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Muth: A “dangerous” smell of “fear” is in the air

Hillary Clinton has assured the nation she’s not in poor health and says all the speculation to the contrary is “crazy.”

“I don’t know why they are saying this,” Clinton said to Jimmy Kimmel in an interview in which she opened a jar of pickles to prove she’s fit as a fiddle.

Well, that’s good enough for me.

I mean, Hillary’s been so honest and forthright about her emails, the Clinton Foundation fundraising, Benghazi, taking enemy sniper fire in Bosnia, Whitewater, cattle futures and the White House travel office, why wouldn’t anyone believe her when she says she’s in perfectly good health?

Meanwhile, CNN and the mainstream media continue to look under every rock for Republicans who aren’t supporting Donald Trump. And their unrelenting search recently landed in Las Vegas.

Jim Murren is chairman and CEO of MGM Resorts International. He’s a corporate executive, not an entrepreneur who started his own businesses like Steve Wynn or Sheldon Adelson.

Or Donald Trump.

Politically, Murren claims to be a Republican. But he was prominently featured as a member of “Republicans for Reid” – a group of Republicans who supported Democrat U.S. Sen. Harry Reid’s re-election campaign in 2010 – and is now publicly supporting liberal Democrat Hillary Clinton for president.

For some reason, the acronym “RINO” (Republican in Name Only) keeps popping into my head. I wonder why?

As for Donald Trump, I don’t know if he’s ever read “Rules for Radicals,” but in many ways his presidential campaign is embracing Saul Alinsky’s strategies/methods against Alinsky’s protégé. Consider this advice from Alinsky and tell me if it rings any bells…

“The job of the organizer is to maneuver and bait the establishment so that it will publicly attack him as a ‘dangerous enemy.’”

Sound familiar?

“The word ‘enemy’ is sufficient to put the organizer on the side of the people, to identify him with the Have-Nots…”

A common refrain from the Trump campaign: I’m with you, they’re with her.

“…but it is not enough to endow him with the special qualities that induce fear and thus give him the means to establish his own power against the establishment. Here again we find that it is power AND fear that are essential to the development of faith.”

Clearly, Hillary’s campaign and the Washington, D.C. establishment perceive Trump as a powerful opponent. That perception has fueled his grassroots movement. Indeed, if the faithful didn’t have faith that Trump was powerful enough to actually prevail against the establishment, his campaign never would have taken flight.

As for fear…

“This need is met by the establishment’s use of the brand ‘dangerous,’ for in that one word the establishment reveals its fear of the organizer, its fear that he represents a threat to its omnipotence.”

I wish I had a nickel for every time Trump has been called “dangerous” this election cycle. The smell of fear is, indeed, in the air.

Chuck Muth is president of Citizen Outreach and publisher of NevadaNewsandViews.com. You can reach Chuck at ChuckMuth.com

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