GOPe....You're FIRED.
Posted on 08/21/2015 4:27:40 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Trump is a deeply ridiculous individual and his presidency would be the stuff of nightmares. But it’s important to understand that he’s offering more than just violations of political correctness.
The punditry’s reaction to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has come in three phases.
The first was annoyed indifference, accompanied by invocations of the Manny Ramirez Defense that this was “just Trump being Trump.” Most assumed the mouthy magnate was looking for a boutique issue to exploit so he could make a brief publicity splash and get out of the race, like he did with President Obama’s birth certificate in 2011. Responses were either blisteringly vitriolic or casually dismissive.
The second was anguished alarm, as Trump’s poll numbers surged and it became apparent that his candidacy was no hour-long reality show. Suddenly the Republican frontrunner was a former liberal Democrat whose chief conservative qualification was a tendency to spout politically incorrect platitudes. But how could someone so vacuous win the nomination? How could cheap insults substitute for policy? These questions occupied the commentariat for weeks, particularly after Trump’s spectacularly substance-free debate performance earlier this month.
Now we’re transitioning to phase three: recognition that Trump isn’t just a mouth tethered to an ego, but a candidate with at least a vague semblance of a plan. Trump’s blueprint for immigration reform, released last weekend, is a mishmash of good ideas (bringing sanctuary cities in line with federal law), bad ideas (implementing e-verify nationwide) and whimsical ideas (forcing Mexico to pay for a border wall), but it’s far more filling than Trump’s usual verbal sizzle. In fact, it may be the most comprehensive immigration plan ever released in presidential politics, where nebulous pledges to “secure the border” are the norm.
The debut of Donald Trump as a serious candidate has created disquiet among Republicans, especially as it brings with it another realization: Trump has tapped into something genuine in the American zeitgeist. It’s what Rick Santorum calls “blue-collar conservatism,” and Trump is a far more effective champion of it than Santorum. “I think it’s wrong for American business to move their business out of the United States to keep from paying taxes, but keep us as a marketplace,” former autoworker Gerald Woodruff told Dave Weigel in Flint, Michigan. “It’s wrong when they can buy furniture in China and ship it here cheaper than it costs us to build it here,” agreed Holly Gaul. Both are impressed by Trump’s campaign.
Trump’s blend of policies, his bucking traditional conservative notions on trade and tariffs while spewing venom at illegal immigrants, is more commonly heard in the union hall than the Republican National Committee building. Yet many conservative bloggers and radio hosts are nodding along. Some of this is a continuation of the populist right’s Hundred Years’ War against the Republican establishment, in which Trump is currently the most visible general. But there are also signs that some conservatives, frustrated by the torpidity of the economic recovery and contemptuous of big business’ influence over the GOP, are taking a second look at economic protectionism. Radio host Laura Ingraham recently tweeted: “‘Free trade’ is tantamount to a religion for some—bow down at the altar or face the ultimate punishment by the Masters of the Universe.” Given how controversial President Obama’s trade deal was on the right, many conservatives seem to agree.
It’s worth pointing out that much of this is founded on misconceptions. As Kevin Williamson and many others have argued, automation and predatory labor unions are far more responsible for job losses in Flint than free-trade agreements, and while America does run a large trade deficit, this is primarily because we import so much oil.
There’s also the matter of Donald Trump’s unique lack of fitness as a blue-collar spokesman. This is the man who hired illegal immigrants to build Trump Tower, allows his resort in Florida to import foreign cooks and cleaners and bullied tenants who stood in the way of his gaudy New York construction projects. His sudden concern for the everyman is, like every other project to which Donald Trump has attached his name, another vainglorious monument to Donald Trump.
But that doesn’t mean Trump’s disciples are as deluded as he is. There is some evidence that illegal immigrants reduce wages for native-born workers and take jobs. More broadly, whenever an economy transitions, as ours has from manufacturing to services, inevitably some are going to be left behind. Those near-retirees ruefully searching for answers in the crumbling houses and overgrown yards of Flint are not going to be mollified by libertarians hectoring them to “read an economics book.” Hayek was right about plenty, but his ghost isn’t going to pry the boards off those factories.
It’s a problem that’s manifesting itself politically across the world. In Britain, the United Kingdom Independence Party has become competitive in the Labour-dominated post-industrial North on a message of reducing immigration. In France, the populist National Front has been gaining traction over immigration concerns. Migration is perhaps the number-one issue arousing tensions against the European Union. And Australia’s immigration laws, already some of the tightest in the first world, were successfully enhanced earlier this year by Prime Minister Tony Abbott.
Donald Trump is a deeply ridiculous individual and his presidency would be the stuff of nightmares. But it’s important to understand that he’s offering more than just umpteen violations of political correctness. Behind the verbal waterfall is something that genuinely appeals to one of America’s most forgotten demographics.
Pretty succinct description of how I feel about Obama.
They still don’t get it, but edge closer.
He writes well, but is truly off-base and insulting.
And where did this ***hole get this information?
What an idiot this guy is. The most important part of Trump's plan is about controlling legal immigration and protecting American jobs. And since when is mandatory e-verify a bad idea?
Look where he’s worked: That’s a “conservative” (or cuckservative, I suppose) resume, not a lefty one...
Trump is smoking out all these phony conservatives. They are part of the GOPe and the political elite. They work for their corporate paymasters. Is it any wonder why he thinks mandatory e-verify is bad.
Trump is popular because:
1) Conservatives are sick of terrible, suicidial, immigration policies and want them stopped.
2) Conservatives are sick of the liberal media and like it when somebody tells them to go to hell.
3) Conservatives are sick of GOP establishment republicans being a bunch of gutless cowards who have done absolutely nothing to stop obama’s insanity.
Truth is not ridiculous.
Donald Trump is a deeply ridiculous individual and his presidency would be the stuff of nightmares.
What do we need with Trump when we’ve got an army of know-it-all Trump critics.
Maybe we should disband the Republic and give all power to a committee of pundits.
GOPe....You're FIRED.
Stopped reading after a few sentences.
I never heard of Matt Purple, but he sounds like a GOPe a$$hole.
Remember Depp in “The Cow” ....I’ll send my eagle to peck your eyes out...to the tune of “We are not going to take it anymore”
The secret is that the press is swooning over Trump in the hopes that he will indeed become the Republican nominee or at least put the eventual nominee on record in talking about some of Trump’s far out proposals so that the party will go down in flames in ‘16 - and so far it’s working quite well.....
What do you consider “far out” my friend?
Watching him of FNC now from Alabama, we have never had a candidate like Trump. Palin was close, but Trump is in a league of his own. And clearly having the time of his life.
Americans?
Matt Purple
No they really do not get it. They refuse to get it. This guy pretending to know anything about what Trump is doing does not have the talent or the brains to accomplish what Trump is accomplishing.
He is just going along with the liberal crap as thousands of Americans are being butchered because of illegal immigration. It amazes me how these liberals are so willing to accept collateral damage of thousands of lives so they do not have to face reality.
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