I admit I do love it when Trump gets trolled.
(Weirdly, the post title didn’t match the headline in the actual link, but the version Lemmy let me click on to make the title works better anyway.)
Even when he’s “a dipshit”, the attention he garners legitamizes him as a candidate. Attention is the whole game. The Michael Jordan of “no bad publicity.” The entertainment you describe is just a different form of rubbernecking. And Trump attracts droves by regularly providing a new car accident to gawk at; and doing so on a fairly steady, news cycle friendly basis.
You can’t legitimize a legitimate candidate any more than he’s already been legitimized.
Expecting people to never talk about one of the two people who have a chance at being president next year within a month of election day is a bit silly.
I don’t take exception to talking about him. I take exception with people being entertained by him. Even as schadenfreude.
The media legitimizes him by summerizing his statements. By hypothesizing what he meant instead of what he actually said. They give him the benefit of the doubt, time and time again. Age is no longer an issue, grabbing unconcenting women by their genetials is no longer an issue, felonies are no longer an issue, debt and taxes are no longer an issue, anything that has become boring is no longer an issue. It’s all about new new new.
They push this bilge about fairness to justify giving him a platform, but really they just need a heel for their wrestling spectacle.
He didn’t falsely claim, he lied. He didn’t accidentally reference facist rhetoric, he used it. He doesn’t deny climate change, he profits from it. Etc.
Pointing at him and laughing is how everyone figured out the emperor had no clothes.