November 17, 2016

The Apotheosis of Donald Trump Is Proceeding Apace

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Corey Lewandowski was once Donald Trump’s campaign manager, then went to work for CNN as a Trump booster, and is now back in the Trump camp. So how did Trump make his big comeback?

“With eleven days to go, something amazing happened,” Mr Lewandowski said in a speech at the Oxford Union debating society on Wednesday evening. “The FBI’s director James [Comey] came out on a Friday and he said they may be reopening the investigation into Crooked Hillary’s emails.”

Yep, that was pretty amazing. I’m glad we all agree that this was a pivotal moment. So what happened next?

“In those last last eleven days Mr Trump was exceptionally disciplined. He used a teleprompter, and he did less media. The team used social media like no campaign in history….And then, Donald Trump won the election campaign by the largest majority since Ronald Reagan in 1984.“

Huh. The largest majority since 1984? Really? Let’s take a look:

There have been eight presidential elections since 1984. In popular vote margin, Trump is 8th out of 8. In the Electoral College vote, he’s 6th out of 8. This obviously wasn’t just a careless mistake on Lewandowski’s part.

The Trump team seems to be hellbent on propagating the myth that Trump won a world historical victory last week. Is this just to soothe Trump’s bottomless ego? Or is this part of a deliberate campaign to get his followers amped up into believing that Trump is a world historical figure? Is “Trump won big” the new “Iraq was behind 9/11”? You might recall that that one didn’t turn out so well.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

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Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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