Prepare For The Trump Stabbed-In-The-Back Myth

[EasyAce]

By Ben Shapiro
http://www.dailywire.com/news/8511/prepare-trump-stabbed-back-myth-ben-shapiro

During World War I, the German government, in order to keep up war morale, informed its citizens and allies
that the war would surely be won by the Axis powers. At times, this required some rather fancy footwork: the military
censored the newspapers, and German nationalists maintained that every defeat was a strategic retreat, every victory
a step closer to total victory.

When the Germans lost, Germans were forced to cope with sudden reality. The Germans were beaten on the battlefield.
But that possibility had never entered the public mind, and it wouldn’t enter it even after defeat.

Instead of recognizing reality, Germans began talking regularly about the dolchstoß: the stab in the back. The theory
was that Germany was winning the war, but cowardly civilians –Social Democrats in the main – had brought about a
negotiated armistice. The stab-in-the-back myth became a crucial selling point for the nationalist populists in
Germany.

Now, the Trump movement is building the groundwork for its own dolchstoßlegende.

Trump is down in the polls. But Trump Train supporters in the media continue to sell the notion to Trump fans that he’s
winning. Not that he might still win, which is true – they say that he is currently winning. They do this in order to set up
an argument for after the election.

On Wednesday, as I wrote, Trump lawyer Michael Cohen seemed to deny the existence of polls on CNN. Then, Eric Bolling '
of Fox News argued that polls should be ignored since they were biased – that crowd size was a better representation of
Trumpthusiasm than actual poll numbers. Then, last night, Bill O’Reilly grilled Dana Perino for saying that polls matter,
asking her whether her polling analysis meant she was anti-Trump.

The attempts to pretend that polls don’t matter sets up a perfect precursor to a new stabbed-in-the-back myth. All bad data
must be scrubbed to boost enthusiasm. Then, when the polls end up being right, nobody can point out that Trump was losing
all along – the polls were always skewed, and Trump was always winning, he was just “sabotaged,” to use Sean Hannity’s new
favorite word.

Another precursor to the new stabbed-in-the-back myth: the Trump campaign’s sudden insistence that if Trump loses, the
elections themselves will have been rigged. A new Pew poll today shows that just 11 percent of Trump supporters are very
confident that “votes across the country will be accurately counted in the upcoming election”; more Trump voters are not
at all confident or not too confident that votes actually matter nationally.

This push from the Trump campaign isn’t designed to foment armed insurrection, as some of the more hysterical media critics
have claimed. It’s designed to provide an excuse for Trump losing if he loses: the polls were always wrong and Trump was
winning; Trump did win; if it hadn’t been for those darn #NeverTrump saboteurs, he would have carried the election easily.
In fact, maybe he did!

Here’s the reality: Trump is losing in the polls. He’s losing because he’s run, to this point, the most incompetent general election
campaign in modern American history. Perhaps Trump turns it around. But if he doesn’t, he’s all prepared for the blame game
afterwards.

When Mitt Romney lost in 2012, he didn’t blame the Trump voters who didn’t show up. He was the candidate. It was his job to
get voters to the ballot box. Not so with Trump, who operates on the narrative that he never loses, and that anytime he does,
he’s been wronged. He’s busily stoking the flames of a lie – that he’s winning – and he’ll blame everybody else if he doesn’t.

Get ready: the Trump purges begin November 9 if he loses on November 8.

[sinkspur]

Trump's gap-toothed supporters believe all this nonsense about skewed polls and rigged elections; you can see it on this forum.

It couldn't be that Trump is a terrible candidate who's ruined his own campaign.  Nah.  It's #NeverTrump or the media or whatever.

That's why he has to lose big.  So that there's no doubt.

[geronl]

I can't "stab Trump in the back" because I am not and have never been behind him.

[guitar4jesus]

Trump's gap-toothed supporters believe all this nonsense about skewed polls and rigged elections; you can see it on this forum.

[Idaho_Cowboy]

Trump himself if whining about all the reasons he's going to lose and all the people he'll never forgive. He has done nothing to prove he belong behind a desk with the "buck stops here" sign on it.