The Fundamental Fact of This Election: Trump Is Howard Beale

Let us go back forty years. Here is one of the greatest scenes in the history of the movies.

Howard Beale is the presumptive Republican candidate for President of the United States.

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, polls indicate that a majority of British voters are going to vote to pull out of the European Union on June 23.

The international establishment is facing a two-front war. The Atlantic alliance is in visible disarray. This has not happened before. This is truly historic.

A DESPERATE ESTABLISHMENT

On June 14, I wrote about the refusal of Obama and Clinton to use the word "Islamic" in conjunction with "terrorism." Trump had called out Obama on this before Obama's speech decrying the Orlando attack. Then Obama followed Trump's script to the letter. He spoke of terrorism, but not Islamic terrorism, just as Trump had predicted. Obama is nothing if not a knee-jerk, far-Left liberal.

No one knew that the murderer was conflicted: a homosexual Muslim terrorist. I must admit that Obama would have sounded silly complaining about "pink radical jihadist Islamic terrorism." But none of us knew this when Obama gave his speech.

Score a major hit for Trump, rhetorically speaking. He understands Obama, who has spent seven years playing kissy-face with Saudi Arabia. Obama's treatment of Netanyahu in 2010 was unprecedented in this regard. He walked out on him to have a meal with Mrs. O. No President had ever done anything like this with any head of state, let alone the State of Israel's.

Anti-Obama voters are aware of his "don't upset the Saudis" stance. Trump knows this. He may not know the connections linking Saudi oil money, Wahhabi Islam, and terrorism, but he gets the general picture. Obama does know, and he has remained silent. For him, terrorism has no qualifying adjective.

Clinton finally was forced to say the words "radical" and "Islamic." She had been blindsided by Trump's attack on the President. She looked as weak as Obama. She thereby played "me, too" with Trump -- always a losing proposition in marketing.

Trump had called them out. They responded. There was coordination between Clinton and Obama. Chuck Todd had it exactly right. The two gave speeches with the same phrases at the same time.

Did you watch all of the video? If so, you should have noticed that halfway through, Todd called in the President of the Council on Foreign Relations to offer his insights. I do not recall any CFR President ever deigning to step into the public limelight on a Presidential campaign issue. The CFR has remained in the shadows ever since its formation in 1921. Yet we see Haas and the words Council on Foreign Relations visible on screen.

Haas said Trump has "crossed over the line." That drew the line in the sand.

The general public does not know about the CFR. Richard Haas and his opinions mean nothing to them. Todd was giving Haas a platform. Haas was making it clear to his peers that the stakes are higher than they have ever been from the point of view of the American political establishment.

Did you notice how Todd then got a sound byte from Lindsay Graham? Graham is a neo-con political loser who got zero support in his bid for the Republican nomination. But he is supposed to be relevant. He isn't.

The establishment is running scared. It has worked so hard, yet here are Trump and the Brexit vote challenging their good judgment. They do not worry much about Islam. They worry about public challenges to their control.

A TRULY DUMB ARTICLE

Then came one of the dumbest pieces of journalism-editorializing I have ever read. It was posted on the NBC site. The writer thinks that Trump is not scoring big time with his supporters and potential voters with his stand on Islamic terrorism. He thinks that by exposing Trump as anti-Muslim immigration, this will somehow cost him votes. The same thing is happening in England with the pro-"leave" forces. The public sees what happened in Orlando, and has had enough. The establishment really is in a fury, and this fury is based on impotence. The public is finally hearing what they have wanted to hear: no pussyfooting.

Here was the headline: Clinton and Obama Team Up Against Trump. It is accurate. This literally is taking place: a coordinated attack.

Then came the text. It is simply astounding. This writer thinks that the Obama-Clinton attack has any clout beyond the Washington Beltway and the East River.

Speaking 250 miles apart Tuesday, but as if reading from the same hymnal, President Barack Obama and presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton delivered simultaneous withering critiques of Donald Trump's response to the Orlando terror attack. The seemingly coordinated salvo from the Democratic Party's two biggest heavyweights is a preview of the months to come, when Clinton will have at her disposal at least two popular presidents, the vice president, her Democratic primary opponent, and a slew of other high-profile Democrats. Clinton's campaign would not comment specifically on whether the two speeches were coordinated, but spokesperson Nick Merrill said, "Obviously we speak regularly with the White House." As the Clinton campaign musters a coordinated communications strategy, Trump has been left more or less to defend himself, with few high-profile surrogates to back him up. "At this point, Trump is like an army column advancing with no armor on either side of him," said Robert Shrum, a former top strategist to two Democratic presidential campaigns. "He put himself in a very vulnerable position."

I love this phrase: "Trump has been left more or less to defend himself." This is like saying "Muhammad Ali has been left more or less to defend himself."

I cannot get this out of my head: rope-a-dope. Ali wore out his opponents by letting them pound him. Then he knocked them out in the predicted round.

Trump's supporters hate the Republican establishment. They read this, which confirms their hatred:

In its response to Obama's evisceration Tuesday, the Republican National Committee, which Trump has leaned on to supplement his under-developed campaign, made no effort to defend its presumptive nominee. The committee's press release criticized Obama's terror strategy and linked it to Clinton without even mentioning Trump. The disparity between the two sides has been especially noteworthy since the Orlando mass shooting upended the campaign script.

This is what I have been saying from Day One: the establishment is unified, and it is in a panic over Trump. He has come out of nowhere to gain a huge following. He has upset the electoral apple cart. The American political establishment is running scared as never before in my lifetime.

Then came this NBC editorial disguised as a story: Republicans Run from Donald Trump's Orlando Response.

WASHINGTON -- Top Democrats, including President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, challenged Republican lawmakers on Tuesday to defend Donald Trump's response to the terrorist attack on Orlando Sunday morning that claimed 49 lives. Few took up the call. Instead, GOP lawmakers in Washington jumped, ducked and crawled through yet another obstacle course laid by Trump as reporters peppered them with questions about the candidate's proposed ban on Muslim travel, his suggestions that President Obama sympathizes with radical Islamists and should resign and his threat of "big consequences" for Muslim communities in America who he says are harboring terrorists. "I'm not going to be commenting on the presidential candidates today," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said after receiving a question about Trump's accusations against the president.

Again, Trump has blindsided these people. He came in and captured the nomination. This had not been done before in history. Goldwater had a political organization working for him as early as 1963. Trump did it all by himself. He did it with rhetoric.

Does this editorialist-journalist think that the fact that Mitch McConnell is closed-mouthed has any political relevance? McConnell has said he will support Trump. Trump has not sought his favor. McConnell has fallen into line. So has Ryan. Trump is 100% in control. The rest of the establishment Republican party has fallen into line. The only exception is Romney, who lost to Obama and who has no political career any more.

The Republican establishment is trapped. Any refusal to support Trump will be seen by Republican voters as being pro-Hillary. The best way for a Republican politician to lose in November is to be seen by Republican voters as pro-Hillary. So, they grin and bear it.

CONCLUSIONS

Trump senses that millions of Americans are fed up. He has been able to show these voters that they are not alone. This is his most important contribution. Win or lose, Trump has shown us that millions of voters are figuring out how the political system is rigged, and the media, too.

Trump is Howard Beale.