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(Note: This is the second of a two-part essay, the
I’m not a fan of Trump, but this sums up how I feel about nearly all of it in a way that I wish I could have written half as well.
(edited for an errant “the” in there, I blame a lack of coffee)
Yes, yes, and yes. Especially, the “for better or worse.”
Amen.
Excellent analysis.
Nice work, Dave. Trump’s appeal is counter-intuitive, in that the more things he says, history tells us he should have been all done as a candidate, yet the opposite is true. The only explanation on the left for this is racism, etc, the standard garbage. The explanation on the right, by the establishment right, is that the country is filled with rubes.
So, I guess, which is it? And why, in any case, would we consent to be governed by anyone who feels this way about their country, that it no longer represents them in any meaningful way? That, in fact, it might be purposefully mis-representing them?
We didn’t elect people to ram the unwanted thing down our throats, but that’s what we get, every year. And we still re-elect them. The entire process needs a massive shakeup.
Thanks for adding the point several of us around here and even Peggy Noonan have been making. Trump’s poll numbers and phenomenon have very little to do with Trump and much to do with Congressional Republicans.
I am frustrated that he appears the best we can do this cycle to raise up someone worthy of aggravating the majority of incumbents and their donor apparatus, but nobody else stepped into the arena.
Part of that may be how grueling the process is. You have to be a little crazy to want to put yourself out there and through this. There might be a million better people for doing this and for being President, but we have to choose from those crazy enough to say, “I’ll do it!” And Trump is the only one who says, “I’ll do it, and I don’t care what the big donors think.”
Excellent as always!
And I honestly think the consultants/elites/establishment or whatever you wish to call them don’t realize that they’re mostly to blame for Trump’s lead.
I’ve pointed out before that insulting voters doesn’t win them to your side but hardens opposition to your message but they’ve carried on serenely confident that only an idiot could disagree with them.
The other problem is the moral superiority complex you find with some supporters who believe their fanboyism is somehow better than others because of the object of their adoration. The idea that other people have come to their choice rationally just doesn’t occur.
Good article, agree with it. Half of the country is either crazy or simply doesn’t have a clue about anything beyond their immediate surroundings. The other half– third– is angry about the crazies and the ignorant and the rent seeking parasitical establishments of both parties who are quite happy as the ultimate decline will take longer than they and their children will live. But we’ve stirred up a man on horseback, a hero who will fix it, a populist demagogue who is in fact part of the pattern of decline, dysfunction and corruption. Not good, but understandable. It happens when countries reach this kind of stagnation and when interests harden into culture.
I think this one sentence is the biggest reason for the GOP break up. Why is it that folks like Cruz and Paul have to endure vicious insults from their own Party members when these same Party members will not do the same to Obama. I don’t recall Cruz or Paul, or any other non-Establishment elected GOP’er, going to the House floor and saying that the GOP’s answer to healthcare is that you die. I don’t recall Tea Party Patriots running an ad depicting Paul Ryan throwing “granny” off a cliff as a metaphor for his entitlement reform package. And I don’t recall Conservative campaign operatives coming up with an ad featuring a blue collar worker blaming Mitt for killing his wife when Bain outsourced the manufacturing job he had. Every single one of these are real examples and they are each from Democrats. Yet, who does Mitch McConnell want to punch in the nose? Yup, you guessed it. The Tea Party.
To quote an old chief of mine, “don’t come bitching to me about your problem unless you propose a solution as well.”
Forgetting the inaccuracies, what you’ve said is what we all know and all agree on. There’s still no solution there unless the base yelling to the establishment, “I’ll fix you; I’ll kill me!” is considered a solution. Burn it down and piss on the ashes may be the mood of the electorate (especially conservatives), but it is not a solution to the problems causing them to feel this way.
Absolutely nails it.
The sophisticates are in denial. They have a utopian vision for America, even while they are protected by their gates, their bodyguards and insulated in a myriad of ways from crime and the devolution of our cultural fabric.
Even if multiculturalism could be fast-tracked successfully in the case of our general third-world mass importation, adherents to Islam constitute a poison pill, and an actual negation of multiculturalism.
The paradox is lost on these dreamers. They don’t understand that their ideals are categorically rejected by those same people they expect to come here and work hard (they aren’t even using the term ‘assimilate’ anymore). In short, they are telling us we can afford to integrate people whose fundamental values are antithetical to ours, who actively refuse assimilation, and that we are bigots and xenophobes for highlighting this fact.
Within this river of refugees will swim jihadi sharks. This is unlike any other subset of immigrants in the history of the USA. Sure there are bad apples in any barrel, but this barrel contains apples that explode and can kill thousands, perhaps millions. There comes a time when we must shed our vaunted ideals and look at the reality. We can’t have our wonderful, open, blank-slate society in the face of this threat.
We reject this imbalance of the protected class making decisions subjecting ordinary citizens to wonton slaughter, rape, frotteurism, and general contempt, while they congratulate themselves for their virtue and magnanimity.
Let me leave links to a couple of interesting papers by Eric Weinstein.
First, “Migration for the Benefit of All: Towards a New Paradigm for Economic Immigration” [pdf] (which takes seriously the idea that low-skilled immigration leads to a transfer of wealth from workers to employers).
Then, “How and Why Government, Universities and Industry Create Domestic Labor Shortages of Scientists and High-Tech Workers” (pushing back against the idea that Americans are unable and unwilling to do science and engineering).
While I agree that there needs to be a solution to this, I’ve never liked the idea that unless you have an alternative, keep your mouth shut. Just because I don’t know how to fix something doesn’t mean I shouldn’t point and say “Hey, I think something is wrong, this doesn’t seem to be working right.”
We’ve all known this since at least ’08. If we haven’t come up with a better solution than Trump at this point, then maybe the establishment has a point that we shouldn’t be trusted with ideas.
Cruz is an appropriate response to McCain, McConnell, Graham, et al…Trump is the electoral version of Heathers.
Solutions have been proposed for years. Enforce existing laws. Is that so difficult to comprehend?
Depends on your definition of “me”…
The method I was always taught was:
I think what Dave has done here is Step 1. Now, some might think, “We’ve all known this for years,” but I’m not sure that’s correct. Obviously, the sophisticates think that we, the American voters of the right, are the problem.
Trump, as an example, may be a terrible solution to the problem. But what alternatives have we been “offered?” We have Marco Rubio, who has shown his flexibility on the immigration issue (which is really a sovereignty and public safety issue). (Some say the same of Cruz.) And the rest are no sort of solution other than “more of the same (JEB!)” or “more wacky (Rand)” or “inexperience will heal us (Carson).” *
This is not a very good selection of alternative solutions, and most are addressing very different statements of the problem (or totally different problems) than what “has been obvious since 2008.”
* I do not necessarily agree with these short-hand characterizations.
To borrow wisdom from Victor Davis Hanson: Trump is the nemesis that has risen up to face the GOP’s hubris.
I no longer think Trump is crazy or, for that matter, a disaster. Yes, I said it. In fact, his presence is very healthy for the Republican Party. Finally, someone is speaking a language that one very large otherwise natural constituency of the Republican Party understands.
Take the China answer. I hear people describe him as saying he does not support a 45% tariff, blah blah blah, and then I do support a 45% tariff. Crazy, right?
Last night, I finally understood what he was saying and why I am convinced he is being consistent. He is trying to say that he would not impose a tariff, but he would threaten it as the logical counterpart to China’s devaluation, which is in effect a tariff on American goods that he estimates has a roughly 45% impact. He always talks about how we need better negotiators and that we have tremendous leverage. He is not making an argument about a tariff. He is making an argument about how to negotiate better deals. On that point, he is completely correct. He knows he cannot come out ans say I would never put in place a tariff because then he could never negotiate that deal. China would not believe him.
But many of us (myself included, at first at least), listened to him and analyzed it in terms of the babble we hear from pundits and “experts” all the time. We concluded he was being a demagogue or didn’t understand. But when I asked my high-school educated construction worker brother about it, he explains it to me in seconds. (With great pride I might add).
It’s amazing.
Amazingly the back and forth he had with Jeb about Boeing and China is actually true:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/lorenthompson/2015/09/23/boeing-to-build-its-first-offshore-plane-factory-in-china-as-ex-im-bank-withers/#2715e4857a0b4f863bae5252
Yes, yes, 10000 times yes. I am in the fed up number! I am Cruz guy, and I have liked Cruz for years, but I will vote for Trump if he gets the nomination. I will relish how pissed off the elites will be.
Trump is not one of them, despite his money. The elites have never liked him. I am not sure I like him, but this is what it comes to when the elites who rule us (and rule us they do, instead of serve), disdain us and hate us.
Did he start the explanation with, “Look, dumb#$$…”?
This is an interesting revelation, though. What does it say when the sophisticates so misunderstand, but one with a high school education understands with no problem? I think this is true of most of what Trump is saying.
Great article. Also highlights a key point as to how Trump would be different from, say Cruz, but similar to the establishment. Trump would never get rid of the Ex-Im Bank.
Also highlights how Trump probably does have a better grasp on what’s happening with the business climate than others.
Well done, Dave. The Republican establishment and the open borders crowd (but I repeat myself) can get stuffed.
The root of the issue is that Republicans don’t get social media, and are actively lighting themselves on fire.
If one peruses the twitter feed down and to the right of the ricochet home page. Why based upon that do people want to vote for a mainstream candidate?
That is the only thing I disagree with even slightly. It isn’t self-destructive. That would imply some internal conflict. Conservatism, to the national Republican party, has become a marketing strategy, a way to keep the rubes distracted while the Uniparty cements its rule. Two divisions of a company may be rivals, but as long as both are profitable and advance the overall strategy of the company, they’re not enemy enemies.
The upper echelons of the Republican party are not conservatives in any broad or principled sense that might lead them to introspection and self-criticism. They’ve been willing to play the part on TV to keep the voters acquiescent to policies and actions which are harmful to the voters themselves and to the country. The Democrat division of the Uniparty has support from black voters in much the same way.
Once the Tea Party arose, the GOP leadership recognized the insurgency as their enemy and have been fighting against them – us – ever since. The GOP leadership and all the candidates except Cruz (maybe) and Trump (recently, anyway) have already come out in support of immigration policies that will ensure decades of Progressive rule.
This election is for all the marbles.
You cannot rebuild on a rotten foundation. You must remove the old, yes burn it down and piss on the ashes, before you can begin to rebuild. Trying to patch up a rotten foundation for the last half-century is what has gotten us into this mess.
There’s much to this. I don’t see how the current direction of the party (or at least a very vocal third of it) rebuilds anything.
We are not in the rebuild phase yet. We’re just beginning the burn down and piss phase (and I want attribution when people use my phrase!)
Do you prefer Whiskey Sam or Chain Smoking Monkey?