She’s a strategic adviser in President Donald Trump’s West Wing. He’s a lobbyist who moonlights as the head of the American Conservative Union, which hosts the annual Conservative Political Action Conference — a key gathering for Trump supporters.
.. Mercedes and Matt Schlapp, a power couple tailor-made for Trump’s Washington.
.. , Mercedes Schlapp — known as Mercy — is among the leading candidates to become communications director after the resignation last week of Hope Hicks... The move, said to be favored by White House chief of staff John Kelly.. Other internal candidates under consideration include Treasury spokesman Tony Sayegh and press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who could take on a dual role, as her predecessor, Sean Spicer, did... Schlapp, a former Fox News contributor.. Schlapp is also well-liked by the president, in part because her husband is so often on television defending him... A veteran of the George W. Bush White House and the Koch brothers’ Washington operation, Matt Schlapp was elected chair of the American Conservative Union.. “Matt has successfully been representative of the conservative movement and been able to defend Trump without looking like a sycophant.. in 2017, when Schlapp invited alt-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos.. This year, the conference hosted a range of speakers from what were once the fringes of the Republican Party, and even hosted French nationalist Marion Le Pen... “The sort of personality cult aspect of the Trump presidency … have caused people to have sort of a fire sale on long-established conservative principles,” Goldberg said.
.. “Those conservatives who are dubious about President Trump’s approach have withered down to next to nothing,”
.. “It’s not CPAC’s change of attitude toward Trump, it’s the American conservative activists who have changed their attitude toward Trump. … By the way, we agree with them.”
.. Schlapp’s lobbying firm, brought in more than $1 million in revenue in 2017 — up from $640,000 in 2016 and $600,000 in 2015.
.. “He has professionalized the conservative movement to be the backbone of the Republican president in power,” Lanza said. “I think he would have been equally successful if it were President Jeb or President Cruz
What does it take for Fox News stars to turn on Trump? We are finding out.
“Imagine if Barack Obama had said that,” said Tucker Carlson on Thursday night on his eponymous Fox News program. The host was referring to Trump’s remark in a Wednesday meeting with lawmakers regarding gun policy. “Take the guns first, go through due process second,” said Trump. Many were astonished, though they shouldn’t have been: Trump has no core convictions, just core whims.
.. “Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited,” decreed the Supreme Court in the landmark 2008 case District of Columbia, et al. v. Heller. “From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”
.. Carlson is gradually adjusting a year-long MO of deflecting negative stories about the president. Time and again, the quick-witted host found creative and entertaining ways of hammering liberals for this-or-that offense while Trump and his charges were stacking up scandalous headlines.
.. The pattern also unfolded in January, when Trump declared that he’d pretty much accept whatever immigration policies Congress promulgated.
.. “And yet, today, in a remarkable twist, the president held a televised meeting with the very swamp creatures he once denounced. He told them he trusted them to craft immigration policy without his input.”
.. How much outrage, how much pettiness, how many policy betrayals will conservatives stomach before reaching some very obvious conclusions about our president? Broken rudders on immigration and gun rights appear to be Carlson’s bridge-too-far betrayals.
.. Sean Hannity didn’t have the courage or the principle to face his viewers a la Carlson. Following Trump’s meeting with lawmakers, he gaslighted his audience by skipping over Trump’s embrace of gun restrictions and hammering “Democrats” for embracing them.
.. this was a wild thing. It was not cool for a lot of people who believe in the Second Amendment.”
.. Trump’s trampling of truth and decency didn’t much offend the prime-timers at Fox News. But stray from conservative orthodoxy on immigration and guns? That’s trouble.
‘Shut up and dribble’: Fox News host extends Trump’s efforts to silence political athletes
Oh, and LeBron and Kevin: You’re great players, but no one voted for you … So keep the political commentary to yourself or, as someone once said, shut up and dribble.”
The “shut up and dribble” command isn’t that different from the “shut up and sing” directive many conservatives lob at liberals in the entertainment industry who are critical of policies on the right.
And the “stay out of politics” sentiment is usually a viewpoint only reserved for their political opponents. After all, the president often praises athletes that support his view of America, such as New England Patriot Tom Brady, who once kept a “Make America Great Again” hat in his locker.
.. Ingraham, who was once floated as a possible White House press secretary to replace Sean Spicer
.. The idea that the “court” of political punditry belongs to a host on the president’s preferred cable network is bound to get pushback.
What makes Ingraham an expert — a host on a cable network with primarily white hosts and conservative guests — on issues related to people of color in urban areas?
.. America is incredibly divided politically. And most Americans point to Trump, who called NFL players protesting racism “sons of bitches,” as one of the main agitators. But that probably isn’t going to change by telling people to sit down and be quiet, particularly when they are voicing concerns on issues many Americans are concerned with themselves.
By Ingraham telling Americans who don’t agree with her views to “shut up and dribble,” it further isolates certain groups and leads them to add the host — and her network — to the list of influential voices who do not understand the concerns of those who do not look like them.
The End of the Two-Party System
In retrospect, the civil war in the Balkans was the most important event of that period. It prefigured what has come since: the return of ethnic separatism, the rise of authoritarian populism, the retreat of liberal democracy, the elevation of a warrior ethos that reduces politics to friend/enemy, zero-sum conflicts.
.. Back in the 1990s, there was an unconscious abundance mind-set.
.. Today, after the financial crisis, the shrinking of the middle class, the partisan warfare, a scarcity mind-set is dominant: Resources are limited. The world is dangerous. Group conflict is inevitable. It’s us versus them. If they win, we’re ruined, therefore, let’s stick with our tribe. The ends justify the means.
.. The scarcity mind-set is an acid that destroys every belief system it touches.
.. Now, Donald Trump leads the Republican Party, the personification of the scarcity mind-set. Fox News, with its daily gospel of resentments, is the most important organ of conservative opinion.
.. Republicans are happy to trade away their fiscal principles if they can get their way on immigration, which is what they did in last week’s budget deal.