Should Trump Stop Talking About Alicia Machado?

Comments:

* Hugh Hewitt ran from it like a whipped puppy. No mention of Machado’s background, just pleas for Trump to ignore her entirely (implying that his meanness to her was essentially indefensible) and to try to refocus on other issues. Hewitt was doing his show early in the morning, though, before Drudge put up its Machado link, so maybe tomorrow will be different.

* If I were in Steve Bannon’s loafers, I’d be reaching out to Bobby Abreu for an endorsement of Trump. I’d even have them do a presser where they autograph baseballs and talk over their best exercise tips. If B.A. feels like giving the inside scoop on Miss Housekeeping, so be it.

* Will Rahn is Peggy Noonan’s son who previously worked for the Daily Caller. I don’t know how he got to be a digital editor at CBS News, but I don’t think he is representative of the mainstream media.

* CNN and the NY Times ignoring any aspect of Machado that doesn’t fit Hillary’s narrative is why I have my doubts that the average woman is going to hear the aspects of the story that do not match Hillary’s narrative. Even wikipedia has been cleansed to fit it.

The right wing sites that are covering the full story are almost entirely visited by right-wing males. They will get the true story. Most women won’t.

The fact that censorship is not fully here yet means that the true story of Machado has leaked out and it doesn’t give the ‘Trump was a meanie to Machado’ narrative as much legs in the mainstream press. However, Hillary can keep running the ads and many women will not hear the full picture.

It is nice though that CBS has reported on it. Will others follow? I imagine it is no coincidence that the CBS reporter is a male. I doubt we will see any mainstream media female reporters breaking the full story.

* I remember this story from way back. At the time, I read a human interest story in some newspaper on dead tree. The story said that there was a Miss Universe that gained a lot of weight and she was told to lose the weight in 6 months (or whatever) or she will lose the contract. And she managed to do it. There was a short interview with her where she shared her diet tips (basically, eat nothing for 6 months.)

Nowhere in the story it was suggested that her employer was wrong in warning her about the weight. Those were simpler times.

Hillary’s play is that women will sympathize with Ms. Machado and punish Mr. Trump. But this works only if the victim is sympathetic. If she is not this may backfire big time. If Ms. Machado comes across as a b-ch the women will turn on her, because no one will judge a woman harsher than other women.

About Luke Ford

I've written five books (see Amazon.com). My work has been covered in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and on 60 Minutes. I teach Alexander Technique in Beverly Hills (Alexander90210.com).
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