Welcome to this blog. As the title suggests, its focus is the meteoric rise of Donald Trump, real estate magnate and former reality TV star (The Apprentice) to Republican Party frontrunner status.
Other things being equal, now that he’s won major primaries in New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada, and has walked away with a commanding lead in the delegate count, the chances of his coasting to the GOP nomination at the party’s July Convention have just increased substantially.
Some say Trump will destroy whatever is left of the conservative movement; his supporters see him as the country’s last hope.
The “establishment” (corporate donors, Inside-the-Beltway pundits, etc.) is gnashing its collective teeth, although having alienated the Party’s base over a several year period, there is no reason other than sheer indifference and arrogance, that they shouldn’t have seen this coming.
My purpose here is to get the essentials of events in one place on a daily basis, which will mean a daily post, with links to the relevant information you can follow and explore more. It is not to support Donald Trump’s effort to win the presidency, even if I think the “Trump phenomenon” is the most interesting political event to occur in years!
It is also not to attack Trump or his supporters. Whatever one feels about the relative absence of cognitive content in phrases like “Make America Great Again” (which reminds me of Obama’s peon to “Change you can believe in!”), I sincerely decry the dismissal of his supporters as racists, poorly educated, losers in the so-called new economy, etc.
We are trying to find some middle ground here! It’s not being done elsewhere on the Internet that I know of!
Other blogs and commentary websites are either avidly pro-Trump, no questions asked, or hysterically anti-Trump, no questions asked (just check out Salon.com).
My position: he’s not the Second Coming; nor is he Satan wearing a face that’s too white and too male for our politically correct times (and tendencies many of us, not just Trump’s followers, are sick of)!
You can read more of my personal thoughts here. Although this blog is about Trump and the responses to him, not about me, it is obviously going to be colored by my premises and preoccupations. We’ll get to more of those in due course. My primary purpose here is to provide a daily digest, highlighting the reasons behind and progress of “Trumpism” with relevant commentary.
How long will this continue? Two possibilities. If Trump doesn’t get the nomination, whatever interest this blog has generated may fade. But if (as many suspect) we are seeing a revolution of sorts against elite control of the U.S. political economy to the detriment of ordinary people, this movement will survive whatever happens to The Donald! I think we can count on that!
So here we go!
Our first link exemplifies what many in the donor class are doubtless already thinking: they’ll support Hillary Clinton if Trump is the GOP nominee. If you’re a Trump supporter reading this, some of these pieces will make you retch, but I’d urge you to consider them anyway as exemplars of what you’ll be facing even before (and even more if) Trump wins the GOP nomination.
http://thefederalist.com/2016/02/24/ill-take-hillary-clinton-over-donald-trump
Now comes the first real test. How many of you reading this absolutely despise Rush Limbaugh? Yes, he’s got a mountain-sized ego, but readers, please, I need you to get past that for now. This is an excellent overview of why so much of middle America is turning to Donald Trump. It is not merely ideological. What is confusing people is that Trump is not a systematic thinker. He’s an empiricist. That means he goes off experience and what he sees happening at the moment.
Middle America may be fed up with leftism, Obama-style, but it is also fed up with brands of “conservatism” and free-marketism that are just covers for globalism: the economic erasure of all national borders, placing them in competition with Chinese slave laborers working for pennies on the dollar, and with illegal aliens. Obviously, middle-Americans cannot win in this kind of competition, and have lost ground rapidly over the past couple of decades (NAFTA did not actually begin this but eventually put it in high gear; and now these same apologists for corporatism want a Trans-Pacific Partnership!).
Part of the problem is that few pundits can even tell you what conservatism actually means anymore. Ask a self-identified conservative what he/she wants to conserve, and you get a blank stare of noncomprehension. Many who identify with the term appear to think it means corporations can do as they please and call it “the free market at work.” Anyway, do read this excellent commentary.
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2016/01/20/understanding_trump_s_appeal
A lot of disinformation is being peddled over Trump’s alleged “racism”; and I admit, I never thought his negative remarks about Mexicans earlier in his campaign were a great idea (or about making Mexico pay to build a wall).
Be that as it may, let’s take Hispanic voters seriously. Let’s realize that the majority of them, as U.S. citizens, want the country’s immigration laws enforced no less than Americans of British or other descent.
This may be why Trump won the Hispanic vote in Nevada over Cruz and Rubio.
This pundit correctly notes that Nevada voters might not be representative of the Hispanic population as a whole: a statistically correct rationalization. The test of its soundness will be to see what happens when we get to Florida and Colorado. I’ve a strong sense that all this BS about Trump’s anti-Hispanic “racism” will be seen to be just that: BS.
This is the voice of the “establishment”:
“… the menace he represents … a bullying demagogue … the bigotry and ugliness of Trump’s campaign … no credible agenda and no experience … denigrated women, Jews, Muslims, people with disabilities … wild falsehoods … doubles down when his lies are exposed … Is the Republican Party truly not going to resist its own debasement?”
Thinking observers want to know: how much of this is accurate, and how much of it is weaponized language: words and phrases long ago turned into the verbal equivalent of clubs for beating people into submission?
How much of it is evidence of how scared the “establishment” really is of losing power in the face of a Trump victory, not just in July but in November? (I am not yet taking bets on whether Trump’s numbers six months from now will enable him to defeat Hillary Clinton the presumed Democratic nominee in November, especially with the “establishment” most likely backing her if he’s the GOP nominee.)
Links at bottom of article offer the beginnings of a Who’s Who of “establishment” punditry. George Will in particular has been attacking Trump for months, seeing him as dealing a fatal blow to the GOP as a credible repository of conservatism (see above, or my article, on why it is questionable that the GOP has been a repository of conservatism for some time).
More of the shifting winds of “establishment” response to Trump. At least some might be adjusting their comfort zones, even if others will jump ship and back Hillary. Useful to note: Reagan was once a Hollywood actor, a celebrity, about whom many pundits said things like, “Heaven help us if he becomes president.” He served for eight years, made some mistakes (ironically, one of them was signing off on an open-borders type immigration package), but the country survived.
If the U.S. falls, it will not be because of Donald Trump.
http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/la-na-gop-establishment-trump-20160224-story.html
Other things being equal, Donald Trump could amass a sufficient number of delegates by March 15 that it will be extremely difficult for any other candidate to overtake him. That includes Rubio, especially should Trump defeat Rubio in Rubio’s home state:
http://www.vox.com/2016/2/24/11104782/republican-donald-trump-polls-delegates?hl=1&noRedirect=1
Yet another debate tonight in Houston. More theater, without a doubt, as Cruz and Rubio go after each other, each one hoping to emerge as the “establishment” candidate opposing Donald Trump. Ben Domenech recommends they attack Trump personally, under the presumption that doing so would give The Donald a dose of his own medicine. Doesn’t he realize that Trump would prove to be several magnitudes better at this game than they are and eat them alive? http://thefederalist.com/2016/02/25/at-tonights-debate-take-a-flamethrower-to-trump/
We’d be remiss, finally, if we didn’t note Noam Chomsky’s brief comments on what has given rise to the “Trump phenomenon.” In response to a rather leading question about the rise of a “climate of fear,” Chomsky responds: Fear, along with the breakdown of society during the neoliberal period. People feel isolated, helpless, victim of powerful forces that they do not understand and cannot influence.” I think some of us understand these forces, at least somewhat. Whether any of us can influence them is another matter. That’s the whole point of support for outsiders.
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/noam-chomsky-we-owe-rise-trump-fear-and-breakdown-society
Link to general Election 2016 coverage on Facebook (for those on Facebook; thanks to James Hall for the pointer): https://www.facebook.com/2016politics/?hc_location=ufi
Until next time! Have a great evening! Your host, Steven.
Good Luck with Project
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