Posted on 07/27/2015 11:52:30 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
No sense pretending: Donald Trump is the only news of the 2016 race, and this fact says something very troubling about the Republican party, the conservative electorate, the mass media culture, and the United States in general. Sounds like an exaggeration, but it’s not. Really it’s not.
Ted Cruz goes to war with the GOP Senate leadership; Hillary Clinton proposes the highest tax rates in 70 years; Marco Rubio goes after John Kerry on the Iran deal in a Senate hearing. Well, big deal. Phffft. They’ve all been crowded out by the Trump noise. There will be the first Republican debate in ten days. It’s the most important political event of the year thus far. And it will be all about Trump. He will see to that; the reporters will see to that, and the minor candidates looking to move up will see to it by trying to pick fights with him and best him.
It’s not enough to say that there are matters of deathly serious to be discussed, from Iran to ISIS to the possible collapse of the Euro and the Chinese economy to the harvesting of fetal organs, because there are always serious matters to be discussed as elections approach. The issue with Trump is that his approach can only be called “the politics of unseriousness.” He engages with no issue, merely offers a hostile and pithy soundbite bromide about it. He yammers. He describes how wonderful things will be when he acts against something or other without explaining how he will act, what he will do, or how it will work.
The Trump view, boiled down: They’re all idiots and I’m very rich and I know how to do things and if you say Word One against me I will say something incredibly nasty about you and who cares about how the Senate works or the House works or international alliances work or how treaties work or how anything works. That stuff is for sissies and losers and disasters. I know how to do it I me me me I me me I I me. And me. And I.
Politics and megalomania go hand in hand — otherwise, why would the ancient emperors have had someone whispering “Caesar, thou art mortal” in their ears as they paraded triumphantly through Rome to remind them they were not gods? To take one random example, Ed Koch, a very good politician indeed and one who did very good things, spent the last 20 years of his life literally incapable of speaking a sentence that was not in the first person. When I made a close study of the presidency of George H. W. Bush for my first book, Hell of a Ride, I discovered to my amazement that his speeches too were remarkably self-referential and his policies often came down to a kind of “what should a person like me in this situation do” rather than representing a serious grappling with the issues at play. In that book, I called Bush’s time in the White House a “solipsistic presidency,” and the charge still stands.
Trump is something different. He is not a politician whose success has turned him into a megalomaniac, but a megalomaniac who has decided to play politician for a while the way he played being a reality television star for a while. He’s free to do this, of course.
The problem is not with him. The problem has to do with his reception. He is garnering support that may actually be real, and may actually change the course of the 2016 election — and, therefore, American history — through nothing more than blowhardism.
Efforts to figure out how to coopt him and his issues on the part of other Republicans are doomed to failure because it’s not the message that people are attracted to; it’s the messenger. Or, if it is the message, it is a message that cannot be coopted because it is little more than a vile expression of open hatred toward Mexicans in a country where people of Mexican descent make up 11 percent of the electorate. For those who want Trump because of it, anything less than his defamation will strike them as the castrated bleating of what they have started to call a “cuckservative.”
And while happy talk (some of which I’ve indulged in myself) may dismiss Trump as this year’s flash-in-the-pan like the 2012 Republican also-rans, right now he’s more likely a version of Ross Perot in 1992 — the man who got Bill Clinton elected. Perot managed to convince people he was only in it to talk about the deficit and the national debt when it was probably more the case he was running out of a long-standing personal animus toward George H.W. Bush and a desire to deny him the presidency based on an imagined slight. Trump doesn’t even have a real issue to bring in Democrats and Republicans dissatisfied with their choices. Trump is Trump’s issue.
These are unhappy times in the United States, and unhappy times generate unhappy political outcomes. Last week I made the case for despair following the Iran deal. I know people always want commentary that offers a path forward, a way out of trouble, a hope for something better. Sometimes, though, you just have to sit back and despair at the condition of things, and maybe from the despair some new wisdom may emerge.
Sorry John, building a real border fence is issue #1 and Trump is the only one talking about it. It was promised and funded back in 2006, and clearly the uniparty has no intention or desire to do it. The GOP just wants to keep flooding the country with cheap foreign labor on behalf of the Chamber of Cronies. Trump is the last chance to salvage what’s left of the GOP before they revert back to permanent minority status, which is where they prefer to be.
The Trump view, boiled down: They’re all idiots and I’m very rich and I know how to do things and if you say Word One against me I will say something incredibly nasty about you and who cares about how the Senate works or the House works or international alliances work or how treaties work or how anything works. That stuff is for sissies and losers and disasters. I know how to do it I me me me I me me I I me. And me. And I.WOW! BUT, They got it all wrong! Wrong Guy and I can prove with by changing a couple of words!
The 0bama view, boiled down: They’re all idiots and I’m
veryPRESIDENT and I know how to do things and if you say Word One against me I will say something incredibly nasty about you and who cares about how the Senate works or the House works or international alliances work or how treaties work or how anything works. That stuff is for sissies and losers and disasters. I know how to do it I me me me I me me I I me. And me. And I.
(After All, I Am The Great pResident 0bama!)
Even if Trump becomes the 45th, it would pale in comparison to the biggest FUBAR America ever elected.
Of course, I mean President FUBO. The biggest fraud, liar, bastard, imposter, jerk and POS ever to be elected.
Electing Trump would seem a perfectly normal and sane idea compared to the crap we’ve had infesting the White House.
Geography defines a nation, along with culture.
Everyone talks about culture, no one else acts on geography.
We’re not talking about conquering territory, just protecting what we’ve inherited.
Borders, language, culture. Hat tip to Michael Savage.
Nice try John ——
“...because it is little more than a vile expression of open hatred toward Mexicans in a country where people of Mexican descent make up 11 percent of the electorate....”
FALSE. Trump has consistently attacked ILLEGAL Mexicans, and the corrupt politicians that support them, not all Mexicans. You also fail to mention all the positive pro-American things he has also been trumpeting at the same time.
You should be attacking the limp-phallus RINOs (which excludes Cruz) who are working hard to suppress any form of Republican FIGHT and head-on attack of Obama and the criminal Democrat Party. Go away John.
For example, what is this "vile expression of hatred towards Mexicans" that Podhoretz speaks of? For the low information voter, you would think that Trump was talking of opening concentration camps and having stormtroopers throw rocks through windows of taco shops and Chipotle restaurants.
All Trump has ever said was that he would secure the border as otherwise, Mexicans are sending us their criminals and other undesirables, as they certainly are. Also, much to the consternation of many conservatives, Trump actually seems a little to the left when it comes to amnesty for those already here and very pro-immigration, so long as it flows through legal channels.
Also, this Podhoretz must not have listened to any of Trump's hour plus speeches (sans teleprompter) in which he does go into some detail of what he would do as president.
Case in point, that Ford factory that is getting built in Mexico, after it first was to be built here. Trump spent several minutes on this, pointing out how if he was president and this was announced, he would get Congress to impose tariffs on every car brought into the U.S. and by doing so, would convince Ford that they'd better leave the factory here in the U.S.
But revealing that would take away from the narrative that Trump "hates everybody" and does not have any specifics.
What have the professional politicians said about the lawless violent borders they created?
What have they said they’ll do about it?
Did they name who is responsible for this epic failure and what did they say they’ll do about it?
Yes, Trump is like Obama.
Yes, they’re very similar and their supporter share an uncritical approach and an anger towards nonbelievers as well.
Obama is a Marxist that hates America, at least Trump believes in capitalism and loves America.
>> Even if Trump becomes the 45th, it would pale in comparison to the biggest FUBAR America ever elected <<
Correct.
And I like the way Dennis Prager put it on his radio show today, when he said that Obama not only has been the worst and most dangerous POTUS in American history, but also has been the most destructive AMERICAN in American history.
That being said, I think the fact that Obama is such a horrible disaster could never offer justification for a Trump presidency. Two wrongs would not make a right.
Another really good article. Trump has certainly added an edge to this race.
What an idiot.
I believe that Dems fear Trump.
Was at a funeral last week in NE Ohio, three of my idiot liberal union member relatives sought me out and out of the blue delivered rants against Trump.
It appears the left has mobilized their forces vs Trump.
The article stunk. Trump is appealing because he isn’t automatically apologizing when the media wants him to. He is saying what I want to say but can’t because I work with liberals who will ostracize me if I step out of the shadows. See, there are undocumented immigrants living in the shadows, but there are many more white male conservatives living in the shadows also. I don’t plan to vote for Trump, I’m a Ted Cruz voter right now. But I truly appreciate Donald Trump at this time in our history.
Yeah.
In October 2016, maybe.
Yes, discussing those other issues will surely tell us how the other candidates actually stand. Waffle, waffle.
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