Since Donald Trump won the 2016 Presidential Election, Trump’s campaign manager Kellyanne Conway has reportedly made bold threats to sue Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid as well as enjoy plenty of told-you-so moments with the press, perhaps even more so than Michael Moore. In the current sociopolitical sphere where passionate people aggressively channel their arguments, Kellyanne Conway’s gloating is an attitude that has become normalized as part of the “reward,” now the standard for how the Republican Party wins and, likely, how it will govern. This Monday, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) opened a press conference by saying, “Welcome to the dawn of a new unified Republican government,” followed by, “It feels good to say that actually.” This was his verbal victory lap where he showed little restraint to hit at Democrats that Republicans finally got what they wanted.
House Speaker Paul Ryan: “Welcome to the dawn of a new, unified Republican government." https://t.co/lo3Igp17Wz https://t.co/XiNsMk0SuP
— CNN (@CNN) November 15, 2016
Kellyanne Conway’s gloating since Election Day fits in perfectly with the Republican Party brand. It goes well with their eight years of obstruction, sulking, and the reward for creating and delivering a weaponized candidate who violently gnashed and stomped his way through the Presidential race, further giving proof that they’ve quadrupled-down on taking their 2009 defeat personally. On Sunday morning’s Meet The Press interview with Conway, that same attitude was on display where rather than use most of her airtime to attack the media for “unfair” coverage, she gloated and “danced” around the questions of whether the Trump administration would be reaching out to blue America:
“I hope even those who were critical of Mr. Trump, of President-elect Trump; I like the sound of that, I hope that they at least learned something from the voters. That’s what so many of us have been urging from the beginning.”
Now, she could have gone either way at the beginning of this statement but settled on emphasizing the words “President-elect Trump”, which was obviously loaded against those critics, which she reveled in with enjoyment like a Skeksis from The Dark Crystal. But then she followed her response with:
“You want to grow the Republican Party? Pay attention to what he’s done.”
Hey @NormOrnstein which"lie" bugged you? "We will win" "We'll bust the blue wall" "…underestimating our ground game" "She can't bust 46%" https://t.co/HCFiP7KkhD
— Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) November 12, 2016
Her entire statement would make more sense if Kellyanne Conway were referring to anti-Trump Republicans because, why would Democrats or liberals want to grow the Republican Party when the GOP has done nothing in Congress for almost an entire decade? But Chuck Todd continued to pose the question to her as to whether Donald Trump would hold town halls with his opponents and speak to blue America as Hillary Clinton had been encouraged by her advisers to reach out to red America. Kellyanne Conway said “sure,” but everything that followed in her response, was in past tense, saying that Donald Trump had already done that and that that was how he “busted” down the blue wall to win the election. But Chuck Todd noticed she wasn’t answering his question and told her there was a difference between going to states where he could find voters who agreed with him, and finding those who disagreed with him, to which she just smiled condescendingly.
The existence of the blue wall has also been debated since Democrats took the hit on Election Day, as pollsters and analysts tried to figure out why their predictions were wrong, even making stars out of people like Nate Silver and Allan Lichtman. It should be pointed out that there is no way to know how Kellyanne Conway grades those who disagree with Donald Trump, especially when she and other surrogates are always on the defensive against all all opposition. In response to Chuck Todd’s question, she again referred to the those who disagreed with them as the hidden Trump voters she said they tried to talk about during the campaign, but she further added to her growing pile of Gloat Mountain by adding an eye roll and how they endured a “hail” of ridicule when they warned about those hidden voters. Obviously, this was another way to express how personally Kellyanne Conway — as the campaign manager — had taken the criticism. But when one pays attention to the details of her response, it doesn’t make sense how hidden blue voters could be people who disagreed with them, which hints at the possibility that she is giving a nonsensical answer using a group of “voters” she had in her “back pocket” to fill in the gaps of questioning when she needed them.
It’s also questionable how much Conway “respects” the rival Democrats when she said “I respect them very much,” after being more disrespectful against Hillary during the campaign, fouling up the talking points with false accusations about Clinton being a criminal — a tactic she often used to get through aggressive questioning. Chuck Todd also asked her about why they lost the popular vote and that those were Americans too. But Conway refused to give a real answer by using her “respect” for Democrats as leverage for her argument that they had misread Americans. What is clear from this interview and how the Trump administration will be running is that they will be focusing on their Americans and not all of America. Just like the Republicans, Kellyanne Conway shows us that the new Trump party she represents speak only to their own Americans, another clear indication that the feelings they have against their opposition are personal. Overall, it’s questionable as to whether they will be speaking for any Americans at all, which only shows that they will be hindering progress in the 21st century for at least four years.
Here is Kellyanne Conway’s full interview with Chuck Todd from Sunday’s Meet The Press.
Featured Image via screenshot from YouTube video
