Obama Created Trump?

Good work, everyone http://t.co/hZhVU8WGV5

— Allahpundit (@allahpundit) July 16, 2015

HotAir's Allahpundit gives a dry, sarcastic golf clap to the Donald Trump voters. He's referencing The Hill's article talking about how The Donald is squeezing out all the 2nd Tier candidates (for that matter, he may be putting the squeeze on Scott Walker as well).

Meanwhile, Trump’s sheer media wattage blurs out other figures. 

. . .

“The problem is that there are some second-tier candidates who might have a chance as underdogs or could become important national voices for the party, like a Lindsey Graham, — who find that there is less interest in them as the cameras and keyboards are turned toward New York’s real estate mogul and TV star.” 

GOP candidates’ irritation with Trump is becoming clearer every day. Former Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.) insisted that the businessman is “not a conservative” on a number of issues, adding “all that glitters is not gold.” Perry said he was “offended” by Trump’s immigration comments. 

 WHO COULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING???

Politico publishes Keith Koffler's (editor for a right-wing blog) explanation for how President Obama created Donald Trump (just like he crated ISIS, thinks The Omnivore). Here's his take:

And yet I am here to tell you that despite what you’ve read in the media, even some outposts of the conservative media, these Trump acolytes in general are not racist against Latinos and they have not been seized by madness. 

They are, however, angry. Very angry. And many are agonizingly fearful about the future of the nation.

Specifically, here are his points:

1. They believe the changes happening in the county are undemocratic, dishonest and perhaps even illegal.
2. Immigrants (legal ones) might be good and hardworking--but they are not "American."
3. Worse, it isn't PC to call illegal immigrants 'illegal immigrants'--and Obama tried through prosecutorial discretion to give millions of them legal status!!
4. Obama failed to enforce some of the rules of the Affordable Care Act! He misled everyone--he pushed the sweeping change through congress!!
5. Carbon-Emissions! IRS Targeting! Evolving on the issue of gay marriage!!

And society is collapsing ("Culture seems to be falling apart--and society seems to be coarsening.").

1. Celebrities twerk
2. ISIL runs rampant.
3. Iran will get a bomb!!
4. Israel is treated like a foe.

Basically, in this world, people are right to be mad at Obama--so . . . Trump.

Is This The Case?

Let's start with "whitespace analysis:" What, if anything is missing from the above list? Did you catch it? Oh, come on: Benghazi. Now, Benghazi has been the rallying cry of the right since the day--literally the day--it happened (Romney embargoed a critical press release but released it the night-of, perhaps by accident).

Why isn't Benghazi on the list of woe? Well, maybe he just forgot it--but The Omnivore doesn't think so. There are two problems with Benghazi as it now stands:

• It's supposed to be used to bring down Hillary now--it's morphed from an Obama-thing to a Secretary of State thing.
• Despite multiple investigations, no smoking gun has been found. People like Erick Erickson have advised giving up on it. It was an abject failure.

Of course the average rank-and-file--not to mention the average retiree-aged Trump supporter--doesn't really know this: they think the Obama-ending bombshell is right around the corner next to  . . . his real birth certificate. Does the average angry GOP guy believe that? That Obama was born outside of the country and there was a massive conspiracy to fake his birth certificate (and the birth-announcement in the local paper?).

Probably not, thinks Koffler: those angry GOP voters just push the button for birtherism on robo-calls out of hatred. Seems plausible: Push 1 to say something nice about Obama. Push 2 to say something mean? What would you expect from Republicans.

And yet . . . What if something else was going on. Here are some quotes from a couple of Omnivore articles that have been getting a lot of play recently.

A Credibility Gap

"If this is not a coup, if this is not an effort to eviscerate what is left of the Constitution, then what the hell is?" yelled Levin.

Even though the erosion of our Constitution began long before the Obama regime, the Marxist-in-Chief was handpicked to carry it out to an unprecedented level, a level of destruction so massive that ‘walking it back’ to any semblance of normalcy would prove futile. (from The Center for Western Journalism)

 September 23, 2009 : [in a Rush quote roundup] "I would describe what Obama is doing to this country as basically a coup.

Alarms Over Obama Coup Against Constitution SurgingNothing will be off limits – a national police force, instant citizenship for all Third World people … forced equalization of income (World Daily News 40 million page views a month)

Is Obama Firing Generals Not Willing to Kill Americans? Capitalism Institute)

Sure--the base is probably mad about the Dream Act. About Obama's infuriating willingness to not enforce some of a law that they think would make it more unpopular, and losing an absolute left-vs-right congressional showdown over the ACA (we know that before Obama was even sworn into office the GOP held a meeting to plan to oppose every piece of legislation he proposed to set the stage for his defeat).

But what if these seniors are mad because guys like Levin and Limbaugh--who they listen to--are tellin' them Obama is planning a literal coup? That kinda goes beyond all that stuff in Koffler's bullet point list. If that were the case, how would we tell?

When Winning Doesn't Win

In this post The Omnivore looks at an article from Jim Geraghty from the National Review Online. He wants to know why, given Obama, everyone isn't as furious as the base? It's a good question:

Republicans look around, see a country and world in chaos, and don’t understand why they’re not seeing a broad, angry reaction to President Obama and his allies in Congress.

 He's got his arguments all lined up and notes:

No one can blame conservatives for being frustrated to the point of fury. But if American rank-and-file conservatives and Republicans conclude that the game is rigged, that it’s not worth playing, and withdraw from political life . . . then that will be the ultimate triumph of this president.

 See, the question that Koffler elides isn't "why is the base mad?" It's why isn't everyone horrified? Oh, sure--Democrats like Obama--he's their guy--but what about the great masses? Is everyone who votes already so partisan there's no hope? And if so . . . are Democrats the only ones that are either so immoral or so out of touch they can be fooled by Obama?

Again, how would we tell?

Well, in marketing there's what's known as a "buying decision"--the point where someone actually is influenced to spend money. This is a crucial point: talk is cheap. Money isn't. That's why you call it "putting your money where you mouth is."

In the above article, The Omnivore has a hypothesis about why not everyone is as upset at Obama as base conservatives--and The Omnivore explains it with pictures! In the link above we go to several main-line conservative websites (NRO, Brietbart, and The Weekly Standard) and we look at where people--advertisers--spent their money on the "big bucks ads." Here's what we saw:

Off The Weekly Standard

Brietbart

The NRO

In case you don't know, these ads are pitched to people who believe society is about to collapse--like Mad Max style--and need stockpiled supplies of food for they and their loved ones. Let's be totally clear about this: these ads were pervasive, invasive big-bucks prime-time pop-ups. Their payload was nothing short of impending disaster. These are literal FEMA-Coffin-level apocalypse disasters that will result in (literally) millions of American's deaths.

These ads are being pitched on literate mainstream educated conservative web-sites. These are not being pitched on the dark corners of the The Internet. They are not being pitched on fly-by-night Tea Party sites. They are as mainstream as conservative media gets.

The reason that advertisers are pitching The End Of The World to educated conservative readers is because these ads make money. This is not the same as pressing 1 to say something bad about Obama. This is shelling out cash for over-priced freeze-dried food, sucker-bet gold certificates (yeah: Lord Humongous is gonna take your paper certificate and spare your life . . .), and other things that prey on a level of fear that is maximal.

These ads are also given credibility by appearing on sites that conservatives trust--where they get straight talk--The Truth--about what's really going on.

Conclusions

Keith Koffler is right: The Base is angry. They do believe that Grand Theft America has happened and that illegal immigrants are running away with their future back across the border. They believe these people are dangerous rapists, murderers, and criminals--in substantial numbers. They believe that the dollar is going to stop being the world's reserve currency, that the stock market will collapse, that FEMA will set up concentration camps, and that Obama--with a civilian army he has raised--will seize America to redistribute funds.

They believe that Benghazi wasn't incompetence--it was intentional. They believe that Obama called Lois Lerner and instructed her to target the Tea Party. They believe that Obama intentionally armed Mexican cartels--not to trace guns--but to increase their power and damage.

They believe all of this because they've been told it's so--and they're mad as hell about it.

Who were they told this by?