The Republican primary race is heating up even though the first actual contest in Iowa is still six months away. The first debate among the candidates is scheduled for August but which members of the already crowded field will meet the criteria set by the. Republican National Committee is still unknown.
Another big unknown is whether serial sex abuser Donald Trump (SSAT) will take part in the debates. Typically, a candidate who is far ahead in the polls (like SSAT is) will try to avoid taking part in debates, and those who are far behind are eager to do so. The low-ranking candidates seek to raise their national profile by appearing on a national stage on an equal footing with their competitors while the high ranking ones want to deny them that opportunity.
So logically, it would make sense for SSAT to decide not to take part in the debates and I suspect that at least some of his advisors are recommending that. But of course SSAT, being the narcissist that he is, loves media attention and the chance of being on national TV before a large audience would be very hard for him to resist. And being an egomaniac, he is probably supremely confident that he could destroy all his rivals with his lies and insults. He loves live TV because his lies come so thick and fast that it is impossible to fact check them in real time.
But there is another primary race going on in the background and that is the Murdoch primary, the race to see who will be chosen by Rupert Murdoch to get the coveted backing of Fox News. Murdoch has sent signals that he thinks SSAT is a loser and that his main rival Ron DeSantis does not have what it takes.
On Wednesday, The New York Times reported Murdoch “has privately told people” he wants to see Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) enter the race.
…Murdoch’s reported pick came as his media organizations — including Fox News — soured on his initial choice to take on Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), amid the governor’s faltering campaign.
On Tuesday, Rolling Stone reported that Murdoch and top Fox executives had “grown increasingly displeased” with the DeSantis campaign’s “perceived stumbles, lackluster polling, and inability to swiftly dethrone Trump.” Relations between Murdoch and Trump have also gone south in recent years.
Murdoch, as is well known, loves money and power and to build up his personal empire more than anything else, and is willing to support anyone who furthers that agenda, even if they might, on the surface, not be aligned with his generally conservative idology. After all, in the UK, he did support Tony Blair and his so-called ‘New Labour’ neoliberal program, after Blair genuflected before him.
As a calculated act of homage it worked and both [Murdoch-owned] Times and Sun stood by Blair almost to the end.
Blair’s party hated him for it, but it worked, albeit at a price of ministerial pandering to the redtop agenda and to what they imagined Murdoch wanted. He rarely told them, leaving it to editors and politicians to second-guess his secret desires. But there were always policy favours to be had, hugely lucrative sports rights on TV and anything which undermined the hated BBC. The Alastair Campbell and “dodgy dossier” episode did Labour no harm with Murdoch. Blair famously called Romano Prodi, the Italian prime minister, on Murdoch’s behalf.
But Murdoch and Fox News have less flexibility in the US these days. As the post-2021 election fiasco demonstrated, their viewers and readers do not take kindly to any lack of loyalty to their Dear Leader, as was revealed by their anger and Fox’s plummeting ratings when the network called the election for Joe Biden. While Fox News still does have some power to shape right wing messaging, their viewers also have demonstrated their power to prevent Fox News from straying too far from the Trump orbit.
So Murdoch has to step carefully, as can be seen by him using background briefings about whom he would like to see as the nominee.
Rolling Stone reported that Murdoch and top Fox executives had “grown increasingly displeased” with the DeSantis campaign’s “perceived stumbles, lackluster polling, and inability to swiftly dethrone Trump
Duh. All you have to do is listen to the guy for a few minutes to realize that he has all of the charm and charisma of a box of dung beetles. Generally, I am not a fan of pegging people with childish names, but calling him Ron Dung-Beetle seems to fit. After all, he spends all of his time pushing shit.
… pandering to the redtop agenda …
What, can some UK-stani tell me, is that? (Yes, I searched; no, I couldn’t find it.)
jimf @ # 1 -- Please view the amazing film Microcosmos before disparaging dung beetles -- at the screening I saw, the dung-beetle scene got spontaneous applause from the audience.
Pierce:
“Welcome to tabloid journalism, a place where skewed views, salacious factoids and unsubstantiated theories scream for attention in the British red top papers such as the Sun, Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, Daily Express and Daily Star. “Red top” because of their bright red mastheads that cherry pick bits of news to laud or lampoon. Tabloids wield enormous influence not just over the culture of the country but over politics too, so much so that nearly every single prime minster in the U.K. since Margaret Thatcher owes their rise (and fall) to tabloids.”
(https://medium.com/@juhijaved/the-power-of-british-tabloids-54117e12a9ab)
John Morales @ # 3 -- Okay, now I get it. Thanks!
Sad reflection on the status of UK politics/culture/education, though…
@4: since the person who responded to you is not (unlike myself) a UK-stani, demonstrably doesn’t know what they’re talking about, can usually be relied upon to weigh in with an ignorant, uninformed opinion that bears little relation to the actual facts, and indeed has done so on this occasion, allow me to correct the bullshit (and while I’m at it exhort them to shut up and fuck off).
Back in the day, there were two kinds of British newspaper -- tabloid and broadsheet. In all that follows I shall leave aside the complicating factor of Sunday papers, which differ unimportantly.
The broadsheets were, as the name suggests, huge unwieldy things, and the titles fitting this description were, for decades, the Times (there is no such paper as “the London Times”, despite such a thing being mentioned in many American media -- it’s just “The Times”, and it’s been that since 1788), the Daily Telegraph, the Financial Times, and The Guardian (originally the Manchester Guardian). For a while there was another, “The Independent”, but that’s gone entirely online now. In recent times some of the broadsheets have gone to a smaller format, although the Telegraph persists as a proper broad broadsheet. The Times and the Telegraph are right-wing, the Guardian is left, and the Financial Times is pro-business, which of late has put it in the complicated position of being at heart right wing but making no attempt to conceal it’s dripping contempt for the shower of incompetent scum that have been in power over the last 12 months or so.
Tabloids are distinguised by a still smaller format, and the Daily Mail and Daily Express are indeed tabloid newspapers. The Express is generally focussed on the latest breaking news about the death of Diana Princess of Wales and the hunt for the killer of Madeleine McCann, and the Daily Mail more or less channels whatever Hitler would be thinking about if he were alive and in charge of a UK national newspaper. Anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the UK, or the intelligence not to simply believe the first hit they find on Google then self-importantly post it as fact, would be able to tell you that that Mail and the Express are emphatically NOT “red tops”. Indeed, just googling an image of the front page of the main UK tabloids would show you which are red tops and which are not, but in case you can’t be bothered, and for clarity, the red tops are: the Sun, the Daily Mirror and the Daily Star. The Sun is historically broadly right wing, the Daily Mirror is historically left, and the Daily Star is historically “phwoar, look at the tits on that”.
In context, what “red top agenda” meant was specifically and exclusively the Sun (i.e. Murdoch’s tabloid -- he also owns the Times), since the Mirror could be relied upon to support Blair’s Labour anyway, and people who “read” the Daily Star aren’t getting their politics from it (if they even have any).
Additionally extremely important context is that nobody really expected the Conservatives to win the general election in 1992 -- they’d defenestrated Thatcher and replaced her with a grey man, John Major, there’d been riots in the capital over the poll tax, and Labour under Neil Kinnock looked like they’d left the bad old days of the 80s behind for good. And yet, albeit with a much reduced majority, the Conservatives DID win in 1992… and Murdoch’s tabloid famously crowed on its front page “It’s The Sun Wot Won It”. Blair took that headline to heart, and made sure to get Murdoch on side for ’97. His reward for this realpolitik was a landslide victory and 11 years as Prime Minister, winning again in 2001 and again in 2005 even after a disastrous war in Iraq. The Sun supported David Cameron in 2010. The rest is history.
It will be interesting to see where the Sun places its support for the next election… if it’s still around then. It’s in some interesting trouble at the moment, but that’s very much another story.
sonofrojblake:
The relevant part of the quotation:
“As a calculated act of homage it worked and both [Murdoch-owned] Times and Sun stood by Blair almost to the end.
Blair’s party hated him for it, but it worked, albeit at a price of ministerial pandering to the redtop agenda and to what they imagined Murdoch wanted.”
Your perception: “In context, what “red top agenda” meant was specifically and exclusively the Sun”
Heh.
—
Did you notice the OP suggests there’s a similarity between the influence Fox in the USA and both [Murdoch-owned] Times and Sun in the UK have on masses, but also suggests the circumstances are different?
In this case, there’s a personality cult type of thing going on.
BTW, Rupert started with The News in Adelaide, getting the formula right.
(Yet another exhortation with the very same result as every previous one!
What a surprise 🙂 )
“Yet another exhortation with the very same result as every previous one!” -- I think we all know not even you can stop you from making a big deal of damn near everything. As usual, you make up about 50% of the recent comments tab.
As usual, most of those are responses to people addressing me, as this very comment exemplifies.
Indeed, that was the subtext of the claim you just quoted — when someone ostensibly desires I stop posting, addressing comments to me (even if in the third person) is an invitation to a retort, and thus one more comment.
(You see the dynamic?)
“As usual, most of those are responses to people addressing me… ” -- Irrelevant, the choice to reply is always yours, and you almost never decline. An “invitation to retort” does not dictate anyone’s behaviour, though it seemingly comes close in your case.
<snicker>
Proving my point.
Ah, you are the gift that keeps giving, Holms.
I do like my engorged ego being stroked.
So.
Consider this proposition: if X leads to Y, and Y is undesirable, then perhaps refraining from X would prevent Y. What do you think?
I know, I know… the onus is not on you or others to stop trying to provoke me, it’s on me to refrain from responding to provocation. Because, ultimately, the premise is that I am the only one with agency, the only one with the maturity.
Meantime, the one and only comment I’ve made in this thread that is not a response to a comment to me is #3. One only.
And so it would likely have remained, had others refrained.
Cause, effect.
(Pesky facts are pesky, no?)
—
Meanwhile, the Murdoch press and its support for various candidates is not worth discussing for you, is it, Holms?
No, no.
It’s once again become all about me.
You yourself came into this thread purely and specifically to discuss me.
So, in case you’ve forgotten:
Ah,
Seems like a fair enough claim to me; what about you, Holms?
(I know, I know — the urge you feel is to keep fapping on about me, but you do get I’m not the topic of the thread, right?)
@6: you’ve been corrected. You don’t accept, or possibly don’t understand, the correction. Whatever.
sonofrojblake, I refer you to my #6.
Bloody obvious that in context, the reference is to “both [Murdoch-owned] Times and Sun”. You may live in the UK, I can parse text.
In short, you’ve been corrected. You don’t accept, or possibly don’t understand, the correction.
The earlier paragraph got uncomfortably close to saying you were powerless of your actions, didn’t it 🙂
Because, ultimately, the premise is that you are the only one with agency… over yourself. But we here know that you have minimal ability to wrest control of yourself away from your need to retort.
Of course I am also in control of myself and here I am posting, yet I am not the one routinely dominating threads with snide arguments, I am not the one with the reputation of troll. Such control over myself seems to be adequate, yours less so.
Jesus H. Christ on a popsicle stick…
Bloody obvious to you. Also, incorrect. To anyone who lives in the UK or who can parse text, the simple fact that the Times is broadsheet, not a tabloid, and not one of the subset of tabloids known as “red tops”, remains. You’ve been corrected, and you have clarified that you did not understand the correction. Whatever.
All about me again. Of course. Still nothing to say about the topic itself.
No worries, Holms — about myself, I am an expert.
Did it? Unfortunate that I made you uncomfortable, but there it is.
Perhaps consider that if truly it is the case I am powerless over my actions, then it’s utterly pointless to exhort me to act otherwise than I do, no? The only solution is to preclude my helpless reaction by not provoking me.
It follows that others don’t think I lack volition given that they beg me to desist from responding to them or to avoid commenting altogether, which would not occur if they thought it a pointless endeavour.
Also, since their perception of me differs from yours in a mutually exclusive manner, it also follows that either you or they are wrong, or that you are both wrong.
(Obs, you are all wrong, but then, you are not to know that since I am the expert on myself and have access to privy information)
And I have made it damn clear that I am not one to ignore the yapping dogs, yet here they yap, yap, yap.
Of course, your only activity on this thread, as in others, is to try to assuage your neediness to indulge my ego. I do appreciate it, and don’t begrudge your dole.
Never mind the topic of the media pushing various candidates to the electorate on the basis of mutual back-scratching, or the way that tried and tested technique has gone awry in the case of the current GOP.
(Tiger by the tail is what they got)
Evidently, your control means you will burst into threads to talk to me about me, which results in my dominating the thread. I have lots of enablers, no?
(But hey, maybe one day you too can helplessly dominate threads!
Hold on to your dream)
sonofrojblake:
You can imagine it’s incorrect all you want, but consider this:
“As a calculated act of homage it worked and both [Murdoch-owned] Times and Sun stood by Blair almost to the end.
Blair’s party hated him for it, but it worked, albeit at a price of ministerial pandering to the redtop agenda and to what they imagined Murdoch wanted.”
vs.
“As a calculated act of homage it worked and only [Murdoch-owned] Sun stood by Blair almost to the end.
Blair’s party hated him for it, but it worked, albeit at a price of ministerial pandering to the redtop agenda and to what they imagined Murdoch wanted.”
See, the latter is what would have been written were it the case that the writer intended to refer specifically and exclusively to the Sun, as you contend.
(Actually, that was the obvious inference I used — took a couple of seconds — to find the answer to the question)
So.
You’ve been corrected, and you have clarified that you did not understand the correction.
(Gotta love the irony)
You choose to frame your comments as if others are at fault for your actions. If that is the case, then you will reply. But that is only true if you genuinely had no control over yourself; if we are to be blamed for your retorts, then you implicitly admit we caused the retort. The point though is that if you have power over the retort impulse, only you can demonstrate so, and only by desisting.
You won’t, because resisting the temptation is just no fun. You’re the only one here that has stated he will comment no further in a thread, only to fail the will save and post again. Multiple times even!
But when the writer said Blair was stuck “pandering to the redtop agenda” after having mentioned two papers, it does not follow that both of those papers are necessarily redtops. Hence Sonof’s interjection: redtop in that sentence could only be used to refer to one of the named papers, as only one of them is one. Though I suppose there is always the possibility that the writer was not aware of this and used the term incorrectly, or to loosely refer to Murdoch tabloid journalism in general.
The explanation of the meaning of “redtop agenda” was a response to the query in #2. Any subsequent failure of comprehension on the part of any non-resident of the uk demonstrably wilfully ignorant of that meaning is irrelevant.
Some good Trump-related news from Arizona. He has scared away a couple of big-money donors from the Republican party and the Arizona chapter now has a real shortage of funds.
As the donors see it, if the Republicans use a lot of the campaign money for Trump, it is money wasted.
While DeSantis has Florida in an iron grip, his unappealing personality and very poor political record (Florida has higher inflation and other problems that other states do not have) has made him something of a lead balloon in the primaries.
He has tried to attack Trump from the right, which shows he does not know how a cult works. The core Trump voters do not care.
Back in my distant youth I had Tony Blair pegged as just another populist when he joined in the red-top howlings against a child that had committed a murder.
Children who commit serious crimes are generally seriously mentally disturbed. These cases are not matters that should be treated as normal crimes.
(In this case it was a girl [Mary Bell] who had been sexually abused by relatives and acted out by killing )
That’s an… interesting attitude. Obviously they can put their money where they like, and if they personally don’t like Trump then fair enough… but you’d have to be a particular kind of deluded to think there’s a potential Republican candidate with a hope in hell of beating Trump to the nomination at this point. There’s a long way to go yet, obvs, and things may change (they used to say a week was a long time in politics, but in the UK at least last September an HOUR was looking like a geological epoch).