"well, now is a time for pundit humility" Ross Douthat New York Times
After Indiana (although it was obvious after New York ) the majority of the pundit class have, however grudgingly and without shame in most cases, accepted that Donald Trump will be the GOP's nominee.
From June 16th last year when Trump announced his run the entire pundit class has ridiculed, mocked, belittled, pooh pooed, looked down their noses and all other ways that can be described as disparaging not only Trump but the, now near eleven millions of people, outside the Beltway dwellers, who voted for him.
The only one approaching any level of self-awareness is, of all people, the elitists elitist David Brooks at the New York Times who admitted he had been living and working in a DC bubble "among people and of a class who think like I do" (who knew here was more than one such). But although Brooks has dedicated himself to actually meeting some of the great unwashed he still will not bring himself to support Trump.
The greatest irony as all these reputations lie in the dust is that if even one pundit had, around June 16th written "Trump's candidacy is certainly unusual and although the odds seem stacked against him I will report on his campaign with an open mind and, who knows, lighting might strike" and etc. that pundit could genuinely be considered as peerless and in line for a Pulitzer.
But the inbred pundit corp did not give birth to even one mutation who had the sense, foresight or lack of bias to even give Trump that tiny chance. Well more fools them. It will take years for any semblance of trust to be restored to political journalism and that will take a major effort on behalf of those predisposed to be exactly the opposite of the balanced reporter they are supposed to be.
There have been countless Beltway pundits who have come crashing to earth with the elitist denigration of Donald Trump and Sarah Palin-just a few (23 actually) with their arrogant comments are HERE
But the ones who stand about above all are the "analysts" like Philip Bump, Dana Milbank, of The 'Washington Post' and Nate Silver and Harry Enten of 'FiveThirtyEight' and Charlie Cook ('Cook Report') This crew have purveyed charts and graphs and lines and squiggles circles and squares which have one message in common. "Trump can't win."
They've advised "Trump has a 2% chance", "we've seen this scenario before with "Cain, Gingrich who briefly led then collapsed in the polls" "Trump's ceiling is 10% or 15% or 20% or 25% or 30%" Trump has "stalled, is in decline has hit his ceiling, lost momentum "the trend is your friend."
"Bill Kristol "Trump has hit his ceiling at 30%"
So many memories! The meme's carried on when even Blind Bob could see that Trump was ascending. "Carson will pass him, Cruz will pass him, When the field thins Trump will go down." "Trump crowds are only attending for the entertainment (people standing freezing cold for hours for entertainment is a novel concept). "Trump supporters haven't' caucused before and are not likely to show up"
My favorite, well one of them there are so many, was "Trump won't even win one state."
What is the most delightful thing to reflect on is that all these pundits have been beaten by a housewife from rural Alaska-it is really amusing, and by a sharp novice politician New York City tycoon who has run rings around them and their whole clique and cabal!
If these gentlemen were actually productively employed, say they worked for Trump, and produced failure after failure the message to them would be clear "Your fired." Unfortunately they will blithely carry on tossing red meat to their clearly blank minded audience as if nothing they said previously ever took place. Oh, except for Milbank who ever so cleverly announced he would eat his column if Trump were the nominee. I hope he is marinating it in Tabasco-enjoy!
Charles C.W. Cooke continues a long unhappy line of Englishmen who deep down don't understand the American political system and psyche. His elitism to Trump and Palin knows no bounds and perhaps he might think of taking a sober look at his prejudices-but alas in fear it is a quixotic thought. On the other hand hopefully he will follow his predecessor back to Blighty.
The media jumped the gun at the start of Donald Trump's campaign by not only writing him off, but doing so in the most obnoxious, vexatious, elitist manner and in tones of utter Beltway snobbery.
Sadly for them, and fortunately for the rest of us watching in bemused amusement their subsequent sitting at the table where massive helpings of crow is constantly being served, they not only got it wrong but spectacularly so.
Never in the history of the political media have so many been so wrong for so long. Never have so many memes been exploded, one after another, and in short order, than all their anti-Trump blatherings.
I cataloged 30 at which point I gave up as they were coming and going so quickly their brief and passing lives made it too difficult to keep up with.
The media seem either exposed as hopelessly partisan, or utterly dim-witted despite all their credentials, or hacks under the collective thumbs of their paymasters or all of the preceding plus transfixed like a cobra under the sway of a fakir.
Is there any balm for their wounded egos, any target they can hit out at to recover their machismo after Trump has reduced them to whimpering, emasculated and impotent little boys and girls? Of course there is, and of course it is the favorite target of hate and derision-Sarah Palin.
What an outpouring of vile attacks, derision gibbering and frothing against Palin has spewed since she endorsed Trump-which endorsment was vital to hissecondplacement in Iowa and the securign of his camapigngoing forwards.
I counted five articles that were positive towards Palin, two of which were from Breitbart from among what Google advises were, so far 6,000 about her. 6,000 articles in two days on someone the media says is "irrelevant."
They can't hurt her in any way or fashion. She is not running for office, she isn't contracted to Fox (and has had a much higher media inter-action subsequently and with her own requirements) and doesn't need to worry about poll figures, popularity levels in the polls, or, which must be most galling, about what the media think about her.
Nothing the media say or do will affect Palin's standing with her millions of supporters who the media, idiotically, categorize as 'a right wing fringe." In fact all it does is solidify their support in the face of such unfair and unbalanced criticism.
The punditry have succeeded in making fools of themselves over Trump, have lost whatever level of power they used to have over the course of the political scene, and have now compounded their foolishness by exposing their resultant hate and irrationality.
By attacking Palin who, like Trump, is utterly impervious to their squalid vituperousness they hasten their descent into genuine irrelevancy.
