Posted on 07/10/2015 4:01:43 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Peggy Noonan spends some ink today (subscription) trying to understand why Donald Trump is suddenly so popular, at least in the polls. She points out that Trump is anything but an ideal presidential candidate, and frankly, barely a Republican. She thinks he “has a low ceiling and short staying power.” In that regard, I agree. He’ll be gone well before anything serious happens.
However, there’s a reason he’s currently popular (just as there’s a similar reason Bernie Sanders is popular on the left). And Noonan gets to most of it as she offers this anecdotal evidence (two working class independents and a Democrat she knows as friends) up to make a point:
They think he’s real, that he’s under nobody’s thumb, that maybe he’s a big-mouth but he’s a truth-teller. He’s afraid of no one, he’s not politically correct. He’s rich and can’t be bought by some billionaire, because he is the billionaire. He’s talking about what people are thinking and don’t feel free to say. He can turn the economy around because he made a lot of money, so he probably knows how to make jobs.
He is a fighter. People want a fighter. Maybe he’s impolitic but he’s better than some guy who filters everything he says through a screen of political calculation.
She points to some other reasons that seem fairly silly, like he’s unserious as a candidate and the country has gotten increasingly unserious (really?). But she also points to something I think most people will agree on – “He capitalizes on the fact that no one in America trusts politicians anymore.” And that’s simply a truth that can be garnered from numerous polls.
So maybe these 3 people’s reasons don’t all pass the smell test. But two of them are what I think really are driving his current popularity. He is not politically correct (which also apparently translates into “he’s a truth-teller”). Most people are deathly tired of political correctness and its hysterical adherents. There are any number of people hungering for someone to stand up and give them straight talk. Someone to address the issues as they should be address without filtering everything “through a screen of political calculation”.
Trump, at least at the moment, fills that bill. He’s saying things that much of the country is thinking or at least wondering about. And they want answers. That, of course, is where Trump will fall short. However, there are many out there very happy with the fact that marginal Republican or not, Trump is making the establishment Republicans very uncomfortable (to the point that they’re trying to find ways to keep him out of debates, etc.). Frankly, they need to be uncomfortable.
Trump will eventually fade. But this lesson needs to be learned by certain GOP candidates for the Presidency. It’s time to quit playing the game by the other team’s rules. It’s time to address issues honestly, forthrightly and without the “filter” that is so obviously present in most statements made by other candidates. It’s time for someone to tell those who whine and object to wording to grow up, act like adults and face the problems our nation faces head on.
And yes, the media and the PC crowd will attempt to marginalize them and pull every identity politics trick in the book to ruin that candidate’s chances. Somewhere, somehow though, this sort of straight talk has got to happen.
If not now, when?
When it is obviously too late?
Here's why I think he's doing so well: When he makes a statement on an issue like illegal immigration, he stands by that statement and doesn't back down when the left subsequently attacks him for saying what he said. Just about any other Republican would immediately back track, apologize profusely, and beg the left for forgiveness (which, of course, is never granted.) I don't know who will win the nomination, but could you imagine what would happen if the entire Republican field took the same approach, and stood up to the left the way Trump has been doing? The liberal loons in this country wouldn't know how to handle it! Their heads would explode!
” setting a great table for Cruz down the line”... or stealing his thunder now.
Could go either way.
Trump has his media buddies to help him hornswaggle low information voters.
Remember, Trump is part of the media and he has a Reality TV show and those are designed to degrade our country and appeal to the lowest common denominator.
I really really hope it plays out that way. Donald Trump would have been one of the last people I’d consider voting for, but if my other choices are Yeb Bush and Hillary Clinton?
I’m sure I’ll get skewered for this but here it goes.
Right now I’m inclined to support Trump.
He’s far from perfect to be sure.
But our nation just might not survive another Dem or Rino president.
We need someone who cares about this nation’s future and who does NOT need the job.
At this point I’m willing to take the risk with him.
Oh hell yea Trump over the Jebster! Or nearly all of the others for that matter.
That’s a no brainer- IMO of course.
I’m sick of the country club republicans and the good ol’ boy club.
You are right. We know we will be betrayed by the republicans anyways. I'll let it be in God's hands.
Amen. I was hoping SOMEONE would recognize that desperate times call for desperate measures. I can’t wait to hear a little of went down at Trump’s meeting with Clint Eastwood, John Voight and the rest of the stalwarts in Hollywood. I think he is also scheduled to soon meet with the black parents of a young man murdered by an illegal alien a few years ago, too.
For me, it still comes down to international trade and it’s impact on our economy.
Trump gets it, the other candidates don’t and the parties don’t.
And even though Trump wants a path for hard working illegals, he has talked tougher on immigration than the other candidates.
And he doesn’t seem to have any deal breakers. He’s anti-abortion, though his value base seems a little less firm than I’d like.
He’s on record supporting traditional marriage and stating that gay marriage is not his thing. But he’s hot campaigning on that. He’s making trade and immigration his campaign issues.
He identifies as Christian - Episcopalian.
He recognizes 0’s foreign policy has been a disaster, but I haven’t heard any plans. But he’s demonstrated a firmness that I think will serve us well in the foreign arena.
The WSJ is pro-law-breaker.
Their corporatism loves cheap labor that cuts Americans’ pay rates
They understand, they just don’t care.
Screw you, Americans. - WSJ Editors
More drivel from Noonan.
My thoughts as well.
“She thinks he “has a low ceiling and short staying power.” In that regard, I agree. He’ll be gone well before anything serious happens.”
Is it asking too much for anyone, those who likes to repeat the meme that Trump is a flash in the pan, to explain exactly how they know that? Many people are saying that with the finality reserved to scientific laws. They nod to each other and AGREE that it is true. They ASSUME it is true. They KNOW it is true. They impatiently WAIT for it to come true — Trump gets out of the way so business as usual can occur. Then the gelding Republican candidates can go about the business of proving their purity vis-a-vis inclusivity, multi-culturalism, political correctness, immigrant praising, immigrant pandering, we are a nation of immigrants, aspirational new immigrants are better than the old Americans - a favorite sentiment expressed by Jeb! Then, the whole immigration issue with be ignored as Juan McCain ignored it, and lost.
He did not say that Mexicans are rapists. But I think you know that.
What did he say?
He said that some of the illegals were rapists. That has been proven true. They are also murderers, drunkards, etc. Have you read Ann Coulter’s book, or listened to Hannity, etc.? The truth is out there.
He should have showed up in Columbia, SC, this morning and been recalcitrant. They would have helped him among native southerners who dislike the attack on their heritage.
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