NORMALIZATION(S): The hopeful's inflammatory claims!

TUESDAY, AUGUST 13, 2024

Perhaps a "bizarre double standard:" We became aware of the candidate's comments on Tuesday evening, July 30.

He had made the (inflammatory) comments three days earlier, speaking from a platform off in the clouds.  

We became aware of the candidate's comments when CNN's Pamela Brown played a brief tape of his remarks, then attempted to challenge them. For the most part, the candidate's comments were so routine—had become so "normalized"—that they had received little coverage and had occasioned little comment.

The hopeful to whom we refer is Candidate Donald J. Trump. On Saturday, July 27, he and Candidate Vance had addressed an enthusiastic crowd at a rally in St. Cloud, Minnesota.

For the record, Governor Walz hadn't yet been announced as Kamala Harris' running-mate. Here's a further bit of disclosure:

Minnesota's 2020 election hadn't been especially close. Trump had come much closer in 2016, losing the state to Hillary Clinton by less than two points. But here were the most recent numbers:

Minnesota presidential election, 2020
Joe Biden (D): 1.72 million (52.4%)
Donald J. Trump (R): 1.48 million (45.3%)

Four years ago, Candidate Biden won Minnesota by more than seven points. In his two elections, Barack Obama had won the state by 10 points and then by eight.

Still, Candidate Trump seemed to believe that Minnesota might be in play this year. If President Biden had stayed in the race, that very well might have been true.

It was in that context that Candidate Trump offered some inflammatory remarks—remarks which have been so thoroughly normalized that they produced little reaction.

Speaking to a roaring crowd-—a roaring crowd full of our fellow citizens—the candidate spoke and spoke and spoke this day, and then he spoke some more. As he approached the half-hour mark, he offered some very familiar remarks—extremely familiar remarks which were almost surely untrue:

TRUMP (7/27/24): You know what's a friendly rally? This is a friendly rally!

AUDIENCE: USA! USA! USA! USA! 

TRUMP: By the way, I feel so bad. There are 25,000 people outside that cannot— 

If you people all go and vote— Now look—

[ROAR FROM CROWD]

There's no way we lose this. There's no way we should lose this state.

[EXTENDED ROAR FROM CROWD]

AUDIENCE: USA! USA! USA! USA!

[...] 

TRUMP: They don't show the crowd size. I love crowd size. We've always had the biggest crowds in history—there's never been anything like this. 

No, you ought to see. We drove from the airport to here, and practically, the whole way, there were just thousands and thousands of people. It's incredible, right? 

[ROARING CROWD] 

It's incredible...

For C-Span's videotape of the full speech, you can just click here.

In that passage, we've edited out some brief, extremely familiar claims about the tiny size of Candidate Harris' crowds. Also, about the way the press refuses to tell the truth about the tiny size of those crowds.

Those remarks were plainly bogus. But in the passage we've transcribed, you see some extremely familiar remarks. For starters, you see a truncated claim about the 25,000 people who couldn't gain admission to this jam-packed rally this day—to the jam-packed event in the clouds. 

By now, no sane person would be inclined to believe that familiar type of claim. On this day, the hopeful added an absurd claim about the way crowds had lined the streets, all the way from the airport to the hall, just hoping to see him pass.

By now, this is a highly familiar type  of remark. But the hopeful now started to make his way down a dangerous roadway.

"There's no way we should lose this state," the candidate said to the roaring crowd. And now, as the candidate continued, he went to a dangerous place:

TRUMP (continuing from above): We drove from the airport to here, and practically, the whole way, there were just thousands and thousands of people. It's incredible, right? 

[ROARING CROWD] 

It's incredible. If they don't cheat, we win this state easily, OK? They cheat.

They have no shame. They cheat. 

[WITH SUDDEN ANGER, POINTING AT PRESS CORPS] 

Do you understand that, you crooked people? 

They're the most crooked. 

They cheat. They cheated in the last election, and they're going to cheat in this election, but we're going to get them. 

"They cheated in the last election," he said. "and they're going to cheat [again]." Love has no pride, but "they" have no shame, the angry candidate said.

He seemed to be saying that "they" had cheated in Minnesota itself, in the 2020 election which he had lost by seven points. As he continued, he fleshed out his accusation:

TRUMP (continuing from above): They cheat. They cheated in the last election, and they're going to cheat in this election, but we're going to get them. 

They used COVID to cheat. And this time, they'll try and find something. But we think we have them blocked. They have no shame whatsoever.

"They" had used Covid to cheat, he said, without explaining what he meant. This year, though, "they" were going to try to cheat again!

By any traditional standard, these were highly inflammatory remarks. The candidate seemed to be saying that he had been cheated out of victory in the last election, apparently right there in Minnesota itself.

He was also clearly saying that the unspecified "they" were going to try to cheat him again—that "they" were going to try to cheat him, and that they were thereby going to try to cheat the thousands of Minnesotans who were attending the rally. 

Judged by traditional norms those were exceptionally serious claims. As he neared the end of his endless remarks, the hopeful went there again:

TRUMP: It's no wonder the Democrat [sic] Party and their thugs are so desperate to stop us. They know that we are the only ones who can stop them.

[...]

I've had a lot of rallies here. We had rallies—what I've done for your upcountry, with the iron ore, and those people, they loved us, and then these guys came back [after 2020] and they changed everything. It's just disgraceful what they did. But I think—

I'm telling you, if we have an honest election, we're going to blow it out in Minnesota. Just look at the crowds, look at the people back there.

The radical left Democrats rigged the presidential election in 2020, and we're not going to allow them to rig the presidential election in 2024. We're not going to allow it to happen. 

And every time the radical left Democrats, Communists, Marxists and fascists indict me, I consider it a great badge of honor, because I'm being indicted for you.

Never forget, our enemies want to take away my freedom because I will never let them take away your freedom. I'm not gonna let it happen.

[AUDIENCE CHEERS]

I say this—I got indicted more than Al Capone! 

You know, he was the meanest, most vicious guy—Scarface. Many movies made about Alphonse. He's a fine gentleman. If he didn't like you at a dinner, you were automatically dead before you got home to your lovely wife and family. 

"What happened to Dad?" "Well, he had dinner with Al Capone, never made it back. He was in the foundation of a building down the road." 

I got indicted more than him—for what? Saying the election was crooked. 

The election was crooked.  What a disgrace...

So it went as a roaring crowd heard some remarkable claims—remarkable claims which are so familiar that they no longer occasion a great deal of comment.

Among major observers, it was Jerry Lee Lewis who noticed it first. He reported his finding in April 1957.

"Whole lotta shakin' goin' on," he famously said at that time. In the modern American discourse, the same observation could be made about the degree of normalization lodged within our unimpressive public discussions. 

In yesterday's report, we noted the way ludicrous conduct on the Fox News Channel has been normalized through a culture of "benign neglect"—benign neglect on the part of an array of major news orgs from a higher class.

Today, we note the way Candidate Trump's remarkable claims about stolen elections have been almost wholly normalized.

We became aware of his remarks at this St. Cloud event on Tuesday, July 30. Tomorrow, we'll look at what happened when CNN's Pamlea Brown—to her credit—attempted to question Trump's claims.

All in all, claims like these by the former president no longer occasion much comment. They're now a normal part of the soil out of which our imitation of a public discourse is somehow expected to grow.

The last election was stolen, he said. By now, he has said it so many times that no one notices—no one except the roaring crowd before whom he appeared in St. Cloud.

Last Tuesday, we discussed a somewhat surprising claim by the Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin. Even as she herself extended a standard type of Blue American journalistic con, she said a "bizarre double standard" now obtains with respect to the coverage of Candidate Trump.

Before his exit from the race, President Biden had been subjected to a very high degree of scrutiny, she correctly said.

She also said that Candidate Trump was being given a vastly wider berth. Even as she herself extended a familiar type of con, is it possible that Jennifer Rubin's surprising claim was accurate?

The last election was stolen, he said! Have such claims been normalized by an indolent national press?

Tomorrow: CNN tries to push back