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The Anger Games
The Trump bump tells us something about the state of American politics. Progressives are panting to interpret his surge as evidence of Republicans’ black hearts. Some Donald Trump supporters have suggested that his success, such as it is/was (this is being written after the McCain flap and before polls have gauged its impact), is an indictment of the limp “Republican establishment.” It’s neither.
There are 116 candidates for the Republican nomination (I exaggerate slightly). In recent polls, Trump got 24 percent — more than any other candidate. But Scott Walker and Jeb Bush together got 25 percent of the total, and there are so many others that assigning a frontrunner is like trying to catch one guppy with a net. Besides, 54 percent say his views do not represent the values of the Republican Party. He’s been a big donor to Hillary Clinton, Terry McAuliffe and other Democrats. He was pro-choice until about 6:30 this morning. He was for a single-payer health care system, and he’s been remarkably uncharitable for a wealthy man.
Ah, they say, but Republicans are seething with hatred for Hispanics, especially illegal immigrants, and this accounts for Trump’s hot-air liftoff. Illegal immigration does enrage some portions of the base, but only some. In a recent Pew poll, fully 66 percent of Republicans said illegal Mexican immigrants are “mostly honest,” while only 19 percent said they are “mainly undesirable.”
There is a talk-radio drumbeat about illegal-immigrant criminals. Still, most Republican voters are not strongly anti-immigration. They’re ambivalent, with 56 percent favoring a path to legal status for aliens living here, according to a Pew poll, but 63 percent viewing immigrants as a burden.
Whatever one’s views about immigration, the very worst way to broach the topic is to smear all Mexican illegals as “rapists” and criminals. It’s obviously false. It’s not even true that illegal immigrants commit a disproportionate share of crimes. Honest anti-immigration groups like the Center for Immigration Studies agree that first-generation immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-borns. (And immigration rates are falling.)
Well, we’re told, people are choking on political correctness, and Trump is a breath of fresh air. So the best way to discredit political correctness is to embody the worst stereotype of an aggressive bigot?
Trump’s moment is probably fading, but his little balloon ride is disturbing nonetheless. It’s evidence that political intemperance is not limited to the left.
Thanks to the execrable leadership of the Democratic Party and its allies in the press, we have witnessed several years of stoked racial hatred in America. From the Trayvon Martin episode and Michael Brown’s death, to the tragic cases of Eric Garner and the Charleston massacre, the country has been bathed in mendacious incitement. Opinion leaders insist it’s still Selma in 1965. “Black lives matter” has become a movement — as if any decent person disagreed; as if the country had not spent half a century sedulously scrubbing racism from our polity; as if affirmative action were not a feature of educational, corporate and government policy; as if we hadn’t elected and reelected a black president. Democratic candidates for president have been reduced to apologizing simply for saying “all lives matter.”
The civil pieties that were once taken for granted in the political sphere — “all men are created equal” — are now controversial. The triumph of identity politics is complete on the left.
Barack Obama rose on a promise of harmony, but has used power to rend the nation along all of its weakest seams. This brand of leadership has not left his followers happier, but more bitter. As for his opponents, they are by turns grieving and disbelieving at the damage he’s been able to inflict.
The only answer to division and hatred on the left is inclusion and unity on the right. A number of Republican candidates for president have been seeking to recast the Republican Party as the party of reform and outreach. They recognize that a party that lost not just the Hispanic vote, the black vote, the women’s vote and the youth vote, but also the Asian vote has an image problem. As any number of successful Republican senators and governors have shown, it isn’t necessary to adopt any particular policy (e.g., amnesty) to attract the votes of more Hispanics or Asians. It is necessary for the party to convey a welcoming spirit. Such a tone may even attract fence-sitting white voters who are left cold by a party that appears uninterested in the plight of the poor.
That is the Republican challenge and opportunity. Success beckons — but only post-Trump.
Published in General
“Ah, they say, but Republicans are seething with hatred for Hispanics, especially illegal immigrants, and this accounts for Trump’s hot-air liftoff. Illegal immigration does enrage some portions of the base, but only some. In a recent Pew poll, fully 66 percent of Republicans said illegal Mexican immigrants are “mostly honest,” while only 19 percent said they are “mainly undesirable.”
There is a talk-radio drumbeat about illegal-immigrant criminals. Still, most Republican voters are not strongly anti-immigration. They’re ambivalent, with 56 percent favoring a path to legal status for aliens living here, according to a Pew poll, but 63 percent viewing immigrants as a burden.”
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Mona, if you’re getting paid to cast conservatives as Taliban/KKK, you deserve a raise. These two paragraphs are just breathtaking assaults.
I see you found time in comment #3 to giggle with a fellow from comment #2, while bypassing a first rate substantive comment in #1.
I presume you are asleep now, as it is late, and you must be fully rested to engage in this sort of internecine hit job day after day. So I’ll just put it in a fresh post.
Don’t worry about me and my vapors, I’ll be okay, thank you. But my next post will be entitled The Racism of Mona Charen.
MBF
Man With the Axe:
As for Trump. what a horse’s ass. If a bigger blowhard has ever lived I don’t know of him. If he serves the purpose of raising an issue or two and moves the party to consider taking stronger positions on immigration, etc., perhaps his absurd life will be redeemed.
Pretty much. But I admit I am really enjoying watching certain people/factions squirm in reaction to Trump.
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Yup. Schadenfired!
What do you want them to do? You can’t do much without the presidency unless you can override presidential vetoes. And the GOP doesn’t have enough Senate seats to do that. We need to win the White House in 2016. End of story.
I’m sick too. Trump running as an independent will simply hand the election to the Dems (probably Hillary). Oh joy!
It looks to me like our Congress and some other presidential hopefuls are also for single-payer. Jeb Bush presented Hillary with the Liberty Medal. Priceless.
And you are going to shame him about his charity?
That lacks class. He contributes in taxes. The government has already taken upon itself the role of distributing charity. Anyone who pays taxes has contributed to charity.
It’s interesting that Trump is the ultimate corporate RINO that there ever was, and the Elites are shouting at us to understand that. We know. We know he’s out for himself and just throwing food around in the cafeteria.
The truth is, the race for the Presidency is not much different than The Apprentice. Pataki? The next iteration of Bush? I would also like it to be more dignified, but it’s not. And, citing Pataki, when it is dignified it means nothing. French Horns and flags and platitudes.
Surfing on America’s greatness isn’t working anymore.
I believe that the debate we are having has more to do with approach. But it’s a kaleidoscope. Trump is talking about real problems.
Crazy Uncle Trump is needed.
So these are people who can’t distinguish between KKK-level racism, and someone who is simply trying to resolve the problem by focusing on specifics. We want them in our country – and voting?
These wonderful, hard-working, nice people require emotional coddling before they would feel okay with pulling for a Republican. That alone tells me they don’t understand what America is about.
Be nice. Say nice things. Tell them we love them. Smile.
What crap. And they see it too.
Can’t wait!
Maybe. This is already getting a bunch of my time, and will not be rewarded with any improvement.
So why does Ms. Charen equate amnesty for illegals with immigration itself? Paragraphs three and four, she mashes all these things into one mass, and uses the foul concoction to tar conservatives as racist. Ask her what she thinks the (unstated) covariance is between the 19% racists and the 25% Trump supporters.
And that’s fighting words. You have to work pretty hard to repeatedly conflate illegal immigration, immigration, Mexican race or ethnicity, and amnesty as *the same thing*. This is useful to her because it is a weapon to hit us with, and if a bunch of Mexicans have to get side-swiped along the way to knocking down our lemonade stand, so be it. The Establishment is here, and you’re all under arrest, you filthy vermin.
With this sort of unfounded ugly allegation flying around, I will feel no pang of conscience in tarring our establishment betters as the horrible racist exploiters of a disempowered shadow labor force. And you know what else?
#RedLivesMatter
The Republican way is to swallow the hand grenade that is supposed to be aimed at the Democrats and then wonder why your entrails are all over the campaign trail, the White House is occupied by a new crop of interns waiting to be deflowered by some kid from Hope, Arkansas, your name is Wile E. Coyote, Genius and your ESL classes are bigger than your school population.
Would you like lids on those hemlock drinks?
Wellll, we also needed to win the White House in 2012, end of story. And we needed to win the Senate in 2014, end of story. And we needed to beat ObamaCare in court, end of story. And we needed to win everything everytime everywhere end of story, *except* for things that are actually achievable: defund things that the House alone has the power to defund, or review treaties or refuse confirmation which the Senate alone has the power to perform.
These cowards will not use the power they have. What makes you think that a mere (channeling John Boehner’s weaselist line) “single seat in a single branch of government” is going to magically transform American from yesterday’s country into tomorrow’s? You just don’t know how bad it is, how much work is involved, and thanks for the electoral victory, but frankly, it’s gonna be a long time before we can bend our glideslope… [static…]
End of story.
And Charen’s answer is….. appealing to identities…
This is not the field of battle we should choose – honoring their categories – their labels.
You can tell how a person thinks by what categories he/she/it employs in language.
If you take any category, that subset will have some propensity to vote a certain way. Railroad train collectors vote Republican 45%. Surfers vote Democrat 3-1. So what? Appealing to the arbitrary and outdated categories race gender, perpetuates an absurd narrative – that the we all go along with the story of race, class and ethnicity, rather than point out the obvious; America transcends all that. The great thing about America is that anyone can fulfill their dreams.
I’m detecting a lack of enthusiasm for Jon “The Hammer” Huntsman to put Trump in his place.
I think a biblical sign of the end of the world is that Tommy’s last dozen comments I haven’t disagreed with.
Trump is the wedgie the Media Big Boy pants dread.
I’d like to issue a warrant for your behest.
Mr. De Seno has been hitting doubles and triples the last couple of days.
I haven’t followed Ms. Charen closely and I’m not about to start now, but I did notice a pitch for Reformicons in there. Is that a thing with her, or just a confluence of verbiage?
John Penfold
“The hard right needs to take Trump down with facts and his own past positions. Obviously some significant percent of the Republican base are deeply anti hispanic, even though they do not know any or what that means.”
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Wow. First off, it’s the hard right who likes Trump. Second we don’t care about past positions for this phase of things. Third, your unsubstantiated claim about us (I assume you mean Trump supporters?) being “deeply anti-hispanic” use some substantiatin’, as well as some clarification. Why what ever do you mean? Fourth, who doesn’t know any Hispanics? You mean me, for supporting Trump?
Finally, I know what you means. I know what “anti-Hispanic” means when you say it, even if objectively it is nonsensical.
What reaction do you think is appropriate to the reckless, hateful, and counterproductive “charges” you make?
An honest and intelligent opponent of Trump would make an effort to understand his appeal (something a bit more insightful than “we have haters on our side”) before deriding him so harshly so as to alienate his supporters.
Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I think I did a decent job.
GOP leadership is bland, ineffective, uninspiring, mealy-mouthed, and we’ve good reason to believe they wouldn’t make the government any more conservative if we gave them 67 Senate seats, the Presidency, and a seventy seat majority in the House.
We’re supposed to be satisfied with pre-emptive surrender on every issue but gun rights and follow politicians who follow focus groups and seem horrified at the prospect of displeasing Anderson Cooper.
But we’ve noticed that politicians who craft their phrases with utmost care so as not to create a media firestorm don’t tend to get much done once elected. We also happen to know that if anyone in Washington someday institutes genuine change, they’re going to get ripped to shreds no matter how nicely they phrase things. Romney ran a relatively gaffe-free campaign and most people still though he was Satan.
So yeah, people are impressed by somebody who doesn’t seem so damn afraid all the time.
I don’t want Trump to win, but I do want somebody in the GOP to grow a damn testicle and show he can stand up for something.
Until then, deal.
Mona – I enjoy your podcasts with Jay very much, but I have to respectfully disagree.
My favorite candidate remains Mr Cruz, but I am OK with Mr Trump – he is not ideal, but better than the two previous R Presidential candidates – it’s a low bar, for sure, somewhat above that of the Democrats, which is way underground.
“Progressives are panting to interpret his surge as evidence of Republicans’ black hearts.”
As if there’s ever been a time in modern history in which they haven’t found plenty of “evidence of Republicans’ black hearts.” Anything short of full support for open borders and unlimited amnesty will suffice.
“Ah, they say, but Republicans are seething with hatred for Hispanics, especially illegal immigrants, and this accounts for Trump’s hot-air liftoff.”
And we were “seething with hatred” because of the Tea Party, complaining about Obama playing too much golf, not wanting to be forced to bake gay wedding cakes, and damn near everything else we’ve ever done.
“A number of Republican candidates for president have been seeking to recast the Republican Party as the party of reform and outreach. They recognize that a party that lost not just the Hispanic vote, the black vote, the women’s vote and the youth vote, but also the Asian vote has an image problem.”
And how’s that been working out? We all say “African-American” and dance around every racial issue on our tippy-toes, only to find that 90+% of blacks still vote against us.
Sometimes the best way to improve your image is to not care so much about your image. Ironic, but true.
And I’ve personally converted blacks and Hispanics to conservatism. How do I do it?
I talk to them like Trump.
I’m bold, guilt-free, and people respect it. Nobody likes wimps.
Mona Charen is the voice of reason! Most Republicans are not in lockstep with the radio talkshow hosts of sounding an alarmist note on every issue. Most Republicans realize that’s just for their talk/TV show ratings. Those type of republicans are always quick to call every one else a RINO – Repbublican in name only – when in fact they don’t represent the majority Republican position, and so they are the real RINOs. I can’t begin to understand how any Republican can support Trump. Rick Perry is right. He is a cancer. This is our election to lose, and we are on the way to losing it with Trump. God bless you Mona.
Not everyone who has been streaming illegally across the southern border is Mexican or central American. Ask the ranchers who have found prayer rugs.
Instead of complaining about Trump, why doesn’t the establishment just try addressing our concerns, and (oh, here’s a crazy idea) try actually representing our interests!
Of course they would rather continue on as usual, lying to us about what they intend to do, then go back to Washington and represent their careers and their crony business friends’ interests.
Sure Trump is a problem, but the “leadership” created this monster by pushing their average voter to the curb. The voters are angry, and we don’t want to go back to ‘business as usual’. Business as usual is hurting us, but you wouldn’t notice in your little bubble.
Since when are elections decided based on reason?
Your comment is proof positive that a lot of Republicans don’t want us around. Keep it up and you’ll see how many elections you win without us “RINOs” around screwing things up with our volunteering, donations, and voting.
Trump is like the canary in the coal mine.
I’m not a Trump supporter, but I can clearly see why he’s taken hold. The republicans have not been, and are not interest in, representing the average republican voter’s concerns and interests. And these voters are angry, angry, angry. Which is why the republicans cannot win with people like ‘business-as-usual’ Jeb!
People like Mona (and Perry) need to stop insulting Trump and the Trump supporters and move toward finding a ‘compromise’ candidate that both sides can live with. Oh, and start actually addressing the concerns and interests of the average republican voter!
I listened to the recent podcast with Mona. Much of this is in that. She’s comfortable, and makes excuses for failure. Two houses of congress but got a lawless President? “Not much we can do about that.”
Except there is plenty that could be done. It’s not worth it to the comfortable Ivy League beltway pundits who are not animated, but threatened by the idea of real change.
This is the “hidden” disaster in GOP victories.
I’ve stopped using the term RINO now for the most part. Manny is right. The party is not about what we thought. The party is perfectly content to be the junior partner colluding for a minority stake of the loot.