As Donald Trump Pushes Conspiracy Theories, Right-Wing Media Gets Its Wish

As Donald Trump Pushes Conspiracy Theories, Right-Wing Media Gets Its Wish

By JONATHAN MARTIN at the NY Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/26/us/politics/donald-trump-presidential-race.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=1

"SNIP..........



Political operatives would secretly place damaging information with friendly media like The Drudge Report and Fox News and with radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh — and then they would work to get the same information absorbed into the mainstream media.

Candidates themselves would avoid being seen slinging mud, if possible, so as to avoid coming across as undignified or desperate.

Yet by personally broaching topics like Bill Clinton’s marital indiscretions and the conspiracy theories surrounding the suicide of Vincent W. Foster Jr., a Clinton White House aide, Donald J. Trump is again defying the norms of presidential politics and fashioning his own outrageous style — one that has little use for a middleman, let alone usual ideas about dignity.

..........


With Mr. Trump as the presumptive Republican standard-bearer, the line separating the conservative mischief makers and the party’s more-buttoned-up cadre of elected officials and aides has been obliterated. Fusing what had been two separate but symbiotic forces, Mr. Trump has begun a real-life political science experiment: What happens when a major party’s nominee is more provocateur than politician?


.............SNIP"