Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump is considered a firebrand by most members of the media. He and his campaign have produced news headlines that have many people I meet scratching their heads.
Firstly, I’d like to address Mr. Trump’s debate performance from last Monday.
A lot of mud flew between Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton. In terms of pure forensics, Clinton won the night for the majority of people watching on television. Trump noted after the performance that he was “a little bit upset” that his microphone wasn’t working; to which Clinton said, to widespread approval in the Twittersphere, “Anybody who complains about the microphone is not having a good night.”
As it turns out, Trump’s microphone was indeed not working inside the venue at Hofstra University, and it took until Friday for the “independent” debate commission to admit it. Raising his voice to be heard properly, Trump fit the stereotype the media tends to cast onto him: a loud, reflexive, cartoon-like presidential candidate.
He seemed to have lost the debate because of how animated he was. However, provided that his microphone was indeed dysfunctional, we now know that if Trump wanted to refute a point from Clinton - at least to be heard by moderator Lester Holt - he’d have to make his rebuttal clearer with body language and raising his voice. Clinton had no such handicap.
It is unknown whether the television mic was similarly defective, which picked up his sniffling nose and had people like former Democratic Presidential Candidate Howard Dean blithely asking if he was a coke user. What is clear is that it would have been a major factor in Trump’s debate performance, such that television viewers could find themselves reinforcing the idea that Trump is naturally a loud and contentious person.
But I’d like to go one step further. I won’t even refute that, at times, Trump seems like a “cartoon-like” candidate. I want to categorically address some of the most salient utterances put to his discredit by the mainstream media, to illustrate how biased the coverage of these events can be.
The most recent incident I can think of occurred after the Trump-Clinton debate, in which former Ms. Universe Alicia Machado was criticized by the Trump campaign, after Clinton had said toward the end of the debate that Machado was called sexist names by Trump some decades ago.
Trump notoriously tweeted that people should look into her past and question Clinton’s judgment of using her as a paragon of Trump’s victimization of women.
Alicia Machado is accused of having a child with Mexican druglord Jose Gerardo “El Indio” Alvarez, who boasted a $2 million capture reward from the U.S. government when he was on the run.
She was accused of being an accomplice to murder in Venezuela, a charge about which she recently said, “I’m not a saint girl.” She became an American citizen no more than one month before Hillary Clinton brought her name up in the presidential debate as an example of a voting woman who sees through Trump’s bigotry.
In a notorious incident, Trump criticized the Muslim Gold Star family that spoke at the Democratic National Convention. The father, Khizr Khan, held up a Constitution at the convention and said Trump should try reading it sometime, among other criticisms.
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This incident should be prefaced by the family’s son, Captain Humayun Khan, and that his sacrifice is above these feuds.
It must be noted, with the Gold Star family putting themselves in a political spotlight, that Kihzr Khan’s law firm, KM Khan Law Office, profits from Muslim immigration to the United States. The firm website was taken down around the time of Khan’s address. On the site, which has been archived, one sees on his website biography as an area of practice “EB-5 Investments & Related Immigration Services.” The Department of Homeland security has written in a memo that EB-5’s prevalence of users from countries in the Middle East renders it unsafe - even going so far as to say that it could be used by Iranian operatives to infiltrate the United States.
Meanwhile, the Media Research Center reveals how Gold Star mother Patricia Smith received 50 times less coverage than the Khans for her speech. Mrs. Smith spoke at the Republican National Convention and accused Hillary Clinton of lying to her about the cause of her son’s sacrifice in Benghazi, Libya. Her son, Sean Smith, was a U.S. Foreign Service officer killed in the Sept. 11 Benghazi attacks.
In the last major incident of public awareness I want to address, and one that particularly affected New Mexico in the polls, Donald Trump accused the Mexican-American judge Gonzalo Curiel’s heritage as being in “absolute conflict” with the court’s need for impartiality. Curiel, the son of Mexican immigrants, presides over the Trump University case.
At first glance, the criticism is almost disqualifying for presidency. Trump’s unfavorability rose as high as 70 percent after the comments. There is another side to this story, as there often is, despite that the media narrative focused on how bigoted and evil Trump was to say what he did.
Judge Gonzalo Curiel is a member of four law groups: San Diego La Raza (“The Race”) Lawyers Association, Hispanic National Bar Association, Latino Judges Association and the National Hispanic Prosecutors Association. On July 2, 2015 - about a year before the Trump comments - the Hispanic National Bar Association called “for a boycott of all of Trump business ventures.” Similarly against the objective interests of the Curiel Court, Curiel was honored by the San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association for his “leadership and support to the community.”
I personally think it is superb when a person gives back to their community as a leader. However, it is clear that there is a conflict of interest and that Trump had strong points that weren’t covered by the media - that the supposedly-biased judge over his case was indeed a member of four different advocacy groups.
In the mission statement of the San Diego La Raza, a number of positive items stand out, but one very grave one for a judge presiding over a Trump case also demands mention: “Strongly advocate positions on judicial, economic and social issues to political leaders and state and local bar associations that impact the Latino community.” Here, you now have a politically active judge presiding over a case involving a major political figure.
We find ourselves in a presidential election that poses two candidates with stark ideological differences, but with those differences marred by personal conflicts and sensational statements from both sides. It is important this election cycle to see beyond mainstream outlets - to fact-check on one’s own instead of consuming the fact-checking someone else has manufactured.
The major third party candidates appear unsavory for their own reasons, also brought to light when one looks at headlines. People ought to look to the issues, rather than the candidates’ portraits painted by media outlets. They should find the facts behind what people are saying, rather than the drama.
Brian Moore is a a UNM alumnus, and can be reached at bmoreols82@hotmail.com.
