This has been quite an election campaign. Like all campaigns, it has been filled with words, nice words, nasty words, true words and phony words, but all words nevertheless. Before the whole country votes and we watch to see who wins, it's worth taking a look back at words that got enormous coverage but which meant very little or essentially nothing. Here are a few of my favorites:
1. Any list of meaningless words for 2016 has to start out with this one: "#NeverTrump". Think about it. How many times did you hear about the Never Trump movement among Republicans? How many stories did we watch on TV in which some reporter or another told us about the massive civil war in the GOP and about how Republicans would never be able to coalesce around Trump's candidacy? First we heard how the primary voters would reject Trump. Then we got all those stories about how the GOP convention would ultimately blow up and not select Trump as the nominee. Then we got an avalanche of stories about how this or that GOP bigwig would vote for Hillary or not vote etc. There were plenty of Republicans in DC who thought that their opinions would sway may others. Just think of the ever-pompous George Will who announced that he was leaving the GOP because of Trump. He may have brought Mrs. Will along with him, but that was about it. Then there were the self proclaimed protectors of conservatism like Bill Kristol who pushed for another candidate like David French to come forward only to be more ignored than rejected. The truth is that the Never Trump movement has been perhaps the most hyped yet most ineffectual political movement of 2016.
2. Another of the most meaningless group of words of the campaign has been "When they go low, we go high." This was something that Michelle Obama had said and that Hillary Clinton and her surrogates then adopted. Hillary talked about going "high" in between calling Trump a racist, a misogynist, and an Islamophobe, who fomented violence by his supporters and then calling those who plan to vote for Trump a basket of deplorables or worse. Hillary and her supporters called Trump every name in the book and a few that the publisher of that book thought were too terrible to print. The same people who nearly fainted when Trump used the slogan "America First" because 80 years ago an isolationist group adopted that same slogan and opposed American entry into World War II, thought nothing of falsely calling Trump a Nazi, Hitler, a fascist, or a supporter of the KKK. Somehow, they never "went high" even though they spoke about it all the time.
3. The biggest batch of meaningless words came from Hillary Clinton and the Democrats who praised FBI director James Comey for announcing last Summer that although Hillary Clinton had been extraordinarily careless in handling classified information, he did not think she ought be prosecuted. We all know that when he told Congress that he was reopening that investigation, the same people decided to denounce Comey as the anti-Christ. So much for what they had said earlier.
There are many more candidates for this list. Still, the three above have to rank at the top.
One thing is certain: (with apologies to Winston Churchill), never in the course of human history has so much been said conveying so little.
1. Any list of meaningless words for 2016 has to start out with this one: "#NeverTrump". Think about it. How many times did you hear about the Never Trump movement among Republicans? How many stories did we watch on TV in which some reporter or another told us about the massive civil war in the GOP and about how Republicans would never be able to coalesce around Trump's candidacy? First we heard how the primary voters would reject Trump. Then we got all those stories about how the GOP convention would ultimately blow up and not select Trump as the nominee. Then we got an avalanche of stories about how this or that GOP bigwig would vote for Hillary or not vote etc. There were plenty of Republicans in DC who thought that their opinions would sway may others. Just think of the ever-pompous George Will who announced that he was leaving the GOP because of Trump. He may have brought Mrs. Will along with him, but that was about it. Then there were the self proclaimed protectors of conservatism like Bill Kristol who pushed for another candidate like David French to come forward only to be more ignored than rejected. The truth is that the Never Trump movement has been perhaps the most hyped yet most ineffectual political movement of 2016.
2. Another of the most meaningless group of words of the campaign has been "When they go low, we go high." This was something that Michelle Obama had said and that Hillary Clinton and her surrogates then adopted. Hillary talked about going "high" in between calling Trump a racist, a misogynist, and an Islamophobe, who fomented violence by his supporters and then calling those who plan to vote for Trump a basket of deplorables or worse. Hillary and her supporters called Trump every name in the book and a few that the publisher of that book thought were too terrible to print. The same people who nearly fainted when Trump used the slogan "America First" because 80 years ago an isolationist group adopted that same slogan and opposed American entry into World War II, thought nothing of falsely calling Trump a Nazi, Hitler, a fascist, or a supporter of the KKK. Somehow, they never "went high" even though they spoke about it all the time.
3. The biggest batch of meaningless words came from Hillary Clinton and the Democrats who praised FBI director James Comey for announcing last Summer that although Hillary Clinton had been extraordinarily careless in handling classified information, he did not think she ought be prosecuted. We all know that when he told Congress that he was reopening that investigation, the same people decided to denounce Comey as the anti-Christ. So much for what they had said earlier.
There are many more candidates for this list. Still, the three above have to rank at the top.
One thing is certain: (with apologies to Winston Churchill), never in the course of human history has so much been said conveying so little.
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