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Conrad Black Exactly Right: Trump the GOP Nominee
Conrad Black is a bit of a curmudgeon and definitely a contrarian but his analysis this morning of the March 15 primaries is very accurate in all regards and I endorse what he is saying in this NRO article. Here’s a sample:
Those who initially saw the Trump candidacy as an exercise in buffoonery and exhibitionism, and gradually accepted it as an insurgency, now see it as an attempt to hijack and ravish the Republican party and even to hoodwink the entire electorate. The alternative interpretation has been that Donald Trump, though a billionaire, had the genius of expressing public grievances in an Archie Bunker style that mocked political correctness and was popularly seen as plain talk from the only candidate not in any way complicit in the terrible blunders of America’s political class since the end of the Cold War.
And all he did was address the 900-pound gorilla that everyone else studiously avoids (except for Cruz, of course):
Trump alone recognized the significance of a few basic numbers, such as the percentage of Americans who think government officials are largely crooked – which increased between 2000 and 2015 from 30-something percent to 50 to 60 per cent, depending on whether they are Democrats, independents, or Republicans. In the same period, the percentage of Americans who thought the federal government was run by a few big interests increased from about 50 percent to about 70 percent.
And here’s the money quote:
Those collectively responsible for governing the country through the last 20 years, as these ominous levels of public discontent accumulated, showed no apparent recognition of the gathering storm. Marco Rubio, as he graciously departed the race, called it a “tsunami none of us saw coming.” Future historians of American politics will probably be astounded that the political system ignored the 900-pound gorilla of illegal migrants in the country and imagined that such an immense number of unskilled entrants could be tacitly accepted.
And Trump is simply doing an Archie Bunker routine. It’s really that simple:
One of Trump’s talents is to harness the rage and fear of the low-income and marginal groups by his Archie Bunker routine, while maintaining contact with the party’s moderates and the vast center of American politics by having relatively uncontroversial views of most issues except illegal and Muslim immigration.
And here’s how he will clinch the deal:
There is no reason to doubt that Trump can get 54 percent of the remaining delegates now that he has been polling over 40 percent regularly before it even became a three-candidate race. If Cruz withdrew in favor of Kasich, it would, as I wrote last week, be possible to give Trump a run for it, but even that would not work, and none of it will happen. If he runs into problems, Trump can trade the vice-presidential nomination for a final push of delegates.
And here’s the finale:
He’s not complicit in the failures of the last 20 years and he is new to politics, yet has huger name recognition. There is no more mud to throw at Trump and Clinton has not begun to answer for her long record of untruthfulness, evasion, cynical speech-making for exorbitant fees, and influence-peddling through the Clinton Foundation while she was secretary of state, even if she avoids indictment on Emailgate.
It is a bizarre turn and a startling gamble, but the great office is seeking Donald J. Trump, and will probably find him; he’s hard to miss.
It’s over: Trump has the nomination. I’m for Cruz but I’m ready to face the fact that Trump has it in the bag.
Published in Politics
OK. Let’s take the state line bit of his health care plan
What “state requirements” is he talking about, the selling state or the state the covered person is living in. My initial read is, the state regulations the covered person is living in since otherwise, it’s meaningless and the clause should be removed from the sentence.
That doesn’t solve the problem at all, any company that wants to meet the requirements can already do that. It’s the restrictive state regulations that are the problem (or at least were prior to Obamacare).
I know you will interpret the sentence a different way, so try to make the case the sentence means what you think it means and not what I think it means?
Shouldn’t a well-thought out policy paper be written in a way that wasn’t confusing on a core matter?
Ed G.
A2, I don’t agree that these two basic assumptions are as obvious or true as you do. 1) Being aggressively un-PC is only a part of the campaign, and I really don’t think it’s what everyone notices first. I’m sincere when I say that I only just looked at his website in the last week or so and there were no surprises or tsk tsks for me – the website pretty much lined up with the message I had been receiving from whatever news, talk, and Ricochet I caught. 2) “Make America Great Again” is not about destroying any more than Morning Again In America or It’s the Economy Stupid; looking at his website I think that repealing Obamacare is the only thing I’d characterize as destroying – the rest seems like building including fairer trade, tax reform, immigration enforcement, and the healthcare policies he favors instead of Obamacare.
No, I think I’ll pass on that conversation. 1) Because I don’t think you really want to have it. I think instead that you’re angry that people don’t agree with you that he is a vulgar con man when it is so obvious. 2) I don’t really want to have that conversation either. The whole point of my comments is to push back on the idea that there is nothing but insults; feel free to think the ideas presented are stupid, confusing, wrong, or whatever. Fine. I don’t have any interest in that conversation, though, because it’s beyond the scope of what we’re discussing and because I don’t put too much weight on campaign positions in the first place. Give me the broad strokes and that’s good enough for me for a campaign. The details can only be hammered out when/if the candidate meets the legislative process and all of the competing interests therein.
I would love to hear an coherent argument for Trump based on his policies (other than immigration) and how they make him a better candidate for the GOP nomination than Cruz/Rubio/Kasich.
I would prefer it be based on what Trump has actually said out loud, not his policy papers that I doubt he has actually read, but I would be fine with basing on the 30 second videos on his website (https://www.donaldjtrump.com/issues/) because he at least said those things out loud.
I haven’t even been paying close attention and yet I have heard Trump say the same things that are on his website. You pick up on different things. Ok. Difference is the spice of life.
Whether any of it makes him better than Cruz, Rubio, Kasich or anyone else is also beyond the scope of what we’re talking about. That would be civil conversation about personal preferences. Yet still not one I’m interested in because I’m not thrilled with any of them yet I’ll vote for the R anyway because I’m less thrilled by the alternatives.
As far as there being a media problem because they are not polite enough, I suggest one looks at early American history, in general today, even the supermarket tabloids are more polite than main stream journalists. Media got cleaned up by TV, not dragged down, and Trump in general is mild compared with many politicians from the 18th and 19th centuries. That is likely not what would determine whether or not his Presidency was a success, it will be the actual policies that today we cannot see the details, because they have not been run through the sausage grinder that is Wash DC.
What Trump says sounds OK, I have my doubts what he does will live up to it. That doubt is why he has never made my list of candidates.