Read the attached article, it is interesting…
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I would say that Trump understands the current iteration of the conservative base better than most. He understands that it is composed of rage-filled and disaffected misogynists, racists, bigots, and fundamentalists. They adore him for giving full voice to their fears and pet hates.
He also realizes that his command of the 24-hour media cycle provides him with all of the free advertising that he needs to reach this bunch of mouth breathers, and keep them ramped up. He doesn’t need a super-pac. He doesn’t need the support of the national party. He just needs to poll high enough to keep the ball rolling. There is no statement that he can make that will give his supporters pause.
He and Cruz are the best thing that the Democrats could have hoped for, and either one of them at the head of the ticket will guarantee a landslide for the Dems in the national elections.
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He got the Il Duce stance down pat…
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The gist of this article is wrong. Trump DOES understand the Conservative movement because he knows what goes on in their minds. Since the Powell Memorandum was issued in 1971, the Conservative Movement embraced the selfishness of Ayn Rand’s objectivism at every opportunity. They’ve succeeded to such a degree that Ayn Rand’s philosophy has permeated into every facet of American society. The new Holy Trinity of American society is Selfishness, Unchecked Greed and Narcissism. Trump is the #1 disciple of Ayn Rand and he knows that appealing to the Holy Trinity that he’s building an unstoppable mass movement to get the GOP nomination.
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Yes, but remember the media will do whatever they can to make any race sound close. They won’t fact check blatant lies (think Chuck Todd). In fact, I can easily see them spending time on Sunday talk shows just inviting GOPers to say whatever they want to take down the Democratic nominee. The talk shows are heavily weighted to GOP invitees already. The ratio of GOPers to Democrats every week is way out of balance.
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Why can;t the media get it right - including TPM?
White male nationalism and fascism is NOT conservatism. Trump, Cruz, Rubio, Bush, and the rest represent white nationalism. They are not defenders of the Constitution - they are not conservatives.
Call them what they are: They are white male nationalists.
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It’s not that the GOP has many popes whose rings need to be kissed. It’s that the GOP has many rich, narcissistic and selfish asses that need to be kissed. And nobody kisses ass as good as Trump.
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In Donnie’s case, it’s il douché
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I believe that Trump will be the Republican candidate and will win a majority of Republican voters. That having been said, he will probably be lucky to win over 35 - 40% of the total vote.
Hopefully his failure will trickle down the ballot, and the Republican Party will join its soul brother, the Know Nothing Party, on the ash heap of history.
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All these supposed political wonks sit back and write novelettes about how Trump is this weird thing that nobody expected. He is a wholly predictable outcome, taking advantage of the base of fearful racist bigots that have been cultivated by mainstream conservative media for years now. He didn’t come out of left field at all, he just capitalized on an under-represented market share from the position of an “outsider”. And he has cred on that point in ways that Ted Cruz and his ilk never will.
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Personally, I think The Donald only has Greed, but does a good enough job talking up the other two. Enough to fool all of THOSE people all the time.
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Yep. Put that in the Venn diagram for number two.
All these smart comments and all my brain comes up with is it’s very appropriate to quote someone named Dallek about conservatives.
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Of course he can’t. But he doesn’t need to: conservatives so hate the rest of the nation that they’ll follow anyone they think is harming that rest of us.
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The WaPo has an excellent article this morning on the demographic problem facing the GOP:
Personally, I think the scenarios they paint where the GOP can still win the White House in 2016 are pretty far fetched. Basically they have to drive out even more white voters AND get an even bigger margin of them to vote GOP. And that’s IF they don’t end up pissing off minorities and drive up their participation rates in the process.
And we haven’t even gotten to the whole gender problem this time around…which Trump and JEB both exhibited, that the GOP simply can’t help themselves from going full misogynist.
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Or, as someone else labeled him, Mousse-o-lini.
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What they didn’t expect, is that they would lose control of the monster — Their lack of forsight in nurturing fear is telling — The very fear they cultivated, took flight and is now returning back home as a mindless boomerang that will all but cut them to shreds —
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I’ve told this story before, but it always springs to mind. During one of Pat Buchanan’s windmill-tilting exercises, he was on McLaughlin, describing the people who would support him. “People who don’t like this, people who are tired of that, blah, blah, blah…” When he was finished, another panelist, Kondracke, I believe, without missing a beat, said, “Oh, you mean The Haters!” Buchanan looked as if he’d been freshly tased.
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Trump can’t even handle the gambling casino empire he owns. At least four of them went broke. All he understands is that he has always been able to buy or talk his way out of trouble. He’s not convincing the Silent Majority now.
But conservatives are another thing. They are easily fooled and separated from their money. Trump might have hit oil and gold at the same time with his campaign.
I’m thinking his lucky streak will stretch as far as maybe SC before the cards go against him. The Kochs and Bushes will have to pull together and put out a contract on him as neither group has a candidate worth the effort of putting out there to the masses. They will be reduced to running Kaisch or Pataki. It’s going to sour everyone on the GOP for decades.
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Exactly - This sentence from Prof. Dallek struck me: “If you are a more traditional conservative, someone who has been active in issues like abortion or tax policy and market regulation […]” They have never had a good rational for why abortion AND tax policy/market regulation are linked in the conservative brain-o-sphere. You can’t be for a woman’s right to choose and lower top marginal tax rate? No - it’s always been coalition building around the notion that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. They have no real unifying philosophy.
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