Living Rent Free In Their Minds

For John, BLUF:  Going low invites President Trump to follow suit and he emerges ahead.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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The price of fighting with Trump

This is Opinionator Byron York, in The Washington Examiner, on 1 July 2017. Here is an excerpt:

Of course one could say that Trump is at fault, that he regularly engages in spats that are beneath the dignity of the presidency.  He should not, for example, respond in kind to “small hands” jabs.  But Trump is Trump.  He does what he does, which is what he did during the campaign and before.  And now, in the White House, he has enlisted his media adversaries, wittingly or not, in a campaign against “fake news” that resonates with his core supporters.

“They like him, they believe in him, they have not to any large degree been shaken from him, and the more the media attacks him, the more it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy on the side of the Trump supporters who fervently believe the media treat him unfairly,” Tony Fabrizio, Trump’s campaign pollster, told the Washington Post.

If you are looking Comments at the InstaPundit, click here.  This item by Mr Byron York isn't the first mention of this phenomenon.  Law Professor Glenn Harlan Reynolds talked about this back on 26 January of this year, with a sub-headline "He's gaslighting them and they fall for it every time."  Here is the lede from that article:

Why are the relations between Donald Trump and the press so bad? There are two reasons.  One is that Trump is a Republican, and the press consists overwhelmingly of Democrats.  But the other reason is that Trump likes it this way, because when the press is constantly attacking him over trivialities, it strengthens his position and weakens the press.  Trump’s “outrageous” statements and tweets aren’t the product of impulsiveness, but part of a carefully maintained strategy that the press is too impulsive to resist.

I agree that rolling around in the mud with Donald J Trump makes the others look muddy, but Mr Trump seems to emerge the same as he went in.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff