Since the piece below was published, the tape in which Trump brags about his sexual successes, released by the Washington Post, has produced a firestorm of responses. It has induced Republican politicians to withdraw their support for him and/or to urging him to withdraw his candidacy (you should live so long). And it has produced a firestorm of articles, none of which conforms to the Barnum dictum, discussed below, that there is no touch thing as bad publicity. Let me add, irrelevantly, that I look forward to journalism PT, post Trump.
Ignoring the fact that regarding Donald Trump there may be no such thing
as a modest proposal, here, in any
case, is a suggestion. I made a brief visit to the internet and quickly came up
with a count of more than a dozen publications—mostly newspapers, a few
magazines—that came out in editorials to say explicitly that they are against the election of Trump as
president of the United States.1 Interestingly, the list includes a
few outfits that have not ever or only very rarely made an editorial
recommendation for the presidency. Nor does it count the pro-Hillary Clinton
editorials that I did not survey.
The point I want to make does not depend on the number of such journals, as long as you understand that my count includes a healthy proportion of the biggies, such as the Washington Post and the paper I read on my computer, The New York Times.
The point I want to make does not depend on the number of such journals, as long as you understand that my count includes a healthy proportion of the biggies, such as the Washington Post and the paper I read on my computer, The New York Times.
What
about these publications, other than that they are not for Trump? Without
having made a survey, I assert that most of them are nevertheless helping the man they are so against. On
the one hand, as just discussed, they oppose. But on the other, they give him
publicity, almost endlessly, by daily printing numerous articles about him. I
count six of them in the Times of
October 6, by way of example.
Many of these
are of course not at all favorable. But recall what P.T. Barnum is reported to
have said; and he was a master showman a century and a half ago: There
is no such thing as bad publicity.
He was
probably right way back then and is likely to be right today. Moreover,
Donald J. Trump himself seems to
agree with Barnum’s dictum, since his budget for television ads is considerably
smaller than Hillary’s. His
opponents are in effect helping him.
I am in
firm agreement with those Not Trump editorials
and will cast my vote for Hillary Clinton. But let me draw the obvious
conclusion from the above account. To ye endless scribblers about Donald Trump:
Silence
is Golden. I impatiently await the period—not yet, but sure to
come—when Trump-empty publications will once again be the norm.
PS The above was written before the October 8 publication
of the tape that has Trump Bragging About Groping Women.2 That one sure didn’t help him. Take that, Mr. Barnum.
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1Here is a selection of these: http://www.afr.com/news/politics/world/us-editorials-line-up-against-donald-trump-20161006-grwgkc.
1Here is a selection of these: http://www.afr.com/news/politics/world/us-editorials-line-up-against-donald-trump-20161006-grwgkc.
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