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Trump: Something New under the Political Sun
NATIONAL REVIEW ^ | May 3,2016 | by VICTOR DAVIS HANSON

Posted on 05/03/2016 3:31:54 PM PDT by Hojczyk

To get a clearer idea of the feelings of Trump supporters, read the comments section following any mainstream news story that deals with race, class, and gender in politically correct fashion. A stream-of-consciousness litany of his supporters’ peeves, for good or ill, would run like this: The wrong people are in the news.

Instead of generals, and small-business owners, and muscular workers, we instead see smarmy smart-asses, the pajama boys and mattress girls of the world of TV, who roll their eyes, wink about a joke only the anointed get, and smirk that what they say could have three different meanings — the Jon Stewarts, David Lettermans, and Stephen Colberts of Smug, Inc.

They do not hate political correctness so much as one-sided political correctness, which gives a pass to some to say things that would get others fired or ruined. They don’t want to be lectured that their own plight is part of a larger, healthy creative destruction or a leaner, meaner competitiveness or an overdue restructuring — by those who are never destroyed, rendered noncompetitive, or restructured. And they don’t like to be talked down to by the experts who ran up $10 trillion in debt, ruined the health-care system, dismantled the military,

and screwed up the Secret Service, the IRS, NASA, and the VA. Trump is their megaphone, not their solution. The Trump supporters have seen plenty of politicians with important agendas, but few with the zeal to push them through; at this late date, they would apparently prefer zeal without agendas to agendas without zeal

(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...


TOPICS: Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2016gopprimary; trump2016; vdh; victordavishanson
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To: Hojczyk

Sorry, Vic. You’re gonna see how quickly Trump becomes a solution.

Sad that such a smart man, along with Tom Sowell, got so blinded by GOPe-ness.


21 posted on 05/03/2016 4:23:36 PM PDT by LS ("Castles Made of Sand, Fall in the Sea . . . Eventually" (Hendrix))
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To: Hojczyk

Taking a peek at the NRO comments, there sure are a lot of deleted comments.

Makes me think that NRO can’t take the heat.


22 posted on 05/03/2016 4:25:08 PM PDT by bkopto
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To: webheart

Very well said FRiend. I too, began as a solid Cruz supporter about this time last year but after Trump entered the race, even before Cruz took off his “my friend Donald” mask, I was seeing things in his campaign and in his demeanor that concerned me. A MAJOR factor was his bringing that fruitcake Glenn Beck on board and then turning his political campaign into something just short of an old time religious revival traveling tent show. I knew he would lose a lot of support from those who are NOT in the fervent evangelical camp, and we are seeing that play out now.


23 posted on 05/03/2016 4:25:26 PM PDT by mkjessup (Either get on the Trump train, or be left at the station. The only other train is Hillary. CHOOSE.)
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To: Fungi
Read it but don’t agree. It sums up what a buffoon the current president is, his cohorts and in the destruction he has wrought, but it ends on a nihilistic note. What is so profound?

He sees both sides, and that's not common nowadays (if it ever was).

He's more anti-Trump than people think (and maybe more condescending about Trump's supporters), but he does understand Trump's appeal and even feels some of that allure himself.

I think he's got something of H.L. Mencken's spirit (without Mencken's stylistic extravagances). You can see Mencken's cynicism and distrust of politicians and their promises in the article, but VDH is turning Mencken's cynicism back on elites, rather than on average Americans (though there is some bite in his description of the Trump phenomenon).

24 posted on 05/03/2016 4:25:34 PM PDT by x
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To: SubMareener
Saint-Saens: "Samson and Delilah," finale

The only opera in the entire repertory that ends with screaming from the chorus as the whole edifice comes crashing down. This is the 1997 Metropolitan Opera production. It's one of my desert island DVDs.

25 posted on 05/03/2016 4:25:36 PM PDT by Publius ("Who is John Galt?" by Billthedrill and Publius now available at Amazon.)
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To: mkjessup
Very insightful piece. He arrives at many of the same conclusions that I have, right down to the "Lynch Mob" mentality.

Victor Davis Hanson is always a good read.

26 posted on 05/03/2016 4:26:07 PM PDT by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: Hojczyk

It’s new all right. Consider that Jeb Bush spent $130M and didn’t garner a single delegate. Stunning.


27 posted on 05/03/2016 4:32:16 PM PDT by rbg81 (Truth is stranger than fiction)
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To: Uncle Miltie
As a conservative Cruz guy, I don’t mind Trump.

Trump is a loose canon on deck. You don’t know what he will destroy next, your favorite chunk of government or the other guy’s.

I wanted Cruz because I think ideology and philosophy are important. I think he would have appointed better Judges, and I expect from Donald we'll just keep getting liberal Judges on the bench.

But I don't see Trump as a wrecking machine. I see his destructive potential being focused on a lot of things that need to get destroyed, like our complacency about illegals streaming across the border. Like Muslim Immigrants. (Mark my words, we will be at war with Islam some day.)

I would pick Trump over all the other candidates except for Cruz. He knows how to fight, and he's good at it. He is not chaos, he has some direction.

What I absolutely hope doesn't happen is that he becomes Arnold Schwarzenegger. Talks big, but then gets emasculated.

28 posted on 05/03/2016 4:33:43 PM PDT by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: WMarshal
The problem with the NRO, the MSM, and the powerful of both political parties is that in fighting so hard for new voters they ignored the base voters in the middle class. The Dems and Pubs have promised much but delivered less than nothing. The middle class is pissed and, one way or the other, they are going to get it. Their will will be wrought now or later, easy or hard, peaceful or bloody.

One of the things that pisses me off the most about the existing political structures and the media is that they have let that stupid ignorant affirmative action unqualified bastard get away with *LYING* about inflation.

Food prices have doubled since that F***ing idiot was put up there just because he's "black." Everybody acts as if inflation is under control, but it is the worst i've ever seen it in my life.

But because Lying Sh*tHead Dumbo controls who puts out the numbers, we get fake numbers that no body ever seems to challenge.

And the media just spread those lies.

29 posted on 05/03/2016 4:37:47 PM PDT by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: bkopto
Taking a peek at the NRO comments, there sure are a lot of deleted comments.

Makes me think that NRO can’t take the heat.

Makes me think the "lynch mob" is a little rabid. That's been my experience anyway. They don't want a debate, they want GLEICHSCHALTUNG!

Disagreement is grounds for being screamed at. It seems like a cult of personality similar to Obama voters who could brook no criticism of their idol.

30 posted on 05/03/2016 4:43:08 PM PDT by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: Hojczyk

For years postmodernists have lectured us that there is no truth, no absolutes, no timeless protocols worthy of reverence; Trump is their Nemesis, who reifies their theories that truth is simply a narrative whose veracity is established by the degree of power and persuasion behind it.

Nemesis is the enemy of hubris, and hubris is getting its ass kicked.


31 posted on 05/03/2016 4:44:43 PM PDT by Excellence (Marine mom since April 11, 2014)
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To: DiogenesLamp

You guys are worse than the press with pushing your Butthurt narratives.


32 posted on 05/03/2016 4:52:21 PM PDT by papertyger (-/\/\/\-)
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To: mkjessup

History doesn’t repeat itself but it does rhyme. Trump is the latest version of a Williams Jennings Bryan. Not that it is a bad thing.


33 posted on 05/03/2016 4:58:42 PM PDT by glorgau
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To: DiogenesLamp
*LYING* about inflation??? Who are you going to believe, Obama or that lying cash register?
34 posted on 05/03/2016 5:01:07 PM PDT by omega4412
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To: papertyger
You guys are worse than the press with pushing your Butthurt narratives.

And you guys have an irrational need to classify any sort of questioning or criticism as some form of "butthurt".

35 posted on 05/03/2016 5:02:30 PM PDT by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: DrPretorius
Can’t any of you people who praise this piece read the snark, sarcasm, and total disdain this prig has for you, the average, everyday, working stiff chump that hates everything about the elitist snobs who have had this country by the short hairs for generations and who have screwed and your children out of any sort of positive future? It doesn’t seem so!

He's ambivalent. It's a thing.

ambivalence noun am·biv·a·lence \am-ˈbi-və-lən(t)s\
1 : simultaneous and contradictory attitudes or feelings (as attraction and repulsion) toward an object, person, or action

He's not going to endorse every single thing Donald Trump has ever said and done or every possible motivation that might make someone vote for Trump. He does have some elite spirit that makes him hold back.

But he does understand Trump's appeal and the way he describes it isn't just snarky or sarcastic. It suggests that he feels some of it himself -- at least to some degree.

In a touchingly simplistic world there's the elite and there's the down-trodden and never the twain shall meet. In the real world most people are a little bit of both. Slobs in comparison to somebody. Snobs in comparison to somebody else. Ambivalence.

36 posted on 05/03/2016 5:08:42 PM PDT by x
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To: DiogenesLamp
And you guys have an irrational need to classify any sort of questioning or criticism as some form of "butthurt".

Only when you continually badger with questions that don't yield the predetermined answers you want.

You're like teenagers perpetually mewling "you don't understand" to their parents.

We understand perfectly: we just don't AGREE.

37 posted on 05/03/2016 5:20:36 PM PDT by papertyger (-/\/\/\-)
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To: be-baw

Well, it’s not at all weird, so...


38 posted on 05/03/2016 7:53:08 PM PDT by mozarky2 (Ya never stand so tall as when ya stoop to stomp a statist...)
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To: papertyger
Only when you continually badger with questions that don't yield the predetermined answers you want.

Actually, I think i've only asked one question. (Does anyone have an example of Ted Cruz lying about something?)

So far, all the responses i've seen are lies about Cruz lying. Haven't seen an actual, true, bonified example of Cruz lying. People keep repeating that he is, but they don't seem to have any actual proof.

Therefore, I'm thinking they are basing their own opinions on the fact that the accusation has been repeated so many times, it must therefore be true. You know, the Joseph Goebbels methodology of persuading people. (Repetition.)

You're like teenagers perpetually mewling "you don't understand" to their parents.

More like a Parent listening to teenagers saying, "but you don't understand! Cruz is lying, because everyone knows that he is a liar! Why can't you grasp the fact that because everyone knows it, it is therefore true? You just don't understand."

We understand perfectly: we just don't AGREE.

I don't know who you are, but i'm pretty sure the "You don't understand" theory is valid for you. Anyone who understands stuff doesn't start off their argument with "butthurt" this or that.

That is the sign of a Juvenile thinker, and not someone really up for a debate.

It's easy to throw out snark or accusations, it's quite another thing to lay out objective proof and a rational chain of logic to persuade. Generally the kids do the former, and the adults do the later.

Just so you know.

39 posted on 05/04/2016 9:22:22 AM PDT by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: DiogenesLamp
It's easy to throw out snark or accusations, it's quite another thing to lay out objective proof and a rational chain of logic to persuade. Generally the kids do the former, and the adults do the later.

It is also quite easy for an unethical advocate to conflate the lack of dispositive evidence, particularly in the presence of plausible deniability, with innocence.

Certainly, hanging ones hat on the lack of such formal distinctions, particularly in such an informal setting as this, is of questionable virtue.

Surely you are aware of issues such as the citizenship controversy, Senator Cruz voting record and the questionable rationale justifying some of those votes, so I have to look on your "example of Cruz lying" standard with somewhat less than full confidence in your candor.

Furthermore, the facile and demonstrably dis provable manner with which you bundle and dismiss critics of Senator Cruz's credibility (not to mention your flagrant violation of Godwin's Law ;o), simply does not fit the character of the members of FreeRepublic. While you are perfectly justified in maintaining no one has proven the Senator to have lied, you can NOT prove his critics are wrong.

40 posted on 05/04/2016 4:33:46 PM PDT by papertyger (-/\/\/\-)
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