Twitter Strategy?

Trump's latest Twitter outrage is a series of personal attacks on Mika and Joe from MSNBC's Morning Joe.  One is 'crazy' and the other is 'psycho' and Mika's cosmetic surgery was a mess when she visited Mar a Lago.  What is the point of these ad hominem attacks?  It's one thing to dispute the accuracy or tone of the reporting but another to descend to name-calling.  Moreover, Morning Joe is a low-ratings show and Trump may boost those ratings with all the attention he is giving them.  What is the point?

 

What if Trump's ravings are a strategy.  As soon as he unleashes one of these nutty tweets, the various news outlets fall all over themselves to denounce him and spend a couple of days pondering his mental state.  While the press obsess, Trump moves on to other things.  It's like he tosses a stick and the media chases after it for a while before getting back to reporting.  Are these just staged distractions, like some magic act that convinces the audience to look where the trick is not happening?  Is Trump creating an irresistible story for the media so that they will not have time to report his agenda?

Tax Dodger Network Blasts Taxpayer

On MSNBC last night, Rachel Maddow reported on President Trump's 2005 tax return which she had in hand.  It turns out that Trump paid taxes!  Yes, he paid $38 million on $150 million of income, which is about 25%.  That is a higher percentage than MSNBC Corporate owner, Comcast (24%), President Obama (19%), or Bernie Sanders (13%).  Why was this newsworthy?

 

And then I came across this article and thought about only those without sin may cast stones.  It turns out that quite a few people at MSNBC have had tax problems.  Reverend Al Sharpton leads the pack with $1.5 million in back taxes to both New York and the federal government.  Former host Toure had a long run of tax troubles from 2008 to 2012 for a quarter of a million dollars.  Former host Melissa Harris-Perry was into the feds for $70K in 2015.  Chris Matthews had a $4,000 lien placed on him by the state of Maryland last year.  The guy earns $5 million a year.  Supposing that he works 50 hour weeks and only takes a couple weeks of vacation a year, that works out to $2,000 an hour.  How do you let a 2 hour tax problem spiral to the point that the state of Maryland imposes a lien?  There is a story I would like to see reported, especially since this is a guy who demands the rich pay more since they don't need it.

 

The point of this story was to get ratings for Maddow.  She is currently skyrocketing and this will likely have been a ratings homerun.  Such is short term thinking.  How many anti-Trumpers watched with anticipation of a Trump-crushing scandal to be revealed only to find out that he made a lot of money and paid a lot of taxes on it?  The tax return in no way supported the conspiracy theory she outlined before the big reveal.