![\"Photo](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/napervilledemocrats.org\/ntdo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Trump.jpg?resize=800%2C500\")
<\/a>Photo Credit: Jim Cole\/Associated Press<\/p><\/div>\n
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\nThe Real Threat Trump Poses to Hillary\u2014and Us<\/a><\/h2>\n
The GOP frontrunner has found a way to dominate the news cycle with his lies and nutty claims, allowing him to rob our elections of their last bit of substance.<\/em><\/p>\n
Donald Trump says Ted Cruz may not be eligible to be president<\/a>, and what happens? It dominates the news cycle for three days. Going on four.<\/p>\n
See a pattern here? You should. A few months ago people used to ask, \u201cWhat impact is Donald Trump having on the race\u201d? Now we know very clearly exactly what it is. He takes over the news cycle<\/a>. He says something about one of his rivals\u2014or occasionally about an issue, although it\u2019s always un-substantive and full of untrue assertions\u2014and it sucks all the other oxygen out of the room. The rivals have to answer Trump, and the cable shows do panel after panel on whether what Trump said is true, whether it even matters whether it\u2019s true, how so-and-so handled the response, and how it\u2019s going to change the polls.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s happened over and over again. In fact it\u2019s happened pretty much nonstop. Trump says Jeb is \u201clow-energy\u201d; Jeb has to prove he\u2019s high energy. He hammers Marco Rubio for this, Chris Christie for that, and now Cruz. In a nutshell, this is the campaign, at least the campaign that those of us who aren\u2019t in Iowa or New Hampshire see.<\/p>\n
The effect has been to turn the campaign into a vacuous, reality TV dick-swinging competition. And bad as that is, the effect has been far worse when Trump makes one his assertions about the country or world. He says these things about the world that are either just false or crazy, and everybody has to spend three days explaining why it\u2019s false or crazy. He saw \u201cthousands and thousands\u201d of American Muslims in New Jersey celebrating the 9-11 attacks. That was eventually debunked<\/a>. But it took nearly a week. And by the way, it hasn\u2019t been debunked everywhere<\/a>; certain web sites on the right spent days if not weeks defending Trump<\/a>.<\/p>\n
This is the real Trump Effect: He forces us to spend an endless series of three-day cycles debating at best pointless or at worst toxic and corrosive questions. That week we had to spend proving that American Muslims didn\u2019t celebrate 9-11 wasn\u2019t just a stupid and wasted week. It was a hatefest week that pulled an entire country in reverse, unlancing boils, raising temperatures. It was the same, more or less, when he said what a great guy Vladimir Putin was.<\/p>\n
No. These are things we know. Putin is not a great guy. He\u2019s a thug, just like you, Donald. We may not know for a fact that he\u2019s had journalists killed, but a lot of anti-Putin journalists have died mysteriously<\/a>. American Muslims did not cheer 9\/11, bub. The government of Mexico is not \u201csending\u201d rapists. And on and on and on.<\/p>\n
But this is our level of discourse with Trump in the race. I\u2019ll grant him that it\u2019s a skill, of a kind. He says things in a hot-button way, a way we\u2019re not accustomed to hearing from most politicians, certainly most presidential candidates, who usually strive for some simulacrum of dignity. It\u2019s catnip, especially for cable news. He gets ratings. Every night all the shows get their figures on how each individual segment did in the crucial 25-49 demographic. Undoubtedly, the Trump-Cruz segments right now are doing better than the North Korea segments. And in any event, it\u2019s not like the media can just totally ignore the demagogic claims of the Republican front-runner.<\/p>\n
What a way to elect a president. The process has been corrupt enough. The billions of dollars spent by the rich, the dishonest attack ads, the stupid emphasis on things like who we\u2019d supposedly rather have a beer with.<\/p>\n