FRANZI: Donald Trump and the politics of polarization

Many Republicans are worried that Donald Trump’s entry into the GOP presidential sweepstakes will be “bad for the party” because of the sometimes extreme positions he espouses with even more extreme rhetoric.

Many Democrats are jubilant because they will attempt to use Trump to brand the entire GOP. Neither understand the politics of polarization. Trump helps the GOP and the conservative movement. Here’s why.

When the checkered pants country club mush mouths were fully in charge of the GOP and the only real conservative you saw on national TV was George Will on Brinkley, the GOP was not only a minority party but generally accepted that as its permanently assigned status. A conservative Pennsylvania transplant to an urban Georgia Congressional district labeled by lib Dems as an extremist named Newt Gingrich changed all that simply by believing it could be changed.

Newt has many faults, including self-aggrandizement, but in his better moments he is positively Churchillian, another conservative outsider labeled too extreme by his contemporaries. Gingrich also shared a political bipolarism that Churchill overcame and Newt didn’t, but is fondly recalled by we who were there as the guy who finally taught us we could return the House to Republican control.

He did it by setting a definite agenda and moving the political goal post in his direction – which was to the right. He polarized. He also won.

Many Democrats have known for years that political guilt by association hardly ever works. Republicans lost senate seats in Indiana and Missouri in 2012 because of stupid things said by the respective GOP nominees there. It didn’t cost the GOP anything elsewhere else unless they were dumb enough to hide and mumble because of it. What happened in Indiana and Missouri STAYED in Indiana and Missouri.

Anything Trump says or does that hurts Trump won’t hurt anybody else. The best evidence of that is the myriad crazies who hang with the Democrats from Jeremiah Wright to Bill Ayres. Nobody cares and nobody really blames somebody like Ann Kirkpatrick. Too many GOP consultants haven’t learned that, and aim campaigns at pleasing media hacks who will screw them anyway. Part of the reason the smarter Democrats use that ploy is to suck Republicans into thinking it works, causing them to look at their shoes instead of fighting back.

What works is always having somebody on your side more extreme than you are. A Democrat friend of mine (yes, I have those) was poking fun at the GOP field and Trump in particular until I pointed out to him that after hearing Trump, Ted Cruz sounds sorta moderate. He got the point. The GOP should too.

Republicans have the best field to choose from offered in years. Conservatives last time had no clear contender and were stuck with a raft of second stringers either ethically challenged like Newt, or fundamentally squishy like Romney. There wasn’t one sitting governor in the pack that could point to recent accomplishments nor was there a sitting senator with a record. Try this time.

The GOP has a batch of governors who’ve proved something even the most rabid Dem has to accept – that Jindal, Kasich, Perry and Walker plus some others not even in the mix (but who might make good VP nominees like Susana Martinez in New Mexico) are at least two termers who KNOW HOW TO GOVERN in today’s world.

I exclude Jeb Bush for timing as his excellent record was established before the long count recession, as well as the over-rated Chris Christie, who never quite understood the need for carrying more Republicans with him.

The four announced senators all have been forthright in expressing their opinions and have courageously spelled them out. None are the kind of bland weenies we saw too many of before. Marco Rubio can add to the mix his seven years as speaker of the Florida House, part of that time helping Gov. Jeb Bush manage his agenda. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz both speak for a large constituency needed in the ultimate mix, and the cumulatively moderate Lindsey Graham is hardly a pussycat.

Donald Trump’s major contribution will be as the real attack dog the Dems breed and use all the time on Republicans. His stand up act rivals lefties like Jon Stewart, only with guys who drive pickup trucks and waitresses named Bessie. His constant reference to fundamental issues and values helps keep the rest of the field honest.

Just an observation:

Things that were considered extreme left wing 50 years ago are now accepted in the US. It had to start somewhere. You had to have someone (or some people) who took a position and championed it.

If someone like Trump (or even Cruz, for that matter) begins to champion a cause...and doesn't back down, they will gain a following. The following will become a movement. With the right leaders, we can take back America. Much of the damage that has happened since 1990 can reversed. It will take time, but it can be done. Can you imagine what 2 successive terms of conservative government can do to this country?

The Tea Party began as a movement, but without a clear leader (or leaders). The MSM and Liberals (Democrat and Republican) saw the movement at a threat and tried to destroy it/marginalize it. They have had some success.

If someone can become the face of the Tea Party ideals, they can solidify the movement.

All great movements have had a leader. Right now, they Tea Party/Conservatives do not have a leader that all can support.

This needs to change. If the conservatives want to win in 2016, they need to unify behind a single candidate before the primaries begin.

I disagree.

Although the author contrives a novel way of looking at Trump's candidacy, it boils down to saying that Trump is good because he is so bad that he makes the other candidates look good. The absurdity of that opposition is obvious. One need only consider the media which will certainly bend truth no less than syntax to characterize all Republican debaters onstage as interchangeable, with one just as crazy as the next and the fellow next is Donald Trump.

Moreover, even accepting the author's premise, any good done by Trump's presence will be more than washed away by his penchant for viciously attacking those who disagree with him. Donald Trump is the poster boy for violating Ronald Reagan's 11th commandment. He will tear the image of all the debaters and all candidates down in his narcissistic ambition. Romney did it, yes, but Trump gets personal.

Here is my assessment of Donald Trump from two old replies:

My core objection to Donald Trump is that he is an ideological loose cannon. He cannot be defined as conservative because he is sui generis which is a kind way of saying, a narcissist. He is much in the mode of Ross Perot in many respects including personality traits as well as ideological confusion.

There is also a great deal of ideological confusion among the electorate, hence the appeal of the Ross Perots and the Donald Trumps. Many people believe that political parties are the problem, that an outsider is the solution. The solution is a conservative who can come from outside, or inside, or from Mars as far as I'm concerned but he must hold true to conservatism.

Donald Trump is simply not conservative, he is an opportunist but he is an ideological and philosophical opportunist as well as an opportunist of personal ambition. He is not a deep thinker, he is ignorant of history, he is akin to any huckster, like Bill Clinton, who can read an audience and summon up the sociopathic skills necessary to persuade by pandering. Some of those emotional hot buttons about which he panders include issues with which you and I both agree such as our trade relations with China but about which I decline to be bamboozled.

I do not believe that Donald Trump's motive for his campaign is greed, I think Trump is a typical narcissist who believes that he and he alone can save the world.

Indisputably Trump will seek to turn his campaign to a financial profit, and that is probably a good thing because it requires adherence to reality but I doubt that greed is his primary motivation especially when one considers that he must lay out a great deal of money if he keeps his promise to self fund his campaign.

We humans have a nearly infinite capacity for rationalization and Donald Trump is not hampered by humility nor by any obvious check on his powers of rationalization, hence, he is psychically at liberty to pursue the next rung on the ladder of success. He has conquered real estate, he has conquered television, and now he wants to step in and conquer in the ultimate arena, political power. This system of rationalization tells him that he is not seeking power for its own sake but to save the country. He sees himself as anointed.

The problem is Trump is absolutely right on the big issues, the country is in desperate need of salvation or our children and grandchildren will grow up in a dangerous world which will be palpably less free.

Trump is very much a realist and knows that campaigning on social issues is to campaign on quicksand. No issue better describes the weakness of social issues for obtaining electoral victory than the history of opposition to homosexual marriage. This is not to say that our political problems are not caused by decay of our culture, that is, by decay in our "social issues." It is to say that pragmatic, even cynical, election strategy means that one has to gain office by addressing our systemic condition even as one might believe that, ultimately, a democracy is only possible with virtuous people and that requires a retail spiritual awakening.

Besides, Trump is an obvious New Yorker with a New Yorker's disdain for moral issues. This is a cultural matter and it appears to be part of Trump's character.

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