed the audience that this was a private event because he had bought and paid for the space, and protesters were not welcome. If anyone disrupts, he told the attendees, drown them by chanting “Trump” until security can dispose of them. Scattered outburst did indeed punctuate the talk, and while Trump at first declared himself amused, he soon turned vindictive. Throw them out, he ordered of one disruptor, but “confiscate” his coat.

Media were supposed to be relegated to the very back of the hall and were advised to bring extenders for their cameras. Since I lacked a massive lens or a liking for following orders, I just took a seat up front. The better to bask in Trump’s golden glow and see the show from the crowd’s perspective.

But in the end it was poor entertainment and even poorer politics. More bored than outraged, I left before the sad spectacle ended and joined the companionable assembly gathered outside.

Why Sean Penn's El Chapo Meeting Was an 'Epic Insult' to Imperiled Mexican Journalists

By Peter Holley, The Washington Post

11 January 16

 

s the Mexico City bureau chief for the Dallas Morning News for almost two decades, Alfredo Corchado has been on the front lines of the journalistic struggle to document the brutal toll of drug violence across Mexico.

That struggle is among the world’s deadliest, with more than 60 Mexican journalists killed or having disappeared over the past decade, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

“Mexico is one of the world’s most dangerous countries for journalists,” according to Reporters Without Borders. “They are threatened and murdered by organized crime or corrupt officials with impunity. The resulting climate of fear leads to self-censorship and undermines freedom of information.”

Stories about government corruption, Mexico’s middle-class exodus and drug violence have placed Corchado on the receiving end of numerous death threats that have forced him to flee the country for months at a time. Like many of his courageous Mexican contemporaries, he has attempted to forge ahead, even as entire regions of the embattled nation — Sinaloa, Tamaulipas and Durango — have had their independent media silenced by the specter of violence.

In these places, Corchado notes, nobody prints anything without cartel approval, including — it would seem — Sean Penn.

For Corchado and many of his colleagues, therein lies the problem with the American actor’s controversial first-person account of meeting with the notorious drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. Corchado said the story — published Saturday by Rolling Stone and submitted for Guzmán’s approval before it was made public — is evidence of the inherent conflict between journalism and entertainment.

“When you’re not really challenging the person and have agreed to submit the story for approval, it sounds more like a Hollywood entertainment,” Corchado, who was recently named the borderlands director of Arizona State’s Walter Cronkite’s School of Journalism, told The Washington Post. “It’s not on par with the sacrifice of many of my colleagues in Mexico and throughout the world who have lost their lives fighting censorship.”

“Is he serving the public or is he aggrandizing himself?” he added, referring to Penn.

#Chapo and #Hollywood, #SeanPenn? Of course, it makes sense. Just don't call it #journalism...

— Alfredo Corchado (@ajcorchado) January 10, 2016

To describe #chapo #SeanPenn mtg as an interview is an epic insult to journalists who died in name of truth . https://t.co/PANaKK1trO

— Alfredo Corchado (@ajcorchado) January 10, 2016

It’s a question that has rippled across the journalism world, with the Rolling Stone story drawing as much criticism as it has undoubtedly drawn clicks.

@StephenLosey Thank you. Penn's Tequila stunt was indeed offensive to the good people that risk their lives to get the truth out there.

— Ildefonso Ortiz (@IldefonsoOrtiz) January 10, 2016

As The Post’s Dana Priest reported in December, newspaper readers in Mexico “are unaware of the life-and-death decisions editors make every day not to anger different local cartel commanders.”

Hildebrando “Brando” Deandar Ayala — editor in chief of El Mañana, one of the oldest and largest newspapers in the region with a print circulation of 30,000 — told Priest that submitting to cartel censorship demands is a self-preservation tactic.

“You do it or you die, and nobody wants to die,” he told The Post. “Auto censura — self-censorship — that’s our shield.”

He added: “The readers hate us sometimes. But they don’t know the real risks we go through.”

Priest’s report noted that “four El Mañana journalists have been killed in the past 10 years. Others survived assassination attempts, kidnappings, and grenade and machine-gun attacks on their offices. Deandar has been shot, kidnapped and had his home set on fire, he said.”

How many of these journalists did El Chapo order killed? https://t.co/yxHzBL8qih …

— MacGregorSmithsonian (@Jeff__MacGregor) January 10, 2016

The report added:

The three largest U.S. newspapers nearby — the Brownsville Herald, the Monitor in McAllen, Tex., and the Laredo Morning Times — forbid their reporters from crossing to report because it’s too dangerous, according to the editors at the newspapers.

Pity that Sean Penn didn't ask #ElChapo about Mexico's missing and murdered journalists, many of whom were victims of drug cartel attacks

— David Agren (@el_reportero) January 10, 2016

To many observers, Penn’s sometimes playful prose revealed a troubling admiration for the man who “is one of the main players in the country’s bloody drug wars, which have claimed at least 100,000 lives over the last decade,” according to Quartz.

“As you dive deeper into the meandering mess, it becomes clear that Penn holds some sort of Hollywood-inspired reverence for El Chapo,” Gawker’s Melissa Cronin writes in a post that catalogues the story’s worst lines.

For others, Penn’s controversial account was reminiscent of the magazine’s 9,000-word debacle about a gang rape at the University of Virginia that never occurred.

Jeet Heer, a senior editor for the New Republic, alluded to the fabricated account on Twitter, writing: “Rolling Stone sets standard journalist ethics aside to get story that will attract enormous attention. What could go wrong?”

Others, such as Vice correspondent Danny Gold, called out journalists for their hypocrisy. He argued that Penn did what any other journalist desperate for the most sought-after scoop in the world would have done, according to CNN.

“Never a fan of Penn’s journalism,” Gold wrote, “but me and every other journo would have compromised a whole lot more to get an interview with El Chapo. Anyone else who says otherwise is lying.”

MSNBC’s Chris Hayes noted that ethical considerations have a way of becoming immaterial in the face of “enormous traffic.”

But the piece will generate enormous traffic & editorial norms are extremely weak in the face of the implacable logic of competitive markets

— Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) January 10, 2016

Sean Penn infiltrated a dangerous Mexican drug cartel leading to the apprehension of a wanted killer and everyone’s criticizing his prose?

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) January 10, 2016

Sean Penn farting with Chapo pretty much sums this up https://t.co/8oNJHezdPm #FlatulenceJournalism

— Nick Miroff (@NickMiroff) January 10, 2016

Sean Penn is the thinking man's Dennis Rodman.

— Ben Schwartz (@benschwartzy) January 10, 2016

Joel Simon, the executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, told The Post that he would let the media debate the ethics of Penn’s actions. Before making a judgement, however, he suggested that people consider the degree of self-censorship occurring in communities across Mexico. Journalists in Mexico, he noted, receive no protection from their government, which is often complicit in the risks they take to write about.

Considering that meetings with high-level cartel members and the media are “highly unusual,” but not unheard of, he said the actor’s story should be judged by what it reveals.

“Should journalists ever interview criminals?” Simon asked. “I would say sure.”

“But if you as a journalist interview someone like El Chapo, you better deliver some valuable and important information, in my view,” he added. “In this particular instance, he had an assignment for a highly visible and important publication, and whether he delivered a story worthy of the risks he took, that’s something the editors have to decide and the media itself should be debating.”

The leader of the Sinaloa cartel, who had been locked up in what has been described as the country’s most impenetrable prison, was recaptured in western Mexico after a shootout that left five dead.

Noting how rare such an interview is, Corchado said he hopes some insight will come from giving the public any glimpse of the criminal mastermind. And yet, he’s still troubled by how the information was acquired.

“Do I or other journalists wish we would have gotten the interview?” he added. “Of course, but I doubt that we would have been provided with the same protections of a Hollywood star. The interview also came with big strings attached, like final approval by Chapo of the article. That amounts to similar censorship that my Mexican colleagues face today. Except if they don’t comply, they may not live to tell about it.”