Donald Trump hasn't done much to win over new voters in the last month, and has instead seemed to focus on strengthening support from his base.
The Republican nominee's poll numbers have plunged since the first presidential debate, and he reportedly -- and apparently -- skipped preparation work for the next two, as well.
He's pushed conspiracy theories about election rigging and threatened to plunge the nation into a constitutional crisis if he doesn't win, although his campaign failed to put together a ground game in the states he most needs to win.
According to one of his biographers, Trump isn't even trying to win the election -- and is instead using donors' money to build an audience for Trump TV.
"I don't think the goal now is to win," said Michael D'Antonio, author of "Never Enough: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success." "I think the goal is to establish his media empire, and he's building an audience on the dime of his political donors."
Trump has bragged that he has built his business using "OPM," or "other people's money," and D'Antonio said that's what he's doing now, in the last weeks of his presidential campaign, to invest in his next venture.
"The whole 'other people's money' thing in real estate?" D'Antonio said. "He's using other people's money now to create his brand as a media mogul."
D'Antonio said he's not the least bit surprised that Trump has threatened not to accept the election results if he loses.
"This is a guy who plays games and pulls stunts," D'Antonio said, before taking a shot at the former reality TV star. "This interview is rigged, because you have coffee and I don't."
Michael D'Antonio: Trump's goal is "media mogul" and he's "building an audience on the dime of his political donors" https://t.co/JxOfuQeeex
If corporate money controls our politics, as Bernie Sanders and others have claimed, then how did the Republican Party – the reputed party of business – manage to nominate a candidate whom almost no one in Big Business supports? And why have so many been so silent about it?
A recent article in the Wall Street Journal reports that not one CEO at a Fortune 100 company has donated to Trump’s campaign, whereas one-third supported Mitt Romney in 2012. Many in business have said privately that they are terrified of a Trump administration and the possibility of trade wars and ballooning deficits, yet few CEOs vocally oppose him.
So why isn’t a CEO social movement taking to the barricades against a Trump presidency? One possibility: To mobilize a movement, you need a social network, and CEOs no longer have one.
In other words, corporate America’s “old boys’ club” is dead. The question is: Is that entirely a good thing? As our research – and Trump’s rise – shows, not necessarily.
Are the elites really as powerful as Sanders and his supporters claimed?
John Minchillo/AP
Building the old boys’ club
For most of the postwar era, American corporations were overseen by a group of elite executives and directors who all knew each other or had friends in common. In 1974, there were roughly 100 people (all male and all but one white) who each served on five or more corporate boards.
Corporate America was controlled by an “old boys’ club.”
Social network analysis shows that the board members of any two corporations were rarely more than three or four degrees of separation apart. A sneeze in one boardroom could have triggered a flu epidemic infecting more than 90 percent of the Fortune 500 within a few months.
Louis Brandeis, who served on the Supreme Court from 1916 to 1939, warned about this concentration of power in his 1914 book “Other People’s Money: And How the Bankers Use It.” To him, the network among corporate directors was an “endless chain” that served as the “most potent instrument of the Money Trust.”
In the 1950s, sociologist C. Wright Mills labeled this group the “power elite,” interweaving business, government and the military, and subsequent researchers documented how pervasive these ties were.
President Bush meets with his cabinet in 2002.
Ron Edmonds/AP
The heyday of corporate influence
President George W. Bush’s first cabinet may have been the high-water mark of the corporate network’s influence.
A few highlights: Before he became vice president, Dick Cheney served on the boards of Electronic Data Systems, Procter & Gamble and Union Pacific. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had previously been CEO of GD Searle and General Instrument and served on the boards of Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Gilead Sciences and Tribune Co. Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill was CEO of Alcoa and director of Eastman Kodak and Lucent Technologies. And Labor Secretary Elaine Chao was on the boards of CR Bard, Clorox, Dole, HCA Healthcare, Marine Transport, Millipore, Northwest Airlines, Protective Life and Raymond James Financial.
In all, the Bush cabinet was directly tied to 21 corporations, two degrees from another 228 and three degrees of separation from over 1,100 companies listed on Nasdaq or the New York Stock Exchange. No administration in history had as many direct personal contacts with corporate America.
Such network ties have a tangible effect on corporate actions. Scholars found that ideas about how to run a corporation spread from board to board through shared directors, just as fads and fashions spread through contact among people. Moreover, a number of studies showed that these connections shaped how corporations and their executives engaged in politics. For example, executives at companies linked together by shared directors tended to donate to the same political candidates.
At the center of this network reigned a small, linked group of powerful executives – Wharton Business School professor Michael Useem dubbed them the “inner circle” – who came to share a common viewpoint about what was best for the long-term interests of American business as a whole. Serving on many boards, particularly big bank boards (which were bigger and often filled with well-connected CEOs), gave this group an expansive view of what was best for all of business and not just particular companies and industries. As Useem’s work showed, this group tended to be prominent in both business and civic life, often including corporate executives, leaders of nonprofit and cultural institutions and former government officials.
Being in regular contact with each other made concerted action possible, which helped them achieve their own aims but could also have positive societal benefits, such as organizing a successful Olympics bid. It also gave the group the potential to influence government policy – for better or worse.
Instead of a corporate agenda, we may have more wealthy individuals like Sheldon Adelson (middle, at the first debate) pursuing their own goals.
Lucas Jackson/Reuters
The demise of the power elite
This world of cozy, highly connected boards is now gone.
The JP Morgan Chase board in 2001 had 15 directors, and all but two of them served on other boards. One director served on eight boards including the bank itself, five held five seats each, and another five were on three or four.
For the corporate network as a whole, by 2012, only one director sat on five major boards (compared with about 100 who sat on that many or more in 1974).
As our research shows, before these events, serving on many boards was a source of prestige, and the largest corporations courted well-connected directors. But after the scandals, being a well-connected director became suspect.
For example, in 2002, Forbes published an article that profiled the five directors with the most S&P 500 board seats, asserting that they were too overstretched to provide adequate oversight. In 2004, Institutional Shareholder Services, which advises large institutional investors on corporate governance, began recommending that its clients vote against directors who served on too many boards.
Within a few years, the inner circle had disintegrated.
Big Business’ waning influence was on full display as Trump took the helm of the Republican Party in July.
Tom Williams/CQ Roll Cal via AP Images)
From group think to kingmakers
Did the demise of the inner circle stop the 1 percent from dictating policy? Well, not exactly.
Each individual in the corporate elite still wields considerable influence. But as sociologist Mark Mizruchi has pointed out, they now tend to do so as individuals pursuing their own idiosyncratic agendas rather than as a group. Think Sheldon Adelson or the Koch Brothers rather than the Business Roundtable.
This has not been altogether a good thing.
When a single network connected corporate America, executives were forced to listen to opinions from a range of peers. And although the group skewed Republican on average, individual directors held a range of political opinions.
The most well-connected leaders converged on a preference for more moderate candidates and policies and often ended up donating to both parties’ candidates, not just one. The support of this group was useful, if not absolutely essential, for potential presidential candidates, and it is hard to imagine that a putative anti-establishment candidate like Trump would have passed muster.
The dense web of connections allowed the inner circle to police the corporate ranks and present a unified, middle-of-the-road message to policymakers. Our own research, forthcoming in the American Journal of Sociology, finds that board ties are now too sparse to provide a means for business executives to forge common ground.
CEOs today rarely serve on two or more boards, and, as a result, they no longer have monthly opportunities to hear what peers who support another point of view might think. Those board connections turned out to be a force for political moderation, and annual gatherings in Davos are not enough to replace them.
American politics has arrived at a millennial inflection point. While Mills and his fellow critics lambasted the well-connected corporate inner circle for furthering their own interests over those of the majority of society, we now see that the alternative may be dysfunction and an inability to find common ground.
Extremists in every corner of the political universe can gather power by targeting well-heeled funders like Adelson on the right and George Soros on the left. In this new world, compromise is frowned upon.
While we don’t want to return to a world where a handful of powerful white men held rule over corporate America and by extension the nation, we may benefit from building structures that operate like board ties previously did, acting as a force for compromise and moderation.
To hold together, American society may require new institutions that connect a broad and diverse spectrum of business and nonprofit leaders to each other, forcing individuals to consider the views of their peers.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is having another bad week. After weeks of bad publicity, more and more sexual assault accusers coming forward and , he had yet another one Wednesday night. The debate was so bad, in fact, that Stephen Colbert simply can't stop talking about it. The result of the ongoing nightmare is that "Trump is no longer accepting the polls. Or reality," Colbert joked Thursday night.
So, last night when moderator Chris Wallace asked Trump if he'd be accepting the results of the election, Trump said that he would keep the world in suspense. "Yes, suspense," Colbert said. "That's presidential. It reminds me of FDR's first inaugural." He then played old black and white footage of the inauguration. Dubbed over FDR's actual words, however, was someone saying "The only thing to fear is... Stay tuned to find out!" Dramatic music was then played. "Spoiler alert: It was the Nazis," Colbert revealed.
"Now, a lot of people say not promising to accept the results disqualifies Trump from the presidency," he continued. "So, today, Trump assured voters that he believes in the peaceful transfer of power." Colbert then played the video of claiming he'd only accept the results if he was the winner.
"Oh, come on!" he said to the audience's reaction. "You've got to give it to him! You know, you really got me for a second there! I actually believed you had a shred of integrity. What an amazing psych-out. It's like that classic joke where you offer to shake somebody's hand, but when they go to shake it, you undermine our system of government."
He wondered how America got to this point. We're in the unique place in the historic American experiment when our government "rests in Donald Trump's tiny, whining, loser hands."
In the end, Colbert said it was like Trump didn't prepare for the debates at all. Reports say, however, that Trump did debate prep with Chris Christie playing the role of Clinton. "So, Trump was ready, if Hillary started weeping quietly while she handed him his McDonald's order."
Pundit David Gergen noted that he has never once heard booing at the event before. Trump brought a new first in the 2016 campaign.
"You know, the other part of this that, I think, distinguishes the two is that at the end, she had this statement," Gergen said. "It was about unity and about respect and linking it back to Al Smith. That's much more the traditional -- you know, you do the humor, but at the end you get serious. And you deliver a more emotional pitch. And she had that. And I think that helped -- I think it evaluated what she had to say. And he did not go there."
John King noted that Clinton talked about her faith experience where Trump did not. While the right-wing and religious right ignores Clinton's faith, she has talked openly about the importance of her faith to get her through tough times in the late 1990s.
Clinton surrogate Christine Quinn has been to the event at least half of a dozen times and noted "I have never heard boos like that. Never. And that's with the presidential nominees speaking, that's with the president speaking, that's, you know, military and other leaders speaking. Sometimes people aren't funny, you know, and then it's like, come on, let's speed it along, but I've never heard that before."
She also said that she's never heard a presidential candidate give a "full-throated attack their opponent." Typically, candidates make jokes but never like this and the evidence it was inappropriate came with the expressions of the people around Trump. "I think if you look -- saw the look at Cardinal Dolan's face when it happened it was clearly shocking to him and everybody else there because that's simply not what's done and people may say Donald Trump's was untraditional, but it's that man's standards. He kind of sets the rules but if you don't follow them, don't come and act in a manner of aggressiveness that is not in the tone or tradition of that dinner."
While Trump surrogate Jeffrey Lord thought they both did well for the first time possibly ever, Lord had something negative to say about Trump, calling his remarks "a little too sharp." Lord also claimed that most people in America will wake up tomorrow and not know anything about the event or care. As he was saying that, #AlSmithDinner was the number one Twitter hashtag with several thousands of people talking about the night. Lord also discounts the importance of the night and the role it plays for the Catholic church.
Philip Bump, political reporter for the Washington Post, explained that there might not be many people thinking about the event but that it plays into a larger narrative about Trump.
"Donald Trump's main challenge is temperament and this isn't just the thing Clinton has put forward," Bump said. "In the Washington Post/ABC News poll he's seen as not qualified by more than half of the country, and the reason why, the Quinnipiac Poll, they're afraid of his temperament. This was an easy thing for him to do, and quite frankly, he blew it, and he needs to reinforce over the course of the next 19 days."
Trump's surrogates came to his side claiming that Trump didn't blow it, but the booing confirmed it according to the others on the panel.
"Jeffrey, with all do respect, he did blow it," Quinn cut in. "No one gets booed at that event, you are not supposed to at that event -- it is clearly known -- attack aggressively -- your opponent that is -- not the dinner that Al Smith and the Cardinal hold. If you don't want to abide by those rules don't come."
Lord said that it was meaningless because it was a room full of rich people wearing white-ties and tails.
"It's not about that. It's about how one behaves and if you're invited to an event," Quinn said. "In the same way, it was odd Ted Cruz came to the convention and didn't endorse the nominee, it's just bizarre."
Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton shared a stage once more on Thursday night after Wednesday's final Presidential debate of the 2016 cycle. This time, the two met at the Al Smith Dinner, an annual fundraiser for Catholic charities.
However, it was unclear whether the candidates got the memo of the night's purpose. CNN anchor Don Lemon introduced the segment as, "Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton attending Al Smith Dinner. On the menu, a big serving of awkward!"
Panelist Jim Acosta noted that, while both candidates made some funny jokes at one another's expense, he thought, "it was hard for people in that room to laugh because this has been such an awful campaign."
Acosta added, "And you know, we were standing outside this event but I feel like I'm getting frost bite from the ice in the room inside the event."
Some of Trump's jokes about Clinton fell flat throughout his roast, which resulted in a lot of boos from the crowd. Acosta said, "There wasn't even any laughter at that point. It was sort of this uncomfortable silence broken by boos and groaning."
He added, "They went for the jugular. Both candidates did, and frankly it's kind of shameful," commenting on how it was an example of how vicious this election has been.
The latest Arizona polls put Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio 15 points behind his Democratic counterpart, Paul Penzone in his re-election bid, the Hill reports.
According to the Arizona Republic/Morrison/Cronkite News, Arpaio trails Penzone's 46 percent at 31 percent. Arpaio has been a fervent Donald Trump supporter, particularly because of the Republican nominee's views on immigration and border security.
The Huffington Post reports that Arpaio's numbers took a hit because survey respondents had just learned he was being charged for criminal contempt of court. Last week, the Department of Justice announced plans to charge the Arizona sheriff.
Back in August, Arpaio had ignored a court order to stop racial profiling and detaining Latinos in Arizona. For years, his department has allegedly targeted both legal and undocumented immigrants repeatedly.
[Bailey and Iafate] were both accused of withholding information from a court-appointed monitor about the existence of 1,459 IDs seized in law enforcement operations.
Ultimately, though, Judge Snow laid the blame squarely on Sheriff Arpaio. “The court,” he wrote, “has reminded Sheriff Arpaio that he is the party to the lawsuit, not his subordinates, and thus the failure of his subordinates to carry out this court’s orders would amount to his own failure to do so.”
In his decision, Judge Snow removed several of Sheriff Arpaio’s powers, including his ability to oversee internal affairs investigations. The judge had already found that Sheriff Arpaio and his deputies had mishandled and manipulated such investigations, in part to obscure wrongdoing or neglect by deputies.
The Hill notes that the latest polling numbers in the state reflect its status this year as a battleground state, specifically because it has historically gone red.
Donald Trump got outright booed at the Al Smith dinner Thursday night. Traditionally, the dinner brings both major parties and candidates together for self-deprecating humor and general silliness.
As you watch the video, note the woman to the left and behind Trump (possibly Maria Bartiromo) and the man to the right of Trump (James MacGilvray). The horrified looks on their faces say it all. These in particular:
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"A special hello to all of you in this room who have known and loved me for many, many years," Trump began. "It's true. the politicians, they've had me to their homes, they've introduced me to their children, I'd become their best friends in many instances. They asked for my endorsement and always wanted my money. And even called me really a dear, dear friend. but then, suddenly, decided when I ran for president as a Republican that I've always been a no-good, rotten, disgusting scoundrel. And they totally forgot about me. But that's okay."
This opening section was the first indication the only jokes to come were attacks on Clinton.
Following the event, CNN pundit David Gergen said that he has never once heard booing at the event before. Trump brought a new first in the 2016 campaign.
That's when the internet began to light him up. Here are a few reactions below:
Republican nominee Donald Trump and Billy Bush have made the rounds in recent weeks. First, a 2005 tape was released of the two having a disturbing conversation, in which Trump is bragging about sexually assaulting women.
Now, a 2004 video of Trump being turned away from polling places is making its way around the Internet, and the timing is perfect given his recent "rigged election" narrative.
The NBC "Access Hollywood" tape features Trump and Bush riding around to different polling sites where the real estate mogul is turned away various times. The video starts off with Trump saying, "Welcome. Go ahead, Bill. Let's vote."
After he was turned away from the first polling location and on to the next one, Trump says, "OK, I like that location better. It’s a richer location." He tells the people working at the second polling location to "Make sure there's no cheating here."
The Republican nominee has clearly come a long way in the last 12 years. Now he's running for highest office of the United States, and as his campaign sinks just weeks before Election Day, he has continuously blamed the rigged media, rigged election, and voter fraud for his imminent loss.
During Wednesday night's final Presidential debate, Trump refused to say whether he would accept the results of the election on Nov. 8. At a campaign event in Delaware, Ohio on Thursday he clarified, "I will totally accept [election results] ... if I win."
Angela Rye wasn't taking anything guff from still paid Trump ex-staffer Corey Lewandowski in their panel discussion on "Erin Burnett Out Front" Thursday night.
The panel began with a series of videos interviewing supporters of Donald Trump's campaign where one woman predicted a revolution and a man said he'd stop at nothing to "take her out."
Lewandowski maintained "there will be no civil war, there will be no revolution," however, he dodged questions if his candidate would be willing to instruct his supporters to quell their potential uprising.
"Hillary Clinton's slogan is 'stronger together,'" Rye said, as evidence that Clinton is promoting a different kind of campaign. "Barack Obama today in Florida talked about this issue being the type of issue that is not an ordinary Trump type of lie." Rye was referencing Trump's comments that he doesn't necessarily intend to go quietly if he is not elected Nov. 8.
"This is one of the things that's threatening," Rye continued. "In threatening the fundamentals of the American democracy, we have to begin to take ownership for this. If this man is running to be Commander in Chief, at some point he has to exhibit leadership instead of sitting and resting on his hands in his high and mighty ivory tower assuming the world is out to get him when all he's had is benefits and privilege."
The beloved Pepe the Frog, who was co-opted by the alt-right as a hate symbol, is partly to blame for a recently rejected Apple iPhone game. The game titled "Build the Wall: The Game," however, had plenty of other offensive characteristics as well.
Internet personality Baked Alaska, who is otherwise known as Timothy Treadstone, wrote in a tweet, "I had a free game coming out on iOS today for y'all, but Apple has banned it's release due to a cartoon picture of Pepe The Frog #FreePepe."
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Treadstone told Breitbart.com, "It’s just a fun little game where you are building a wall to keep out illegal immigrants, and as the illegal immigrants climb over the wall there’s a timer, and if you run out of time you’re out.” He added, “Your quest is to build the highest wall.
Apple reportedly wrote to Treadstone that it would not accept his app because some of the content was "offensive" and "objectionable," noting, "Specifically, your app includes Pepe the Frog character."
Over the last few months, Pepe the Frog has become a hate symbol for the alt-right. The creator of the once-sad-frog-meme, Matt Furie wrote in an op-ed for TIME, "Before he got wrapped up in politics, Pepe was an inside-joke and a symbol for feeling sad or feeling good and many things in between."
As Olivia Nuzzi reported for the Daily Beast, the meme became a symbol of Trump-ism and anti-semitism, sometimes sporting a swastika and other white supremacist symbols.
While Pepe is perhaps one part of what's offensive about the app, given the meme's new associations, a game dedicated to building a wall to keep out "illegal" immigrants seems offensive and objectionable with or without the sad frog.
Presidential nominees Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are expected to appear together at the annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner in Manhattan on Thursday night. The event is scheduled to begin at 9 p.m. ET.
“The presidential nominees will share the dais with Timothy Cardinal Dolan, Archbishop of New York, and they will deliver the evening’s speeches in the spirit of collegiality and good-humor that has become a hallmark of the gala,” the New York Archdiocese, which runs the event, said in a statement.
Mexican restaurants across America are hilariously embracing Donald Trump's accusations that many Mexican immigrants are "bad hombres."
According to TMZ, establishments in Tennessee, Maine and Pennsylvania are capitalizing on Trump's racism and they're doing so "bigly."
The Grubhouse in Philadelphia tweeted, "To order the Bad Hombre online, just select a Sausage, egg and cheese sandwich, and write 'bad hombre' in special instructions. Gracias!" They attached a photo of a delicious breakfast sandwich, which contains chorizo, eggs and pepper jack with jalapeño ketchup.
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The El Corazon taco truck in Portland, Maine has a massive "bad hombre burrito" and encourages their customers to Guac the vote.
A photo posted by April Perry (@elcorazonportland) on
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Rosepepper Cantina in Nashville is welcoming all "nasty women" and "bad hombres" for drink specials. Their killer cocktails include a "very, very strong, believe me, Mezcal" and "The Nasty Woman" has a potent, but well-aged tequila.
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For the debate Wednesday evening, they encouraged the patrons to "make margaritas great again."
Temple McDowell has accused Donald Trump of forcibly kissing her without her consent multiple times, but that certainly doesn't make her a Clinton supporter.
"He kissed me directly on the lips. I thought, 'Oh my God, gross,'" she said. "He was married to Marla Maples at the time. I think there were a few other girls that he kissed on the mouth. I was like “Wow, that’s inappropriate.”
According to TMZ, however, McDowell's accusations of Trump didn't come because she's a Clinton supporter. She's supporting Utah Independent candidate Evan McMullin, though she said that she has always voted Republican.
She told the site she was outraged by Trump's accusations that Clinton coerced women to go public with "fake stories" and attacks on him. Not only has she never spoken to the Clinton campaign, she's willing to show her phone records to prove it.
