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Democrats’ Best Weapon: Trump
The dictionary defines “bogeyman” as “an imaginary evil spirit, referred to typically to frighten children.” Hello Donald Trump. It’s not clear whether he set out intentionally to elect Hillary Clinton, but there is little question that he could not be fulfilling the role of Republican bogeyman to greater effect.
As Commentary’s Jonathan Tobin noted, during a week in which the disastrous fecklessness of this President and his party in the face of terrorism ought to have been Topic A, we are all talking about Trump instead. Brilliant. Tobin’s point actually applies to the entire presidential contest. By rights, it should be about the Democrats’ unraveling. From Obamacare to terrorism, from the economy to climate change, and from guns to free speech, progressive policies have proven deeply disappointing when not downright obtuse and dangerous. Mrs. Clinton promises more of the same while trailing an oil slick of corruption in her wake. And yet swinging into the frame week-in and week-out, the orange-maned billionaire bogeyman dominates the discussion.
Hell yes, Republicans are anti-Hispanic bigots, Trump (a lifelong Democrat) is supposed to confirm. Just look at the way he talked about Mexican “rapists” and vowed to build a wall that Mexico will fund.
Hell yes, Republicans want to fight a war on women. Did you hear what Trump said about Meghan Kelly and Carly Fiorina?
Hell yes, Republicans are anti-immigrant, anti-handicapped, anti-Jewish, and anti-Muslim. Line ’em up and Trump will offend. Not cleverly, mind you, but crudely. Donald Trump is fond of saying that our political leaders are stupid – constantly outmaneuvered at the bargaining table by shrewder Chinese, Mexicans, and Japanese. No one can accuse him of stupidity – provided his goal is to elect Hillary Clinton.
This week, while we were still burying our dead from San Bernardino, every Republican – rather than explaining why President Obama’s refusal to fight the war on terror has led to this moment – was instead having to condemn Donald Trump’s mindless proposal to keep every single Muslim out of the United States until further notice. Again, he’s the perfect bogeyman.
It’s not just that what he says demands condemnation. It’s that it seems to give credence to the Democrats’ narrative.
One of the false notes in President Obama’s Sunday evening speech was his resort to one of his favorite libels about the American people he purports to lead. He scolded the country for its Islamophobia. “It is the responsibility of all Americans — of every faith — to reject discrimination. It is our responsibility to reject religious tests on who we admit into this country. It’s our responsibility to reject proposals that Muslim Americans should somehow be treated differently.”
That’s not the trouble here. America is an incredibly welcoming nation and has opened its arms to Muslims along with people from every part of the globe. Far from targeting American Muslims for discrimination, the US has been a haven. Though liberals like to conjure it to slander the US, anti-Muslim discrimination and violence have been minimal in the US, even in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. (The most common targets of religious bigotry in America? Jews.)
On the other hand, it’s only common sense to proceed with caution about admitting thousands of refugees and immigrants from the part of the world that is currently aflame with Islamic extremism. That caution, not to be confused with discrimination (there is no constitutional right to come to America), was endorsed just three weeks ago by a large majority in Congress (including 47 Democrats). It isn’t anti-Muslim to seek to exclude Muslim extremists.
Leave it to Trump to lob a stink bomb that putrefies everything.
Above all, the great favor that Trump does for Obama and for Hillary Clinton is to focus on personalities instead of philosophy. Trump, of course, has nothing to offer except personality (even if its charms elude me). But his emphasis on “getting the best people” is exactly wrong. That’s the progressive idea – that the best people know better how to run your life than you do. That’s what we’ve had under President Obama. Obama is a failure not because he’s stupid, or stubborn, or inexperienced. He’s a failure because he believes in failed ideas.
Hillary Clinton believes in all the same myths and shibboleths. After two terms of decline and decay, voters are ready for a different approach, unless someone can crash the party – the Republican Party. Can it be pure accident that Donald Trump is playing the role to perfection?
Published in Islamist Terrorism
Spot on.
I get irritated with pundits alternating between “Here’s why Trump is terrible” and “Why is Trump so popular? Don’t these people know how terrible he is?”
I’ve yet to see Mona, et al, send a modicum of blame toward the beltway GOP who’ve spent decades ignoring, mocking, and/or deceiving the base. They made this bed.
I don’t like Trump, and never have. He’s a buffoon. But I understand his appeal, I think, even though I don’t share it.
A true swing voter votes for the man, not the party. In which case, what Trump says should have little effect on whether they’d vote for, say, Rubio.
See my previous comment #31 for an explanation about my irritation with Mona. She’s been burning the same pot of peas about Trump for months now, and still doesn’t seem to get it. Need To Know is one of the few podcasts I listen to, but it’s becoming a chore, lately.
Judging from the sheer number of anti-Trump screeds coming from all of the respectable people at Ricochet, youse guys are in full panic mode. Well, prepare for your breakdown. Because I think the guy now has a very real shot to win the nomination. I’d say he’s the most likely now. Further, put him against Hillary in front of an irritated American public, and he’s got a shot at the White House. The wailing and gnashing of teeth here will be Biblical.
Ironically, I think the biggest thing standing in the way of a Trump victory in the general election isn’t just Hillary herself, but the likes of Lindsay Graham and Charles Krauthammer, and yes, some Ricochet/NRO editors and writers. I think they’ll all too happily sing to the mainstream media the chorus of “He’s dangerous! Save the country! Vote Jeb! for third party!”. Or Rubio. Or Kasich. Or whoever the Mike Murphy’s of the world help orchestrate. I’m starting to see the possibility of someone like Kasich running third party… with the support of the eGOP… to “save the country”. This year’s Jon Anderson, only resulting in a Democrat win. After all, plenty of you have sworn to vote Libertarian or sit out if Trump wins. So be it. If this does happen, then at least that’ll end the lectures on voting “party loyalty”… from the very same “do your Republican duty!” people from 2008/2012.
This is a post borne of a visceral dislike, rather than actual thought.
Obama should be roasting all the time. Trump spouts off all the time. The press lets Obama off the hook with or without Trump. Same thing happened in 2008 and 2012, no Trump in sight (not like this).
And who blew up the Benghazi hearings, wounding Gowdy and giving not just Hillary but ALL Democrats a free pass for campaign ads? Kevin McCaca.
I understand that the establishment shills are screeching mad about their retarded plan not working on autopilot, but if there’s any hope, it lies in the proles.
Our viscera are smarter than yours.
I’ll add my voice to the Stalking Horse Chorus.
The horrendous gaffes made the last week by Our Wise and Beneficent Sun King have been completely ignored by the lapdog media; Forrest Trump’s foolery erased His Majesty’s terrible primetime address from the news in such a way one would almost think the timing was intentional. The Republican candidates are not busy attacking the Democrats’ felonious, singularly repugnant candidate as she stages The Lady Grinch Who Stole the Presidency; instead, they are busy pleading, “No, no – I wouldn’t ban Muslim children from France trying to see their grandmother in Michigan!”
Forrest Trump is plainly unserious. He is a lifelong Democrat and friend of the Clintons who has spent the whole campaign venomously savaging not Democrats but Republicans. His arguments are the arguments of a Liberal: “I will force people to do things. I will hire great bureaucrats. I will ignore laws and impose my will.” No Conservative would ever say that.
A side note: The fact that the self-proclaimed “True Conservatives” are the most susceptible to Trump’s nonsense shows that they are far more concerned with iconoclasm than Conservatism.
The Democrat media clearly understands this; Forrest Trump is their only case to make that Republicans are mad as March hares in 2016. Worst case scenario: Trump bolsters Ted Cruz, who hitched his toxic divide-and-conquer, Republicans-are-the-true-enemy rhetoric to the Trump team of stalking horses early on.
Your opinion about swing voters is precisely “opinion” IMO. I could say the exact opposite thing (which I more or less did) with equal conviction. If you don’t think perception of party brand, and the representatives of that brand, affects undecideds, we’ll just disagree in good faith. Regarding Mona, I’ll admit that I’m not acquainted with her full take on Trump. If she has an issue with his latest irresponsible yakety-yak on Muslims, I’ll have to burn that pot too.
“I describe the two parties as the Corrupt Party and the Stupid Party.”
— Pat Caddell
At this point you’re just responding to a response by re-stating the original point. That’s a deadlock.
(Although my viscera may be lying. Damned viscera.)
Decades to recover? No, we will never recover.
Republicans play politics like Mormon missionaries. Democrats play politics like al Qaeda. When the ball is in their court, they deflate the ball, throw it in a wood chipper, and blow the court up. Their motto is, “Heads, I win; tails, you lose.” We are just a few heartbeats away from having all guns forcibly confiscated, making all religious institutions wards of the state and subject to its oversight, ending the right to free speech, and so much more. Once those freedoms go, they will never be restored – not in America, and maybe nowhere else in the world.
But hey, it will all be worth it to stick it to Jeb Bush and Mitch McConnell, right?
Wait.
We’re not supposed to stick it to Bush and McConnell, who were last seen in skinny ties riding bikes around D.C. (to extend the metaphor). And Cruz is bad (your previous comment) for criticizing Latter Day Republicans.
I’m confused. Is the Mormon missionary thing good, or bad?
Not to mention Karl Rove. I know I’m looking forward to seeing the “establishment” suffer while I joyously watch HRC appoint a couple of Supreme Court Justices and “reform” the immigration system.
I finally get it. The Trumpsters have figured out that the only way Republicans can win is to do exactly what the Democrats do: Nominate a single-payer supporting, lefty friend of Hillary Clinton.
Oh absolutely. Remember, the first Clinton junta rose to power because a third party lunatic siphoned away significant percentages of votes off the Republican in both 1992 and 1996. And remember that a vocal fringe candidate with rather radical views made a damaging primary challenge to the sitting incumbent in 1992 that greatly weakened the party.
Am I seriously suggesting Trump is playing the part of Pat Buchanan from 1992, damaging the internal unity and morale of the Republicans, on behalf of the Clintons before he goes on to act as their new Ross Perot spoiler?
Yes. Yes, I am.
What makes me so sad about the Trump phenomenon is that I have had to abandon the idea that the right is principled. Apparently constitutional limits on government get thrown to the side by 25 – 35% of our coalition when it looks like “we” are winning.
I learned better back during the time of GWB when conservatives (though not all of them) defended the same abuses they had been criticizing during the Clintons’ administration.
With the likes of Rove and McConnell, you still get Hillary results. They just take a little longer.
Most of the principled small-government folks are on the right, but we’re far from a majority of the right. Remember “Compassionate Conservatism”? Ex-Im Bank? Sugar subsidies? Terri Schiavo? Decades of failure theater?
Maybe Trump’s supporters figure if you’re going to get bigger government anyway, why not at least get a handle on immigration?
This is why I largely blame the beltway GOP for the Trump phenomenon.
Funny you’d say that. Studying data and assessing future risk is what I do for a living.
As for the Court, maybe you’re right – maybe we’ll get lucky and get another John Roberts. What a disappointment.
(OTOH: Justices Thomas, Alito and Scalia are national treasures and I pray for their health and longevity! Long may they live!)
Highly recommended: Charles C. Cooke’s article at National Review yesterday. Opening 2 paragraphs:
Small nit: That’s Andrew McCarthy.
But I agree: great article.
Not sure how I mixed the two up, but I must admit I wouldn’t be able to pick either one ou
Circling back to Mona’s original post, all the sturm und drang in response to Trump’s latest remarks is giving him exactly what he wants: attention.
Why haven’t the right wing pundits figured out that Trump is playing them like a cheap banjo?
Why not just respond with something like “There he goes again! Now, back to what I was saying about Obama / Hillary / etc.”?
From here, it often looks like virtue signaling: “I’m not one of THOSE types of Republicans.” And I lost all patience with virtue signaling years ago. I suspect Trump’s supporters would say something similar. In which case, all the attempts by “respectable” Republicans to distance themselves from Trump ironically serve to galvanize his support.
Elephas, what makes you think that this “heartbeats away” apocalypse will be stymied by a GOP that walks all over us puny citizens?
They wear a couple of virtuous men as a sort of duck blind from which to shoot at us. The only time they can stand Ted Cruz is when they’re threatening that if they go, he goes.
BenMSYS
What makes me so sad about the Trump phenomenon is that I have had to abandon the idea that the right is principled. Apparently constitutional limits on government get thrown to the side by 25 – 35% of our coalition when it looks like “we” are winning.
——-
First off, you have the example of the George W. Bush administration to provide that lesson. You didn’t have to wait until now to figure that out.
Second, those principles went right out the window about the third minute after Boehner and McConnell got together as the new majority.
By all means, continue to throw bricks at conservatives who are already fed up with the lack of principle on the right. You all sound like the folks who counsel against spanking a child ever because it might affect their behavior, or who say that war never solved anything, when in fact, war is the only thing that truly solves some problems.
Oops. Almost forgot rule number 1.
BenMSYS, wait until your realization that “the right” isn’t principled is joined by the realization that even your precious Republicans who will claim conservative are still just milking the system by a very slightly different method.
I trust none of them, and support very few.
I’m going with Ben Shapiro’s analysis:
Abuse of a strawman. I believe there’s still a law against that in Iowa.
So is it this or is it “mindless”? Given that we clearly can’t vet Muslim immigrants properly to weed out the terrorists, who are evidently among them, why is just declaring a timeout on that group of immigrants “mindless”?
It seems the mindless approach is that of the Republican and Democratic parties: continuing to admit them despite the fact that we know there are enemies among them and we can’t vet them.
The parties’ positions boil down to: ‘import terrorists, keep your guns to defend yourselves’, or ‘import terrorists, we’ll take your guns away so you can’t defend yourselves’. And you’re surprised Trump’s ‘stop importing terrorists, keep your guns alternative’ has resonance? Why on Earth should we elect someone who doesn’t take his position?
(I’m no fan of Trump, but he’s right on this one…)
“The Right” consists of constitutional, classical Liberal “conservatives”, and the intellectual descendants of Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt—Progressives. The latter group is not principled.
I’m no lady and I protest just as much or more.
Evidently, according to his supporters (consciously or not), Trump has put Republicans who dislike him into a catch-22. If you criticize him you are insulting them and pushing them to abandon any other Republican candidate. If you say nothing when he comes up with all of his asinine ideas, pronouncements, insults, misstatements of fact, the Democrats can say that the Republicans by their silence show that they agree with him.
I know, immigration is the only thing that matters. And yet Trump will allow pretty much every illegal immigrant to go out and come back. How is that helpful?
It is a remarkable thing that many conservatives for whom this election couldn’t get here soon enough are seriously having to consider voting for Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton, for president. God help us all.