Re: Witless Ape Rides Escalator - Donald Trump is in the race

[Levan Ramishvili]

Is Donald Trump the New Ross Perot? Or the Next Pat Buchanan?

by Larry J. Sabato 

We all know what Donald Trump is saying and the issues he’s emphasizing. Many have noted the strong reactions of the media, pundits, and his business associates, some of whom have cut ties. Now the most recent surveys show Trump in the double digits among Republicans nationally. Two new polls have even found Trump ahead of Jeb Bush, the nominal frontrunner: Economist/YouGov’s survey placed Trump at 15% and USA Today/Suffolk University’s poll showed him at 17%.

Who are these Trump backers? As the accompanying table (derived from all respondents to the Economist/YouGov opt-in Internet panel poll) shows, they are disproportionately white. Favorable views of Trump among African Americans are minimal, and Hispanic boosters are at a higher level than blacks but well below that of whites. Older voters (those age 65 and over) undoubtedly form his core; in fact, the 65+ group is the only age cohort to view him favorably, 59% to 39%, virtually the opposite view of all other age groups. Trump has particularly little appeal among younger, more diverse voters: 20% of those under 30 rate Trump favorably (versus 60% unfavorably). Trump also fares somewhat better with men than women, and those with lower incomes ($40,000 and less). While the regional differences are not enormous, Trump does worst in the South and best in the Northeast.

Table 1: Group favorability of Donald Trump

Note: Percentages may not add up to 100% due to rounding.

Source: July 4-6, 2015 Economist/YouGov poll

How does the Trump profile compare to Ross Perot, the 1992 independent candidate who won a remarkable 19% in the general election between George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton? Note that we are mixing polling apples and oranges to a degree. The YouGov Trump poll measures just favorability, whereas the Perot profile comes from arguably the best possible survey (when done correctly): the November 1992 exit poll of real voters taken at the precincts on Election Day.

Nonetheless, there are significant similarities in the support profile of Trump and Perot, as shown in Table 2. Perot’s vote was disproportionately white, male, and Republican or Independent. However, there is one notable difference: Perot fared best not with the oldest cohort but with voters between 25-29 years, and more generally with voters under 50 — not the retirees attracted to Trump. Like Trump today, Perot ran more poorly in the South than any other region. But Perot’s apogee was in the West, not the Northeast.

Table 2: 1992 presidential election exit poll

Note: Percentages may not add up to 100% due to rounding.

Source: Roper Center

The other modern candidate bearing some resemblance to Trump also comes from 1992. Populist conservative Pat Buchanan challenged President Bush in the Republican primaries, and ran fairly strongly in the New Hampshire primary (37% to Bush’s 53%). The exit poll for that primary was far off the mark, demonstrating that today’s polling problems have plenty of precedent. But the Times Mirror Center for the People and the Press (now part of the Pew Research Center) took a national survey right after the Granite State primary. Buchanan trailed Bush 18% to 77% nationally among Republicans; still, the former Richard Nixon aide and TV personality ran better with men, younger voters, and those with less than a high school education (and presumably, those with lower incomes). Like Trump does now, Buchanan drew disproportionately among Northeastern GOP voters.

Table 3: Nomination preferences among Republicans and Leaners, February 1992

Note: Percentages may not add up to 100% due to rounding.

Source: Pew Research Center

Unquestionably, elements of style link Trump, Perot, and Buchanan: brashness, bluntness, and straight talk. All three men were more than willing to push hot-button issues that stirred many voters’ passions. In this respect, they were Barry Goldwater-esque, providing a choice, not an echo, to voters. While having a major impact, and attracting attention and lots of votes, Buchanan and Perot could not put together anything close to a winning plurality, either for a party nomination or general election. We suspect this is the future of Trump’s 2016 candidacy.

However, Buchanan did real damage to an already declining President Bush, and not just in the New Hampshire primary. As the keynote speaker at the 1992 GOP National Convention, Buchanan delivered a harsh, culture-war address on primetime TV, further dividing Republicans. Perot had a major impact the following November. While contemporary surveys indicated that Clinton would have won a two-way contest with Bush, Perot blocked any possible comeback by the president. Perot focused most of his attacks on Bush, and drew a disproportionate number of his votes from traditionally Republican segments of the electorate — pushing Bush down to a humiliating 37% (the lowest percentage of the vote won by an incumbent president since William Howard Taft secured a mere 23% in 1912).

It’s easy to conclude that Donald Trump isn’t going to help the GOP’s image with Hispanics and many swing voters, but it’s also impossible to know how much Trump will actually injure the Republican brand in this cycle. How long will he stick around? If Trump drops out before the voting begins in early 2016, or even midway through the primary season, voters will have many months to forget and move on. Yet Trump could stick it out, get his slice of votes all the way to June, and deliver a raucous, memorable address to a huge TV audience at the national convention. In the short term, Trump takes up a huge amount of media oxygen. There’s only so much coverage to go around, and if television segments and news stories continue to focus on Trump, that’s airtime that candidates with less name recognition — like Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, John Kasich, and many others — are not getting.

In the worst nightmare for the eventual Republican nominee, Trump might run as an independent in November once the primary process has concluded. “Sore-loser” laws that exist in 44 states do not generally apply to presidential candidates, and even in the few cases where they do, a court challenge by Trump might well be successful. In part, this is because the “candidates” on the ballot in a general election for president are the electors, not the politicians to whom the electors are pledged.

In the fall Trump could squeeze the GOP in two ways. Most of the votes he would drain would almost certainly come from the Republican-leaning pool. And Trump would make immigration a headline issue day after day. The eventual GOP nominee is unlikely to have an immigration package as appealing to Hispanics as the Democrats will have, so Republican hopes of changing the subject to win more Latino votes by means of cultural or economic issues would be more difficult.

Unless and until Donald Trump changes course, Republicans ought to stock up on Excedrin. Make that migraine-strength Excedrin.

[Levan Ramishvili]

On Trump, Know What You're Doing and Why

By Rich Lowry — July 17, 2015

Brendan Bordelon has a piece up on the home page on Scott Walker taking a pass on commenting on Trump on grounds that he doesn’t want to discuss other candidates, which strikes me as entirely reasonable. 

The conventional wisdom demands that Republicans devote themselves to denouncing Trump, but candidates are foolish to do this unless it serves some other purpose.

Jeb has criticized him repeatedly, even after he said he was done with it. I don’t know why he really needs to get drawn into a war of words with Trump, but at least this accords with Jeb’s orientation toward the general election and emphasis on winning more Latino voters.

Rick Perry has been arguing with Trump, too. This probably makes sense, given that the former Texas governor is on the verge of inclusion in the first debate and needs all the oxygen he can get, as Allahpundit points out.

Finally, there is the other side of the ledger. Ted Cruz has made himself the foremost Trump ally in the field, a completely blatant play for the Trump voters that Cruz needs to inherit if he is going to have any hope of consolidating the right.

All of this is to say, if Walker doesn’t have some angle on Trump, he’s best served by keeping his counsel.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Trump Starts to Show the Real Trump

By Jonah Goldberg — July 18, 2015

Last week I wrote about Donald Trump:

He reminds me a lot of Mitt Romney, at least in one respect. I always said that Romney “spoke conservatism as a second language” (a line some people ripped off, btw). That’s why Romney called himself a “severe conservative,” talked about how he “likes to fire people,” and anathematized the “47 percent.”

Trump is even less truly conservative, but he’s trying to speak in an even grubbier dialect of conservatism. And, having grown up in the tabloid politics of New York, he’s better at faking it. Eventually, I suspect, this will be the cause of his undoing. He doesn’t know what he doesn’t know about conservatism, and at some point he will say something that even his biggest fans will recognize as a damning revelation about the real man beneath the schtick. The only question is whether he implodes before or after he does permanent damage to the GOP’s chances in 2016.

Today I heard about Trump’s outrageous (and outrageously stupid) comments about John McCain. From Steve Hayes’ excellent account:

Trump was answering questions from Republican pollster Frank Luntz on stage when he declared that John McCain, who spent six years as a POW in Vietnam, was not a war hero. Trump went on to express his preference for soldiers who weren’t captured, suggesting a belief that prisoners of war have some say in their captivity. Luntz had asked Trump about his reaction to McCain’s comment that Trump had stirred up the “crazies” with his candidacy. When Trump attacked McCain, Luntz asked if Trump was comfortable with that kind of criticism of a war hero.

“He’s not a war hero,” said Trump. “He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.” The comments clearly shocked the crowd at the summit, some of whom reacted with boos and shouts of condemnation.

The Arizona senator gets a lot of grief from people on the right, including around here, but even the conservatives who loathe and despise the man (I’m not one of them, by the way) almost never question McCain’s service. I should note that decent people in general don’t speak that way about McCain either. But Trump simply doesn’t know where the lines are on the right because he’s not a conservative and he can’t help himself.

I doubt this one comment will derail his whole campaign, but I’m sure it’s just the beginning.

[Levan Ramishvili]

What Is Trumpism? Personal Ambition and Political Control

The low art of fear and fanaticism

• JEFFREY A. TUCKER

Just a few weeks ago, Donald Trump was a crank and joke, living proof that making lots of money doesn’t mean you have the answers, and further proof that being a capitalist doesn’t mean you necessarily like or understand capitalism. His dabbling in politics was widely regarded as a silly distraction.

This week, he leads the polls among the pack of Republican aspirants to the office of President of the United States. While all the other candidates are following the rules, playing the media, saying the right things, obeying the civic conventions, Trump is taking the opposite approach. He doesn’t care. He says whatever. Thousands gather at his rallies to thrill to the moment.

Suddenly he is serious, if only for a time, and hence it is time to take his political worldview seriously.

I just heard Trump speak live. The speech lasted an hour, and my jaw was on the floor most of the time. I’ve never before witnessed such a brazen display of nativistic jingoism, along with a complete disregard for economic reality. It was an awesome experience, a perfect repudiation of all good sense and intellectual sobriety.

Yes, he is against the establishment, against existing conventions. It also serves as an important reminder: as bad as the status quo is, it could be worse. Trump is dedicated to taking us there.

His speech was like an interwar séance of once-powerful dictators who inspired multitudes, drove countries into the ground, and died grim deaths. I kept thinking of books like John T. Flynn’s As We Go Marching, especially Chapter Ten that so brilliantly chronicles a form of statism that swept Europe in the 1930s. It grew up in the firmament of failed economies, cultural upheaval, and social instability, and it lives by stoking the fires of bourgeois resentment.

Since World War II, the ideology he represents has usually lived in dark corners, and we don’t even have a name for it anymore. The right name, the correct name, the historically accurate name, is fascism. I don’t use that word as an insult only. It is accurate.

Though hardly anyone talks about it today, we really should. It is still real. It exists. It is distinct. It is not going away. Trump has tapped into it, absorbing unto his own political ambitions every conceivable resentment (race, class, sex, religion, economic) and promising a new order of things under his mighty hand.

You would have to be hopelessly ignorant of modern history not to see the outlines and where they end up. I want to laugh about what he said, like reading a comic-book version of Franco, Mussolini, or Hitler. And truly I did laugh as he denounced the existence of tech support in India that serves American companies (“how can it be cheaper to call people there than here?” — as if he still thinks that long-distance charges apply). But in politics, history shows that laughter can turn too quickly to tears.

So, what does Trump actually believe? He does have a philosophy, though it takes a bit of insight and historical understanding to discern it. Of course, race baiting is essential to the ideology, and there was plenty of that. When a Hispanic man asked a question, Trump interrupted him and asked if he had been sent by the Mexican government. He took it a step further, dividing blacks from Hispanics by inviting a black man to the microphone to tell how his own son was killed by an illegal immigrant.

Because Trump is the only one who speaks this way, he can count on support from the darkest elements of American life. He doesn’t need to actually advocate racial homogeneity, call for whites-only signs to be hung at immigration control, or push for expulsion or extermination of undesirables. Because such views are verboten, he has the field alone, and he can count on the support of those who think that way by making the right noises.

Trump also tosses little bones to the religious right, enough to allow them to believe that he represents their interests. Yes, it’s implausible and hilarious. At the speech I heard, he pointed out further than he is a Presbyterian, and thus he is personally affected every time ISIS beheads a Christian.

But as much as racial and religious resentment is part of his rhetorical apparatus, it is not his core. His core is about business, his own business and his acumen thereof. He is living proof that being a successful capitalist is no predictor of one’s appreciation for an actual free market (stealing not trading is more his style). It only implies a love of money and a longing for the power that comes with it. Trump has both.

What do capitalists on his level do? They beat the competition. What does he believe he should do as president? Beat the competition, which means other countries, which means wage a trade war. If you listen to him, you would suppose that the United States is in some sort of massive, epochal struggle for supremacy with China, India, Malaysia, and, pretty much everyone else in the world.

It takes a bit to figure out what this could mean. He speaks of the United States as if it were one thing, one single firm. A business. “We” are in competition with “them,” as if the country was IBM competing against Samsung, Apple, or Dell. “We” are not 300 million people pursuing unique dreams and ideas, with special tastes or interests, cooperating with people around the world to build prosperity. “We” are doing one thing, and that is being part of one business.

In effect, he believes that he is running to be the CEO of the country — not just of the government. He is often compared with Ross Perot, another wealthy businessman who made an independent run. But Perot only promised to bring business standards to government. Trump wants to run the entire nation as if it were Trump Tower.

In this capacity, he believes that he will make deals with other countries that cause the United States to come out on top, whatever that could mean. He conjures up visions of himself or one of his associates sitting across the table from some Indian or Chinese leader and making wild demands that they will buy such and such amount of product, or else “we” won’t buy “their” product. He fantasizes about placing phone calls to “Saudi Arabia,” the country, and telling “it” what he thinks about oil prices.

Trade theory developed over hundreds of years plays no role in his thinking at all. To him, America is a homogenous unit, no different from his own business enterprise. With his run for president, he is really making a takeover bid, not just for another company to own but for an entire country to manage from the top down, under his proven and brilliant record of business negotiation and acquisition.

You see why the whole speech came across as bizarre? It was. And yet, maybe it was not. In the 18th century, there is a trade theory called mercantilism that posited something similar: Ship the goods out and keep the money in. It builds up industrial cartels that live at the expense of the consumer.

In the 19th century, this penchant for industrial protectionism and mercantilism became guild socialism, which mutated later into fascism and then into Nazism. You can read Mises to find out more on how this works.

What’s distinct about Trumpism, and the tradition of thought it represents, is that it is not leftist in its cultural and political outlook (see how he is praised for rejecting “political correctness”), and yet still totalitarian in the sense that it seeks total control of society and economy and demands no limits on state power.

Whereas the left has long attacked bourgeois institutions like family, church, and property, fascism has made its peace with all three. It (very wisely) seeks political strategies that call on the organic matter of the social structure and inspire masses of people to rally around the nation as a personified ideal in history, under the leadership of a great and highly accomplished man.

Trump believes himself to be that man. He sounds fresh, exciting, even thrilling, like a man with a plan and a complete disregard for the existing establishment and all its weakness and corruption.

This is how strongmen take over countries. They say some true things, boldly, and conjure up visions of national greatness under their leadership. They’ve got the flags, the music, the hype, the hysteria, the resources, and they work to extract that thing in many people that seeks heroes and momentous struggles in which they can prove their greatness.

Think of Commodus (161-192 AD) in his war against the corrupt Roman senate. His ascension to power came with the promise of renewed Rome. What he brought was inflation, stagnation, and suffering. Historians have usually dated the fall of Rome from his leadership.

Or, if you prefer pop culture, think of Bane, the would-be dictator of Gotham in Batman, who promises an end to democratic corruption, weakness, and loss of civic pride. He sought a revolution against the prevailing elites in order to gain total power unto himself.

These people are all the same. They purport to be populists, while loathing the decisions people actually make in the marketplace (such as buying Chinese goods or hiring Mexican employees).

Oh how they love the people, and how they hate the establishment. They defy all civic conventions. Their ideology is somehow organic to the nation, not a wacky import like socialism. They promise a new era based on pride, strength, heroism, triumph. They have an obsession with the problem of trade and mercantilist belligerence at the only solution. They have zero conception of the social order as a complex and extended ordering of individual plans, one that functions through freedom.

This is a dark history, and I seriously doubt that Trump himself is aware of it. Instead, he just makes it up as he goes along, speaking from his gut, just like Uncle Harry at Thanksgiving dinner, just like two guys at the bar during last call.

This penchant has always served him well. It cannot serve a whole nation well. Indeed, the very prospect is terrifying, and not just for the immigrant groups and foreign peoples he has chosen to scapegoat for all the country’s problems. It’s a disaster in waiting for everyone.

My own prediction is that the political exotica he represents will not last. It’s a moment in time. The thousands who attend his rallies and scream their heads off will head home, and return to enjoying movies, smartphones, and mobile apps from all over the world, partaking in the highest standard of living experienced in the whole of human history, granted courtesy of the global market economy in which no one rules. We will not go back.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Why We Should Talk About Fascism

By Jeffrey Tucker

Last week I wrote an article that, I’m pretty sure, received the highest circulation I’ve ever had on a single piece of writing. It was an an interesting experience. The first version appeared on Liberty.me. Probably four days later, I revised it, re-stylized it, and it appeared on FEE.org. Then Newsweek picked it up, then ZeroHedge, and it went viral from there. My social was slammed. I can’t keep up with the interview requests.

It’s a bizarre thing because I write every day. Why this one? Why now? I have no idea, no theory. I try to put valuable stuff in everything I write, so I don’t regard this article’s popularity as a commentary on its quality. It just somehow hit in the right way at the right time. You can’t game this system. (It amuses me when people accuse me of having written something “to go viral”; if it were that easy, I would do it more often.)

But I did learn something from this experience. I learned that we desperately need a theory of right-wing statism. We know what socialism is. We think of it as left wing. But the culturally right-wing version has no real name. We talk talk about specifics variants of right-wing theory such as theocrats, jingoists, racialists, and so on, but it is all rather haphazard. These describe odd biases and impulses, but not a political theory.

So when someone like Donald Trump comes along, we have no real term to describe his views. We listen to him scream about making the nation into a business, about the evil of foreigners, about the danger of bad trade deals, about the need for a new order of things that bypasses the sluggishness and cowardice of the status quo. We listen but it all sounds like the random yammerings of a crank.

When I heard his speech, it gradually dawned on me that I had heard all of these views before. They are rather new in modern history — or, rather, they had never cohered in this way before the interwar period. But they did indeed come to cohere, pushed mostly as an alternative to socialism. This alternative to socialism was not freedom as such. It was another version of the planned society but without the completely idiotic theories pushed by socialist lunatics for the last 500 years.

In a brief period in the 1930s, it developed the right name. It came out of syndicalist theory and eventually led to Nazism and then was blown away in wartime. But between about 1930 and 1938, it had a name and it was briefly respectable and gained a gigantic following. In fact, it was far more popular all over the developed war than socialism ever was. Its name was fascism.

What were its tenants? Like socialism, it sought a planned society ruled by smart people with power and resources. But unlike socialism, it had no interest in strange and far-flung theories about overthrowing human nature, creating a “new man,” abolishing religion, or getting rid of the family or private property. Indeed, it praised all these institutions. It only clarified that these institutions needed to serve the national interest and the collective heart of the people.

It draws on idealism to some extent. It says that the current system is deeply corrupt. It serves special interests only. It is riddled with graft, bribes, and payoffs. It calls for a new plan that sweeps away the existing order and replaces it with a plan that serves a higher ideal. That ideal can be anything: race, history, people, industry, whatever. Doesn’t matter. What matters is the power that is necessary to make the system smarter, more productive, more mighty and glorious.

Fascism, then, would not propose the abolition of private property, or even the over nationalization of industry. It would not propose to suppress religion or family. It proposes regulatory controls on all of these sectors of life in order to channel them into a single national interest. This requires a massive and totalitarian state, one that effectively obliterates any room for individual decision making, institutional autonomy, freedom of action, entrepreneurship, and so on.

It is conventionally believed that fascism does not have a fully worked-out plan for managing national life, and that’s true enough. But actually, its plans are more worked out in practice than socialism ever was. The socialists were famed for their blistering criticisms of socialism, but rather short when it came to actually showing how their hair-brained system of collective ownership of scarce goods would work out in practice. In contrast, the fascists were much more over about their plans for economic life. Business would be cartelized, labor would be syndicalized, trade would be mercantilized, and production and consumption subjected to massively regulatory oversight — in the name of the national interest.

No, I do not believe that Trump has done a private study of the works of the Italian syndicalists in order to arrive at his views. Fascism took hold in history not because it is a systematized theory of politics. It took hold because it cobbles together a series of cultural biases together with a believe that the state is the best-possible tool for organizing economic and social life. Anyone who can combined those two can himself stumbling, however haphazardly, into embracing fascist theory.

But just as with socialism, fascism is also a method for propagandizing people into considering a new way of ordering society. The fascist must get elected. He must convince people to acquiesce to his dictatorial aspirations. Here is where the failures of the current system serve him well. The entire establishment is deeply corrupt, incredibly stupid, not serving the nation, failing to boost the national spirit — and so on. The orator seeks to tap into raw emotion in hopes of inspiring a suspension of incredulity.

Fascism is also deeply personal, more so than socialism. It is all about the great leader’s capacity to wrest control of an entire economy and nation and steer it in the right direction. Thus does business or military success become central to the campaign. You have to have a proven record of doing implausibly amazing things, things no mere mortal could accomplish without some special gift.

Two names come to mind within the Republican ranks: John McCain and Donald Trump. So it’s not surprising that they are fighting like scorpions in a jar. It is actually delightful to watch. Trump said that McCain is no war hero, and the Republican establishment went nuts with denunciations. According to all reports on the ground in Iowa, most of the actual Republicans at the grassroots didn’t really care that Trump had insulted McCain. Most all GOP activists are sick and tired of this guy in any case.

Where Trump really messed up was in using the words “hell” and “damn” in his speech. This upset many religious people in Iowa. One person quoted in the New York Times worried that perhaps Trump is not really born again. If that rumor continues to spread, he will have no future.

It will be one of the greatest ironies of American politics if, in the end, it is pietism that stops the advance of fascism in our time.

[Levan Ramishvili]

The Transparent Spin of Donald Trump

By Rich Lowry — July 20, 2015

For an anti-politician, Donald Trump is a furious spinner when he’s in a tight spot. This morning on This Week, he said, among other things, that he called John McCain a hero four times in his instantly notorious remarks and that he really just wanted to give credit to all the war heroes who were never captured by the enemy.

Trump did indeed say McCain is a war hero, but with the caveat that it was only because he was captured. The closest he came to acknowledging McCain’s heroism was to say he is “perhaps” a war hero. Here’s the transcript:

Trump: “(McCain) insulted me and he insulted everybody in that room. And I said somebody should run against John McCain, who has been, in my opinion, not so hot. And I supported him for president. I raised $1 million for him. That’s a lot of money. I supported him, he lost, he let us down. But he lost and I never liked him much after that ’cause I don’t like losers. But, but — Frank, Frank, let me get to it.”

Luntz: “He’s a war hero. He’s a war hero . . . ”

Trump: “He’s not a war hero . . . ”

Luntz: “He’s war hero.”

Trump: “He is a war hero . . . ”

Luntz: “Five and half years in a Vietnamese prison camp . . . ”

Trump: “He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured. So he’s a war hero . . . ”

Luntz: “Do you agree with that?”

Trump: “He’s a war hero, because he was captured, okay? I believe, perhaps, he’s a war hero. But right now he said some very bad things about a lot of people. So what I said is John McCain, I disagree with him that these people aren’t crazy.”

The media is now writing that Trump is toast because of this episode. Trump will eventually be toast (the witless bravado will lose its charm over time), but it will almost certainly take more than this because 1) it’s John McCain, who is anathema to Tea Party voters for some very good reasons; and 2) Trump was responding to McCain’s provocation of calling conservatives in his state who responded to Trump’s immigration message “crazies.” All that gives Trump a little cushion in this instance, but there will be more where this came from.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Donald Trump Is The World’s Greatest Troll

By NATE SILVER

“A troll,” according to one definition, “is a person who sows discord … by starting arguments or upsetting people … with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.”

The goal of the troll is to provoke a reaction by any means necessary. Trolls thrive in communities that are open and democratic (they wouldn’t be invited into a discussion otherwise) and which operate in presumed good faith (there need to be some standards of decorum to offend). Presidential nomination contests are highly susceptible to trolling, therefore. Access is fairly open: There’s no longer much of a filter between the campaigns, the media and the public. And it’s comically easy to provoke a reaction. How many times between now and next November will we hear that a candidate’s statement is “offensive,” whether or not it really is?

Trolls operate on the principle that negative attention is better than none. In fact, the troll may feed off the negative attention, claiming it makes him a victim and proves that everyone is out to get him.

Sound like any presidential candidates you know?

There’s a notion that Donald Trump’s recent rise in Republican polls is a media-driven creation. That explanation isn’t entirely wrong, but it’s incomplete. It skims over the complex interactions between the media, the public and the candidates, which can produce booms and busts of attention. And it ignores how skilled trolls like Trump can exploit the process to their benefit.

Let’s look at some data. In the chart below, I’ve tracked how media coverage has been divided among the Republican candidates over roughly the past month (the data covers June 14 through July 12), according to article counts on Google News. In turn, I’ve shown the share of Google searches for each candidate over the same period. The data was provided to FiveThirtyEight by Google but should closely match what you’ll get by searching on Google Trends or Google News yourself.

Even before his imbecilic comments about Sen. John McCain this weekend, which came too recently to be included in this data, Trump was receiving far more media attention than any other Republican. Based on Google News, 46 percent of the media coverage of the GOP campaign over the past month was directed toward Trump, more than for Jeb Bush (13 percent), Chris Christie (9 percent), Scott Walker (8 percent), Bobby Jindal (6 percent), Ted Cruz (4 percent) and Marco Rubio (4 percent) combined.

And yet, the public is perhaps even more obsessed with Trump. Among the GOP candidates, he represented 62 percent of the Google search traffic over the past month, having been searched for more than six times as often as second-place Bush.

So if the press were going purely by public demand, there might be evenmore Trump coverage. Instead, the amount of press coverage that each candidate has received has been modulated by the media’s perception of how likely each is to win the nomination.

The chart I showed you above contained data on each GOP candidate’s chances of winning the nomination, according to the prediction marketBetfair.¹ Candidates who are perceived as having a credible chance to win the nomination — like Bush, Walker and Rubio — receive proportionally more media attention than public attention. The reverse is true for candidates who are seen by the press as long shots, such as Rand Paul and Ben Carson.²

As is usually the case, however, life gets more complicated when we go from identifying correlations to trying to understand their causes. As we’ve seen, press coverage is highly correlated with the level of public interest in a candidate and the candidate’s perceived chances of winning the nomination. It could be, however, that public attention to a candidate is triggered by media coverage rather than the other way around. Likewise, while the media might be fairly sophisticated at identifying which candidates are more likely to win and provide correspondingly more coverage of them, the media can also produce a self-fulfilling prophecy. Being ignored by the media or labeled as a loser can make it hard for a candidate to attract money, endorsements and other resources that might allow them to make a comeback.

We can aspire to determine causality by comparing the timing of Google News and Google search hits for a candidate. If the press drives public interest in the candidates, spikes in Google News should precede spikes in Google searches. If instead the press is reacting to the public, Google News hits will lag search.

Unfortunately, this isn’t so easy to determine. Shifts in public and media attention tend to occur at about the same time — as you can see, for example, in the graphic below, which compares Trump’s Google News and Google search traffic from week to week.

But a regression analysis — you can read the gory details in the footnotes³— suggests that press attention both leads and lags public attention to the candidates. This makes a lot of sense. The public can take cues from the media about which candidates to pay attention to. But the media also gets a lot of feedback from the public. Or to put it more cynically: If Trump-related stories are piling up lots of pageviews and Trump-related TV segments get good ratings, then guess what? You’re probably going to see more of them.⁴

This creates the possibility of a feedback loop. Some event sparks a news story about a candidate, which triggers more public attention, which encourages yet more media attention — and so on. It may help to explain why we’ve repeatedly seen the so-called “discovery, scrutiny and decline” cycle in the past two primary campaigns for candidates like Trump, Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain — bursts of attention that coincide with spikes in the polls but then fade or even burst after several weeks.

These “bounces” aren’t entirely new. Presidential candidates usually get atemporary bounce in support following their party’s convention, for example. But the polls in the 2012 Republican campaign were far more volatile than those in any previous nomination race. We’re really just getting started in 2016, but it’s been pretty wild as well. Bounces that might have happened once in a cycle now seem to occur all the time.

So if these spikes are media-driven, they seem to be driven by some particularly modern features of the media landscape. Social media allows candidates to make news without the filter of the press. It may alsoencourage groupthink among and between reporters and readers, however. And access to real-time traffic statistics can mean that everyone is writing the same “takes” and chasing the same eyeballs at once. Is the tyranny of the Twitter mob better or worse than the “Boys on the Bus” model of a group of (mostly white, male, upper-middle-class, left-of-center) reporters deigning to determine what’s news and what isn’t? I don’t know, but it’s certainly different. And it seems to be producing a higher velocity of movement in the polls and in the tenor of media coverage.

Trolls are skilled at taking advantage of this landscape and making the news cycle feed on its own tail, accelerating the feedback loop and producing particularly large bounces and busts in the polls. In 2012, Gingrich’s whole strategy seemed to involve trolling the media, and he went through a couple of boom-and-bust cycles in polls. In 2008, Sarah Palin, though beloved by Republicans, was brilliant at trolling Democrats and the media. She was extremely popular at first, although her popularity was ultimately short-lived.

Trump has taken trolling to the next level by being willing to offend members of his own party. Ordinarily, this would be a counterproductive strategy. In a 16-candidate field, however, you can be in first place with 15 or 20 percent of the vote — even if the other 80 or 85 percent of voters hate your guts.

In the long run — as our experience with past trolls shows — Trump’s support will probably fade. Or at least, given his high unfavorable ratings, it will plateau, and other candidates will surpass him as the rest of the field consolidates.

It’s much harder to say what will happen to Trump’s polling in the near term, however. That’s in part because it’s hard to say exactly what was driving his support in the first place. Trump wasn’t doing especially wellwith tea party voters or with any other identifiable group of Republicans. My guess is that his support reflected a combination of (i) low-information voters who recognized his name and (ii) voters who share Trump’s disdain for the trappings of the political establishment and (iii) voters who were treating him as an inside joke or a protest vote, making him vaguely like an American equivalent of Beppe Grillo. None of them will necessarily be deterred from declaring their support for him because of his comments about McCain. Some of them might even be encouraged.

But what if you want Trump to go away now?

The media isn’t going to stop paying attention to Trump. Nor should it, really: His candidacy is a political story and not just “entertainment.”⁵

Republicans are another matter, however. They might rightly be concerned that Trump is tarnishing their brand image or at least meddling with their already-challenging task of choosing a candidate. Other Republicans should resist the temptation to extend the news cycle by firing back at him, however — even when what he says is genuinely offensive.⁶

After 12 years of writing on the Internet, I’ve learned that the old adage is true. Don’t feed the troll. The only way to kill a troll like Trump is to deprive him of attention.

Footnotes

1. The data was taken from PredictWise as of early Sunday afternoon. I’d quibble with some of Betfair’s probabilities: I don’t think there should be such a large gap between Bush (who Betfair has at 39 percent to win the nomination) and the next two candidates, Walker and Rubio. And giving Trump a 5 percent chance of winning the nomination seems extremely generous. But Betfair data reflects market prices and is therefore a pretty good approximation of the consensus view about the viability of each candidate. ^
2. For better or worse, the press doesn’t necessarily give a lot of coverage to candidates who poll well if they aren’t otherwise seen as viable nominees. Carson and Paul get little coverage despite polling better than a lot of their competitors, for instance. You could argue that this is sophisticated behavior on the media’s part since early polls of the primaries are often inaccurate and tend to predict the nominee less well than other factors like endorsements. ^
3. In the regression, I sought to explain Google News hits as a function of (i) Google search traffic in the previous week and (ii) Google search traffic in the subsequent week. The idea is that if press coverage lags public attention, Google search traffic from the previous week would be more predictive of press coverage, while the reverse would be true if media coverage leads public interest instead. It turned out, however, that Google searches from both the previous and subsequent week had a positive and statistically significant relationship with press coverage. ^
4. For the record, the three previous stories that FiveThirtyEight published on Trump averaged about 100,000 pageviews. That’s a decent but not exceptional number relative to how our campaign-related stories have been doing. As you probably know if you’re reading this footnote, however, we have a pretty weird audience. ^
5. The Huffington Post political desk is now labeling articles about Trump as “entertainment” rather than “politics.” I’m sympathetic to the impulse, but it’s a gimmick. On the one hand, Trump is still getting plenty of attention at the Huffington Post. (Perhaps even more, since they’re now crossposting Trump stories between politics and entertainment.) On the other hand, even if Trump isn’t a “serious” candidate or has no shot at the nomination, his candidacy will reverberate on the rest of the Republican field. Where is his 15 percent of the vote coming from, and where might it go if he fades? How is Trump affecting things like the RNC’s rules for debates, and who is he keeping off the stage? What, if anything, does he tell us about the mood of Republican voters? We’ve been skeptical of Trump from the outset at FiveThirtyEight, but we’re going to keep covering his campaign for these reasons. ^
6. Whether to allow Trump to participate in the debates is a more difficult question. If he’s included, he’ll use the floor to be as disruptive as possible. If he’s excluded, he’ll scream and shout that the party is out to get him. The best approach might be to invite him but structure the debates such that there’s less opportunity for freewheeling interactions between the candidates. ^

[Levan Ramishvili]

Perot Forma

An erratic businessman threatens GOP prospects.

By 

JAMES TARANTO

July 20, 2015 1:17 p.m. ET

The Puffington Host has an odd idea of what constitutes “entertainment.” That’s how the site classified this story over the weekend:

Donald Trump continued his feud with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) Saturday when he criticized the military record of the onetime prisoner of war.

“He’s a war hero because he was captured,” Trump said during an appearance at the Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa, on Saturday. “I like people who weren’t captured.”

“Perhaps he’s a war hero, but right now he’s said some very bad things about a lot of people.”

McCain spent five and a half years in a North Vietnam prison where he was tortured after his Skyhawk dive bomber was shot down in 1967. . . . Trump avoided the draft with four student and one medical deferments.

Trump later equivocated, saying: “I am not blaming John McCain. He gets captured, he gets captured. People get captured. They are brave men because they were in the field.”

To say the Trump statement rubbed a lot of people the wrong way would be a gross understatement. One of the strongest denunciations came from Rick Perry, who is among the many Republicans seeking the presidential nomination. “His comments have reached a new low in American politics,” the former Texas governor said in a statement. “His attack on veterans make [sic] him unfit to be Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces, and he should immediately withdraw from the race for President.”

Mitt Romney, a McCain 2008 rival, opted for mockery over condemnation, quipping on Twitter: “The difference between @SenJohnMcCain and @realDonaldTrump: Trump shot himself down.” The Christian author Eric Metaxas sounded more like Perry: “What Trump said about John McCain is the ugliest thing I may ever have heard uttered by a public figure in my life.”

As it turns out, though, a current member of the U.S. Senate once said the same thing about McCain. Reason’s Jesse Walker unearthed a January 2000 Salon “Voices” feature in which a variety of contributors were asked “What’s at Stake in the 2000 Election?” Among them: Al Franken, whom Minnesota sent to the upper chamber in 2009 after a vote-count dispute. He wrote:

I doubt I could cross the line and vote Republican. I have tremendous respect for McCain but I don’t buy the war hero thing. Anybody can be captured. I thought the idea was to capture them. As far as I’m concerned he sat out the war.

Franken was not yet a politician; his first bid for office was that 2008 Senate race. His first career was as a comedian. As the Daily Callernotes, at least one other comedian—Chris Rock in 2008, when McCain was the Republican presidential nominee—subsequently used the same joke. So perhaps there is some logic after all to the Puffington Host’s classification of Trump stories under “entertainment.”

That Salon colloquium is an interesting time capsule, for two reasons. First, it shows how much Salon has devolved over the years. The site assembled a genuinely diverse group of participants—so diverse, in fact, as to reflect poor editorial judgment on the part of the editors. Among them are two white supremacists, one of whom, David Duke, appears just below civil-rights heroine Rosa Parks.

But the list also includes plenty of mainstream conservatives along with liberals and leftists. On the whole it’s a breath of fresh air when compared with Salon’s current output of orthodox leftism and emotional vomit. (Sample headline, from last Friday: “Bobby Jindal Should Just Shut Up: His Simple-Minded, Dishonest Chattanooga Comments Make Things Worse.”)

Second, Trump makes two appearances, a reminder that he’s been threatening to run for president for many years. Bill Press, a liberal co-host of CNN’s now-twice-defunct “Crossfire,” had this to say:

No doubt, what would make me most angry in November 2000 would be the election of Donald Trump. Not that Pat Buchanan would be much better. But Trump’s trump would mean the ultimate disgrace of the presidency, the ruination of the republic and the best reason for cashing it all in and fleeing to Canada.

Kevin Phillips, the Republican strategist turned economic populist, was more positive:

Among the top candidates, the best composite would mix John McCain’s outrage over corruption, Bill Bradley’s I.Q., Al Gore’s wife (for first lady), George W. [Bush]’s people skills, Donald Trump’s wealth-tax amenability and Pat Buchanan’s candor and guts on globalization, bankers and bail-outs.

As The Weekly Standard’s Matt Labash reported in 1999, Trump was considering a bid—which he ultimately abandoned—for the Reform Party’s nomination. Which raises the question: What is Trump doing, all these years later, running as a Republican? As BuzzFeed’sAndrew Kaczynski noted last month, taxes weren’t the only area in which Trump in 2000 took a position well to the left of the GOP mainstream.

In his noncampaign manifesto “The America We Deserve,” Trump also supported more-restrictive gun laws, described himself as having “pro-choice instincts” on abortion, and even argued that “we need, as a nation, to reexamine the single-payer plan” for health-care—i.e., a government monopsony on medical services. (That lends a certain irony to Bill Press’s threat to decamp to Canada.)

What’s more, National Review’s Robert VerBruggen pointed out in 2011 that Trump said in 2005 of the Supreme Court’s infamous Kelo v. New London decision: “I happen to agree with it 100%.” Trump has frequently attempted to enrich his own real-estate deals via eminent domain.

The Trump phenomenon puts us in mind of Ross Perot, who ran as an independent in 1992 and then founded the Reform Party, running as its standard-bearer in 1996. Like Trump, Perot was a businessman turned amateur politician who capitalized on voter dissatisfaction with the professionals. He was ideologically heterodox.

Like Trump, he had an admirer in Kevin Phillips, who in 1993 told the Philadelphia Inquirer: “He surged in the polls in his role as national watchdog.” After the election, Perot’s opposition to the North American Free Trade Agreement put him at odds with the Clinton administration, though these days it would find him a home on the Democratic left.

Perot was known for rhetorical intemperance. “James Ragland, a former city hall reporter with the Dallas Morning News now with The Washington Post, recalls being at a meeting with Dallas police officers at which Perot suggested the police ‘ought to just go in there [high-crime neighborhoods], cordon off the whole area, going block by block, looking for guns and drugs,’ ” the Post’s Michael Isikoffreported in 1992. That’s somewhat reminiscent of Trump’s recent harangue about illegal aliens from Mexico—though we should note that in the 1993 Nafta debate with Al Gore, Perot was careful to praise the skill and industriousness of Mexican workers.

Trump’s outburst against McCain reminded us of Perot’s erratic personalization of the 1992 race. From the Los Angeles Times of Oct. 26, 1992:

Perot accused President Bush’s campaign Sunday of plotting to fake a photograph to smear his youngest daughter, of conspiring to disrupt her wedding and of hiring an ex-CIA employee to wiretap his computerized stock trading program and ruin him.

Perot said the plotting was the real reason he dropped out of the campaign for 11 weeks. He said he wanted to spare his daughter, Caroline, the pain that such dirty tricks could cause. After her wedding in August, Perot said, he told her what he had done. He said she replied: “Get back into the race.” He did, on Oct. 1.

It is possible, although far from certain, that Perot cost Republicans the presidency in 1992. His appeal crossed party lines, though it was greater among Republicans (17% of whom voted for him, according to exit polls) than Democrats (13%). His support among independents was considerably higher (30%), and had he been absent from the ballot, there’s no way of estimating how that group would have split between Clinton, Bush and neither of the above.

“Trump Is Toast,” proclaims Commentary’s Peter Wehner after the weekend’s events. We certainly hope so—although as the Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes notes, at the same meeting where Trump insulted McCain, he refused to “rule out running as a third party candidate.” If he did that, Hayes warns, “he could well deliver the White House to Hillary Clinton—a past recipient of Trump praise and campaign contributions.”

There’s a depressing thought. And if the Republican nominee is the current (narrow) favorite, it would look an awful lot like 1992: Clinton beats Bush with the help of a flamboyant and erratic businessman running as an independent. (The Reform Party probably isn’t an option: Its official 2012 nominee, Andre Barnett, received just 962 votes nationwide, according to David Leip’s Election Atlas—better than the Prohibition Party but several dozen votes shy of the NSA Did 911 Party and even the breakaway Mississippi Reform Party.)

Then again, 2016 is unlike 1992 in some important ways. At this point in 1991 there was no clear favorite on the Democratic side. Then, it was Bush, not Clinton, who was (as the incumbent) the inevitable nominee of a fractious party. Now that role falls to (Mrs.) Clinton.

Just how fractious are the Democrats also became clear over the weekend, as the Arizona Republic reports from Phoenix:

Civil-rights protesters gave Democratic presidential contenders Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley a raucous and tense reception Saturday in downtown Phoenix, disrupting and commandeering a forum that was billed as a conversation with the two progressive candidates.

Sanders, a left-leaning independent U.S. senator from Vermont, was visibly irritated at times during his shorter-than-expected appearance at the Netroots Nation gathering. He, in turn, angered the “Black Lives Matter” protesters by not immediately responding to them. . . .

“Black lives, of course, matter,” Sanders said at one point. “. . . But if you don’t want me to be here, that’s O.K.” . . .

O’Malley was later booed when he said: “Every life matters . . . Black lives matter. White lives matter. All lives matter.”

As CNN reports, O’Malley later apologized. Mrs. Clinton, probably wisely, took a pass on the Netroots Nation conference, but as wenoted last month, she too has been criticized for saying “All lives matter.”

The recent Sanders surge shows that the Democratic Party is divided between the left and the far left, but the Netroots kerfuffle demonstrates that the far left is divided—and bitterly so—between practitioners of class politics and identity politics. Barack Obama was able to triangulate between these positions and (to a sufficient extent) between the left and the center, but that came at a cost. “The Obama victory sucked out all the energy of progressive politics in the United States,” Netroots activist Charles Lechner tells the Post’sDavid Weigel.

The same might be said of George H.W. Bush’s victory in 1988 and conservative politics. Being out of power has a way of focusing the mind on the necessities of winning rather than the narcissism of small (or not-so-small) differences. Certainly it worked that way for Democrats in 1992, when they united behind a broadly appealing, more or less centrist candidate.

The sooner Trump flames out, the better the Republicans’ prospects of success after nominating one of their many worthy candidates. That’s the biggest reason the guys at the Puffington Host find his continued presence so entertaining.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Chump On the Stump

Donald Trump pretends to run for President

Matt Labash

December 20, 1999, Vol. 5, No. 14

Los Angeles

Of all the bizarre twists Campaign 2000 has taken, there is none so strange as the one that finds us on the rooftop of L'Ermitage hotel in Beverly Hills. The media have come to explore the possible presidential candidacy of Donald Trump, who has himself formed an exploratory committee, blanketed the talk shows, and threatened to spend $ 100 million to win not just the Reform party nomination, but "the whole megillah."

L'Ermitage is a magnet for studio junkets and celebrities convalescing after rhinoplasty. The hotel's suites run up to $ 3,800 per night, so demanding guests can expect amenities like personalized cell phones and 88-inch pool towels. It's what The Donald would call a "class facility," and he knows of what he speaks. Not only is Trump, in his own demure phraseology, "the biggest developer in the hottest city in the world," but his very pores emit class. In fact, he uses the word frequently -- as an adjective, not a noun. Thus, everything associated with him is classy, even unauthorized biographies, like The Really, Really Classy Donald Trump Quiz Book.

Standing on the panoramic rooftop next to the classy pool, reporters anticipate Trump's arrival for a press conference. While waiting, we help ourselves to the Purel hand-sanitizers that Trump aides have kindly set out in a fishbowl. The Donald thinks shaking hands is "barbaric" and unhygienic. Politics, however, is about compromise. Twenty yards away, a television crew sets up for an interview with actress Whoopi Goldberg. I have spent so much time talking to Trump's aides over the past week that I feel qualified to speak not only for them, but like them. So I approach the Goldberg camp, informing no one in particular, "Mr. Trump doesn't like to share the spotlight."

"Whoopi doesn't either," snaps a Goldberg lackey, "and she's a real celebrity." The Trump camp tries unsuccessfully to get the Goldberg camp to relocate. So instead of conducting the press conference by the shaded pool, the Trump press conference moves to a sun-scorched section of the terrace, making The Donald squint even more than usual.

As he takes the podium, Trump's entire entourage is present. There's Roger Stone, his political consigliere, who is, as always, immaculately and ornately haberdashed in cafe-au-lait suede shoes and a gangster boldstripe suit. "I haven't bought off the rack since I was 17," says Stone. There is Trump's bodyguard, all muscle and menace. His name is Matt Calamari, so we immediately start calling him "Matty the Squid," though not to his face. Most important, there is Melania Knauss, Trump's 26-year-old supermodel girlfriend, who is four years removed from her native Slovenia. Melania. Her name is like a song. Her skirt is short, her heels are high. Her legs are so long that her torso seems an afterthought. She'd make a class first lady.

Trump tells us that he will be forgoing individual interviews because of the crush of media present. There are only ten of us, and three of us are from German television; The Donald would have time to do interviews, close a deal, and still take Melania shopping before his next engagement. But no matter. Though he will ultimately decide on running for president after "going by my gut," he says his internal "polling has been amazing." He will not tell us the name of his pollster. Nor will he tell us the names of the economists he consulted for his debt-reduction plan, which calls for a one-time 14.5 percent tax on the entire net worth of the richest Americans (and Trump calls Bill Bradley a socialist). Trump quickly wraps up the press conference, promising us more later, and disappears with Melania and the Squid. He does not shake our Purel-coated hands.

Stone immediately swoops in for spin, assuring us that the polling, which Trump seemed suspiciously vague about, is concerned with issues, not the horse race. Stone says they are smoking Pat Buchanan in polls of Reform party members, but have not polled the general election. This seems an odd claim, in light of Trump's "whole megillah" strategy. But we are quickly on to more important things, like how Stone is able to achieve a perfect double-dimple below his tie knot. Stone insists I remove my tie, and as we document his every move, he puts on a double-dimple clinic. "It takes a while to learn," he says. "We're gonna have to work on it."

With Trump off-limits until that evening, Stone sets up a media availability with Melania. Next to a lobby anteroom where Melania sits, Whoopie Goldberg waltzes by. I ask her if she'd support a Trump candidacy. "What does he stand for?" she asks. "Donald Trump," deadpans another reporter. Melania is getting used to this sort of cynicism, and she is not easy pickings for interrogators. I ask her if she considers herself a supermodel, or just a really swell model. "I'm a person first," she says in her Slovenian accent, "and then I have a great career." (Good answer: Decisive. Evasive. Conveys confidence without conceit.) When asked whether, as first lady, she would have a pet initiative like Barbara Bush's literacy or Betty Ford's alcoholism, she responds, "Yes, I love children." (Textbook: When in doubt, invoke children.) When asked if she is creeped out by Trump's germ phobia, she says, "You know, there are a lot of germs from colds and flu, and nobody is really talking about this." (What a pro.)

That night, we follow Trump to a taping of the Jay Leno show in Burbank. As Trump cools his heels in the dressing room before the show, Leno pops in for a visit, and sees Stone in his Bugsy Siegel rig. "Hey Donald," cracks Leno, "you brought your bookie." We journalists are briefly permitted into the studio to watch the pre-show festivities. Warm-up comic Bob Perlow plies the crowd with stale jokes and show tunes. Then, spotting Melania in the audience, he insists she come up to the stage, where she is asked to dance seductively while throwing souvenir t-shirts into the audience. Tonight Show staffers claim this is a pre-game tradition, but one suspects they invented it as an excuse to watch Melania gyrate.

She is supremely uncomfortable and refuses to comply, darting back to her seat, which is a piano wire's width away from Matty the Squid's. Wisely, Perlow does not persist. Stone comes out and stands next to me. He is concerned for Melania's well-being. But mostly, he is concerned about my newly double-dimpled tie. "No good," he says, shaking his head disapprovingly.

Back in the green room, after the show begins, we munch melon wedges and finger sandwiches with singer Michael Bolton's entourage. A Leno staffer says we will not be permitted into Trump's dressing room after the show. I protest to Stone, who, like any Trump devotee, tries to make a deal. He'll get us access, "but you'll refrain from making fun of Mr. Trump's hair again." Stone is referring to an article I wrote some months ago in which I charged that Mr. Trump's coif resembled an abandoned nest. Having now seen Trump's hair up close, I make no promises.

Though Leno mercilessly rags Trump, alleging at one point that he caught a sexually transmitted disease -- from himself, Trump has the audience eating from his antiseptic palm. Of the women of the Clinton scandal, he says, "You have some beauties in that deal." Of his competition, Pat Buchanan, he says, "he's obviously been having a love affair with Adolf Hitler." One of Trump's loudest applause lines, which works everywhere he goes, is "I don't drink, I don't smoke, I've never had a cup of coffee." It comes as a surprise, but tea-drinkers may be the soccer moms of the 2000 election.

In Trump's dressing room after the show, five reporters and a 60 Minutes camera crew are chatting with The Donald. Leno stops by, holding a copy of Trump's upcoming campaign manifesto. Unable to obtain a review copy less than a month before publication, I ask Leno to see it. He passes the book, but it will not open. "It's a dummy copy," quips Leno, "[the book] hasn't been written yet." Trump asserts to skeptical reporters that his flirtation with the presidency isn't just a publicity drive for his book. The revenue the book generates, he says, will pay for his "airplane fuel to go back and forth from California." Besides, he repeats several times in the same conversation, he's already had three number-one bestsellers. Likewise, he is "running the biggest real estate empire in the world" and he's "very competent and very rich," though "I don't want to toot my own horn." It's not his way.

Trump invites us back to L'Ermitage for a reception with about 100 Reform party activists who pack The Donald's cavernous Governor's Suite, two floors below the Presidential Suite. He serves them goat cheese on black olive ciabatta and good Merlot, not the boxed Zinfandel they are accustomed to. The California crowd is stylish by Reform standards, but there are still a fair number of double-knit suits and visible nosehairs. As Trump takes the podium, Melania stands at his side, her Piaget watch refracting light as she shifts restlessly on her sinewy, tanned stilts. Trump takes questions from the audience, warning, "the camera is 60 Minutes, don't worry about them. It's this little program on television . . . so don't worry about embarrassing ourselves with questions."

Trump, it seems, is a bit sensitive to the media perception of the Reform party, which falls somewhere between comic relief and sad joke. This was reinforced yet again when eight Reform party presidential "candidates," including Pat Buchanan, met on December 3 for a debate. At the Portland, Oregon, Marriott, about 100 people assembled to hear the views of several crackpot prospects, while a microphone stand repeatedly toppled over, one candidate's name was misspelled, and Buchanan's speech was overshadowed by a Native American dance ceremony in the neighboring ballroom. A week before this California swing, I asked a Trump aide why Trump wouldn't be attending this debate. "What debate?" he asked, convincingly pretending ignorance.

Holding court in his suite, Trump answers Reformer concerns. He casts aspersions on the WTO and the U.S. trade representative. "Where does she come from?" he asks. "Has she made billions of dollars?" He rubs turpentine in the wounds of black-helicopter types, saying that he believes in the United Nations so strongly that "I'm building a 90-story building right next to it." Though some hecklers ding him for dumping on other Reformers, Trump tears into Pat Buchanan and his new ally, the radical Lenora Fulani. "We have the ultra-right and a Communist, you can have that party," Trump says. When one gentleman asks Trump if he'll support the party platform, Trump says, "Nobody knows what the platform is." Someone brings him a copy. Trump says he'll read it, but leaves it on the podium when the Q&A session ends.

It's a virtuoso performance. Trump has disagreed with, chided, and even insulted his constituency, and yet they mob him afterwards, won over by either his Merlot or his candor. As Melania disappears into a back room to avoid getting pawed by the double-knits, Trump lunges into the throng, shaking hands -- shaking hands! -- and signing campaign literature. He looks my way, beaming. Holding up a picture of himself, he asks, "Isn't he handsome?"

A few hours after the reception, a small group of reporters are off to The Ivy. The Ivy is one of those insider Hollywood restaurants where out-of-towners come to experience the epicenter of cool, though since we know about it, it's likely on the verge of extinction. We are shunted off to a lonely patio corner with an obstructed view. Trump's fellow Tonight Show guest, Michael Bolton, sits at the next table, temporarily unaware of our existence. After about ten minutes, the Trump entourage, having already eaten, emerges from an inner sanctum where they've been chatting up Rod Stewart. Seeing us in the corner, Trump walks over and says to Bolton, in a voice loud enough for the entire restaurant to hear, "Watch out for these guys, they rule the world." Trump then vanishes into his limo, but the very molecular structure of the patio changes around us. Food tastes better. Wine flows freer. Strange women strike up conversations with us from distant tables. Michael Bolton rises to his feet and starts sucking-up profusely to Adam Nagourney of the New York Times. We are, thanks to the Donald, what Matty the Squid might call "made men."

Bolton bores us with earnest accounts of how he's campaigning for Hillary Clinton. But he strikes pay dirt when he tells us how, after Trump once broke up with former wife Marla Maples, Bolton began dating her. It made Trump so jealous that he took her back. But then, "when he could have her," says Bolton, "he didn't want her anymore." As his presidential campaign seems to suggest, Trump is most attracted to things he can't have. Just two months after the death of Princess Di, for example, he expressed profound sadness to Dateline. "I would have loved to have had a shot to date her," he told Stone Phillips, "because she was an absolutely wonderful woman."

"Do you think you would have had a shot?" asked Phillips. "I think so, yeah," responded The Donald, "I always have a shot." Classy.

The next day, we rise at dawn to follow Trump to the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Museum of Tolerance, which bills itself, in Trumpian fashion, as a "world-class human rights laboratory." Trump says he was asked to come here, though Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the center tells us Trump made the request. Whatever: It's a natural photo-op for Trump, who may wind up running against a man who's having "a love affair with Adolf Hitler." The Donald, Melania, and the media scrum follow Cooper through exhibits like the "Point of View Dinner," and a film montage depicting atrocities throughout the world. The Donald gazes intently, brow knitted, his lips fixed in puckered protrusion. In profile, he looks like a distressed mallard.

As we walk through the museum, he and Melania occasionally lock fingers, while Trump tries to impress the Rabbi by dropping the names of Jewish friends. "Do you know Nelson Peltz?" he asks, "Fantastic guy." We walk through the Holocaust section, where there are re-creations of everything from the Warsaw Ghetto to Auschwitz. Throughout the trip, Trump keeps saying things like "Good job, Rabbi" and "Great location," as if he is assessing one of his Atlantic City properties.

At the end of the tour, I approach Roger Stone, who is wearing "Nixon Is the One" cufflinks, to ask if Trump will make news. "Is that what you want?" asks Stone, handing me a press release in which Trump will again denounce Buchanan. Trump gives a modified version of the statement in the museum atrium, praising the center but omitting the Buchanan references. By the end of the Q&A, however, he's again fitted Buchanan in brownshirt and jackboots. After the press conference, I try to talk about the speech with Stone, but his mind is on other things. He's looking me straight in the cravat.

"Your knot needs work," he says.

From the Wiesenthal Center, we board Trump's 727 at LAX for the 15-minute ride to Long Beach, where Trump will make $ 100,000 for 20 minutes' work addressing 21,000 people at self-help guru Tony Robbins's seminar. In a word, the plane is classy. Everything is fashioned from mahogany and teak. Crystal bar glasses and decanters line the cabinets (though The Donald doesn't drink), and priceless works of art hang throughout the cabin (the art, Trump says, is "off the record" for security reasons). With all these mangy journalists in tow, Trump has several mild panic attacks: "Don't put the glass on the table"; "Watch the paintings, fellas." But he quickly settles into boys-club gregariousness, punching reporters in the arm, talking about hot supermodels, and fielding compliments about Melania. "Pretty incredible, right?" he asks. "She's a beauty, and it's not just here," he says, pointing to his face. "It's the inner beauty, too."

I catch up with Trump in his kitchenette as he tears into a bag of Lay's potato chips. Still curious about the Wiesenthal tour, which one could categorize as pretty cynical political theater, I ask if Donald Trump is good for the Jews. "Yes," he says immediately.

"How?" I ask.

"Not now," he says, crunching into a chip, "I gotta think about my f -- in' speech."

At the Long Beach Airport, we deplane and board a chartered bus, appropriately titled, "A Touch of Class." We head to Arrowhead Pond arena, home of the Anaheim Mighty Ducks hockey team, which is filled with Tony Robbins seminarians who've spent hundreds of dollars to glean success secrets from celebrity guests like Larry King (marry eight times, ask softball questions).

Tony Robbins, remember, was once invited to Camp David to give success advice to President Clinton. Here, on stage, Robbins dons a headset mike and dances like an epileptic to a mega-mix version of "Real Wild One." Middle managers are instructed to knead each other's necks. "It's okay for guys to rub guys!" Robbins exclaims. Backstage, Trump has a case of nerves, skittishly pacing and shaking his legs to the beat. I tell him to picture his audience naked, and he seems to accept my counsel, wiggling his bushy brows as a female Robbins staffer walks by in a tank top that threatens her circulation.

Robbins introduces Trump to a receptive crowd, and Trump enters to two stageside explosions that nearly ignite his hair. Trump is not opposed to the nerf platitudes of self-help gurus; he and first wife, Ivana, were married by Mr. Positive Thinking himself, Norman Vincent Peale. But today Trump offers a different kind of success recipe, one that sounds like a song-of-the-street beatitude uttered by Frank Sinatra and transcribed by Jilly Rizzo. Commandment One: "People tend to be very vicious, as the boxers say, 'Keep the left up.'" Commandment Two: "Get even. When somebody screws you, screw'em back, but a lot harder." Commandment Three: "Always have a pre-nup." The crowd is ecstatic. Robbins is embarrassed. "It's not exactly my values," he says offstage. After the Pre-nup Commandment, I watch Melania. She forces a smile. But the lovelight momentarily flickers out in her eyes.

In a VIP tent after his performance, Trump faces a select group of tortellini-eating businessmen who've paid additional sums to ask questions of the celebrities. Ever the charmer, Trump chooses his interrogators by identifying their salient physical characteristics: "the bald guy in the suit" or "the beautiful woman in the semi-blouse." Of a Yorba Linda resident seeking Trump's advice about running for city council, Trump asks, "Are you a Reform candidate?"

"Yes," the man says.

"Lotsa luck," Trump replies.

Another woman asks how she can create capital "when all I have is my knowledge and training." Trump thinks a moment, then says, "Meet a wealthy guy." He distills his political philosophy into a very simple formula: "In business and in life, people want to hear straight talk. We're tired of being bull -- ed by these moron politicians." The crowd is nearly speaking in tongues.

After the event, Stone enters our bus: "I'm here, who needs to be spun?" I ask how The Donald expects to sustain support when he so frequently expresses obvious contempt for everyone but himself. "You piss 50 percent of the people off no matter what you say," says Stone. By his reckoning, Trump needs "only" 35-40 percent of the vote in a three-way election. That seems like a lot. Could that many Americans possibly want Donald Trump to be their president? You wouldn't think so. On the other hand, at the Tony Robbins seminar, 21,000 people have just paid $ 270 apiece to derive wisdom from Billy Blanks, the founder of Tae-Bo.

Before boarding the plane with reporters for a return ride back to Manhattan (the hottest city with the biggest developer), Trump is still discussing the Robbins "love fest" in colorful terms: "Did you see that one woman? She had an amazing body, but a schoolmarm's face." Wisely, he decides to go off the record for the rest of the flight, so we "can relax and have fun."

"Who wants to take up the plane?" he asks, allowing reporters to sit in the cockpit. The in-flight movie choice is Midnight Express or The Godfather. Trump picks the former, though Matty the Squid looks disappointed. Melania has shed her Blahnik pumps and pads barefoot around the cabin like an exotic cat. "We have pizza," she purrs. For the next six hours, we share locker-room banter that if transcribed could put an end to several careers. Trump's candor makes John McCain look Nixonian by comparison. As the adventure ends, Trump repeatedly taunts reporters, wondering how we'll ever go back to covering Al Gore and flying coach. It seems a sensible question.

Here's hoping The Donald runs.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Rick Perry Compares Trump to Cancer, Know-Nothings, and Joe McCarthy in Double-Barreled D.C. Speech

By Brendan Bordelon — July 22, 2015

Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry ratcheted up his assault on rival GOP hopeful Donald Trump another notch during a speech in Washington, D.C. today, calling the ex-reality TV star “a cancer on conservatism,” comparing his views on Mexican immigrants to that of the Know-Nothing Party, and saying his political tactics were reminiscent of Joe McCarthy.

The former Texas governor spoke before a sober crowd of around 100 Republican dignitaries at the Willard InterContinental Hotel in D.C., discussing the power of conservatism to induce economic growth and criticizing the field of Democratic contenders for the White House.

But when Perry shifted from policy to Donald Trump, his staid speech turned passionate. “He offers a barking carnival act that can be best described as ‘Trumpism,’” Perry said of the real-estate mogul. “A toxic mix of demagoguery, mean-spiritedness and nonsense that will lead the Republican Party to perdition if pursued.”

“Let no one be mistaken,” Perry said. “Donald Trump’s candidacy is a cancer on conservatism, and it must be clearly diagnosed, excised, and discarded.”

“Donald Trump’s candidacy is a cancer on conservatism, and it must be clearly diagnosed, excised, and discarded.”

He returned to the theme in detail later in his speech, unloading on Trump with a fiery condemnation of his controversial comments about Hispanics and Arizona senator John McCain. “I, for one, will not be silent when a candidate for the high office of the president runs under the Republican banner by targeting millions of Hispanics, and our veterans, with mean-spirited vitriol,” he said.

“This is not new in America,” he said, recalling how the Know-Nothing movement of the 1840s scapegoated Irish and German immigrants. “These people built nothing, created nothing,” Perry said. “They existed to cast blame and tear down certain institutions. To give outlet to anger. Donald Trump is the modern-day incarnation of the know-nothing movement.”

Perry wasn’t done, either. He went on to savage Trump for his claim that former POW John McCain wasn’t a war hero. Trump “couldn’t have endured for five minutes what John McCain endured for five and a half years,” he said, earning his only applause line of the afternoon.

“When a candidate under the Republican banner would abandon the tradition of magnanimous leadership of the presidency, when he would seek to demonize millions of citizens, when he would stoop to attack POWs for being captured, I can only ask as Senator Welch did of Senator McCarthy: ‘Have you no sense of decency, sir?’” Perry said.

Most Republican candidates have tread lightly around Trump, denouncing his most egregious remarks but otherwise avoiding the current GOP frontrunner. But not Perry. With low national poll numbers that could disqualify him from the first Republican debate on August 6, his ardent and escalating attacks on Trump are seen by some observers as a bid to raise his status with Republicans disgusted by Trump’s candidacy.

But when asked about the politics behind the onslaught — and whether his continuous attacks may be inadvertently strengthening Trump attacks — Perry was unmoved. “I’m not particularly concerned about that,” he said. “I’m concerned about standing up for what I believe in, and what I know the Republican Party stands for. Mr. Trump is going to have to defend his statements.”

“Americans may have a dalliance with this individual,” Perry said. “But I think once they look at the record — if they are true conservatives, if they care about the future of this country — then that dalliance will not last very long.”

[Levan Ramishvili]

Marco Rubio to Trump: We Already Have a President with No Class

Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubiotook a shot at Donald Trump during an appearance on Fox and Friends, saying the presidency didn’t need another man with no class.

When asked about Trump, Rubio agreed that illegal immigration was a serious issue, but that Trump was the wrong man for the job. “Here’s what’s so important to me; the presidency of the United States is not just the top government official. It is the leader of our people and our nation as well.”

“It’s important we have– to conduct the presidency, it has to be done in a dignified way, with a level of class,” he said. “I don’t think the way he’s behaved over the last few weeks is either dignified or worthy of office he seeks.”

“We already have a president now that has no class,” Rubio continued, in a swipe against PresidentBarack Obama. “I mean, we have a president now that does selfie-stick videos, that invites YouTube stars there, people who eat cereal out of a bathtub… he goes on comedy shows to talk about something as serious as Iran. The list goes on and on.”

But Rubio brought it back to Trump in the end. “It’s important to have a presidency that restores dignity and class to the White House. And I don’t believe that some of the language Mr. Trump is employing is worthy of the office. I just do not.”

[Levan Ramishvili]

Revenge of the Radical Middle

by Matthew Continetti 

Two decades ago, in the spring of 1996, Newsweek magazine described a group of voters it called the “radical middle.” Formerly known as the Silent Majority, then the Reagan Democrats, these voters had supported Ross Perot in 1992, and were hoping the Texas billionaire would run again. Voters in the radical middle, Newsweek wrote, “see the traditional political system itself as the country’s chief problem.”

The radical middle is attracted to populists, outsiders, businessmen such as Perot and Lee Iacocca who have never held office, and to anyone, according to Newsweek, who is the “tribune of anti-insider discontent.” Newt Gingrich rallied the radical middle in 1994—year of the Angry White Male—but his Republican Revolution sputtered to a halt after the government shut down over Medicare in 1995. Once more the radical middle had become estranged from the GOP. “If Perot gets in the race,” a Dole aide told Newsweek, “it will guarantee Clinton’s reelection.”

Well, here we are again, at the beginning of a presidential campaign in which the Republican Party, having lost its hold on the radical middle, is terrified of the electoral consequences. The supporters of Reagan and Perot, of Gingrich and Pat Buchanan, have found another aging billionaire in whom to place their fears and anxieties, their nostalgia and love of country, their disgust with the political and cultural elite, their trepidation at what our nation is becoming.

A brash showboat and celebrity, self-promoter and controversialist, silly and mocking, a caricature of a caricature, Donald Trump is no one’s idea of a serious presidential candidate. Which is exactly why the radical middle finds him refreshing. Not an iota of him is politically correct, he plays by no rules of comity or civility, he genuflects to no party or institution, he is unafraid of and antagonistic toward the media, and he challenges the conventional wisdom of both parties, which holds that there is no real cost to illegal immigration and to trade with China.

Trump’s foreign policy, such as it is, is like Perot’s directed not toward Eurasia but our southern border. Unlike Perot, whose campaign emphasized the twin deficits of budget and trade, Trump has taken on illegal immigration from Mexico, fighting with both the identity politics left and the cheap labor right, with both Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush. Like Perot too he has seized the public imagination, masterfully exploiting the media’s craving for ratings and for negative portrayals of Republicans, turning CNN into TNN, the Trump News Network, the finest and most exclusive cable channel on air.

Trump would enjoy press coverage no matter what he ran on. But the fact that he has chosen, perhaps unwittingly, illegal immigration to be his cause makes the coverage all the more polarizing, visceral, contentious, spiteful. He dared say what no one of his wealth and prominence ever says—that illegal immigration is not limited to DREAMERs and laborers and aspirational Americans, that it is not always, as Jeb Bush put it, an “act of love,” that also traversing our southern border are criminals, rapists and narcotics traffickers and human smugglers, displaced souls from illiberal cultures who carry with them not only dreams but nightmares, bad habits, and other costly baggage. That his poor phrasing was sickeningly confirmed in early July, when an illegal immigrant who had been deported several times shot Kathryn Steinle dead in broad daylight on a San Francisco pier, only strengthened Trump’s connection to the radical middle. So did the drug lord El Chapo’s escape from prison soon after Mexico received an extradition request from the United States.

It is immigration—its universally celebrated benefits and its barely acknowledged costs—that is the third rail of U.S. politics, with repercussions from the border to Eric Cantor’s district in 2014 to courtrooms and the Republican debate stage today. Trump didn’t step on the third rail; he embraced it, he won’t let go of it, and in so doing he’s become electric. Republicans, Democrats, journalists, corporations all want to define themselves against him, and their flaunting of their moral superiority only feeds the media monster, only makes Trump more attractive to the dispossessed, alienated, radical middle.

What Republicans are trying to figure out is not so much how to handle Trump as how to handle his supporters. Ignore or confront? Mock or treat seriously? Insult or persuade? The men and women in the uppermost ranks of the party, who have stood by Trump in the past as he gave them his endorsements and cash, are inclined to condescend to a large portion of the Republican base, to treat base voters’ concerns as unserious, nativist, racist, sexist, anachronistic, or nuts, to apologize for the “crazies” who fail to understand why America can build small cities in Iraq and Afghanistan but not a wall along the southern border, who do not have the education or skills or means to cope when factories move south or abroad, who stare incomprehensibly at the television screen when the media fail to see a “motive” for the Chattanooga shooting, who voted for Perot in ’92 and Buchanan in ’96 and Sarah Palin in ’08 and joined the Tea Party to fight death panels in ’09.

These voters don’t give a whit about corporate tax reform or TPP or the capital gains rate or the fate of Uber, they make a distinction between deserved benefits like Social Security and Medicare and undeserved ones like welfare and food stamps, their patriotism is real and nationalistic and skeptical of foreign entanglement, they wept on 9/11, they want America to be strong, dominant, confident, the America of their youth, their young adulthood, the America of 40 or 30 or even 20 years ago. They do not speak in the cadences or dialect of New York or Washington, their thoughts can be garbled, easily dismissed, or impugned, they are not members of a designated victim group and thus lack moral standing in the eyes of the media, but still they deserve as much attention and sympathy as any of our fellow citizens, still they vote.

What the radical middle has seen in recent years has not given them reason to be confident in our government, our political system, our legion of politicians clambering up the professional ladder office to office. Two inconclusive wars, a financial crisis, recession, and weak recovery, government failure from Katrina to the TSA to the launch of Obamacare to the federal background check system, an unelected and unaccountable managerial bureaucracy that targets grassroots organizations and makes law through diktat, race riots and Ebola and judicial overreach. And through it all, as constant as the northern star, a myopic drive on the part of leaders in both parties to enact a “comprehensive immigration reform” that would incentivize illegal immigration and increase legal immigration despitepublic opposition.

The Republican Party has had two historic midterm victories, only to see its gains at the ballot box overruled by presidential veto or decree, by infighting, by incompetence. When the salient GOP accomplishment of 2015 will be granting President Obama Trade Promotion Authority, when the leading Republican candidates for president are telling donors they will push for comprehensive immigration reform when in office, when those candidates seem more interested in following the lead of the press than caucus goers, when they so often fail to respond directly and forcefully to provocations domestic and foreign, when it is sometimes hard to determine what they believe in beyond their own ambition, how is it surprising that a not insignificant portion of the grassroots, along with some people who normally do not pay attention to politics, are supportive of or intrigued by the outspoken and entertaining Donald Trump?

That Trump is not a conservative, nor by any means a mainstream Republican, is not a minus but a plus to the radical middle. These voters are culturally right but economically left; they depend on the New Deal and parts of the Great Society, are estranged from the fiscal and monetary agendas of The Economist and Wall Street Journal. What they lack in free market bona fides they make up for in their romantic fantasy of the patriotic tycoon or general, the fixer, the Can Do Man who will cut the baloney and Get Things Done. On social questions their views tend toward the moderate side—Perot was no social conservative, either. What unites them is opposition to elites in government, finance, culture, journalism; their search for a vehicle—whether it’s a political party or an outspoken publicity maven—that will displace the managers and technocrats and restore the America of old.

Our political commentary is confused because it conceives of the Republican Party as a top-down entity. It’s not. There are two Republican parties, an elite party of the corporate upper crust and meritocratic winners that sits atop a mass party of whites without college degrees whose worldviews and experiences and ambitions could not be more different from their social and economic betters. The former party enjoys the votes of the latter one, but those votes are not guaranteed. What so worries the GOP about Donald Trump is that he, like Ross Perot, has the resources and ego to rend the two parties apart. If history repeats itself, it will be because the Republican elite was so preoccupied with its own economic and ideological commitments that it failed to pay attention the needs and desires of millions of its voters. So the demagogue rises. The party splits. And the Clintons win.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Donald Trump's Political 'Pit Bull': Meet Michael Cohen

The man behind Donald Trump's possible 2012 presidential campaign is a registered Democrat who voted for Barack Obama in 2008.

Not only that, but Michael Cohen, an executive at the Trump Organization who doubles as Trump's chief political adviser, once volunteered for 1988 presidential candidate Michael Dukakis and worked for a Democratic member of Congress.

This election cycle is different. Late last year, Cohen co-founded the draft Trump website "Should Trump Run?" It has received more than 830,000 hits.

Cohen, 44, is known around the office -- and around New York -- as Trump's "pit bull." Some have even nicknamed him "Tom," a reference to Tom Hagen, the consigliore to Vito Corleone in the "Godfather" movies.

"It means that if somebody does something Mr. Trump doesn't like, I do everything in my power to resolve it to Mr. Trump's benefit," Cohen said in an interview with ABC News. "If you do something wrong, I'm going to come at you, grab you by the neck and I'm not going to let you go until I'm finished."

But since Obama's election in 2008, he said he has grown disappointed with the president, so much so that he now describes himself as "offended" by the administration's agenda. America, Cohen said, has become a "third-world nation," echoing words that have become a familiar refrain of Trump's.

"I thought it was the greatest thing ever," Cohen said he felt during the first months of the Obama presidency. "This fantastic orator was going to make a change in this country. He was going to do things that Bush clearly did not do."

His distaste for Obama, and Trump's professed interest in pursuing the Republican nomination in 2012, led Cohen, businessman Stewart Rahr and other supporters to create "Should Trump Run?" as a way both to spark -- and gauge -- interest in a potential Trump presidential bid.

A lawyer by training, Cohen is Trump's special counsel and a juggler of people and projects. One minute he's on the phone with a reporter, the next he's giving orders to an assistant, and a moment later he's finalizing a deal on another line -- and frequently, he's doing all three at once.

Donald Trump's 'Pit Bull'

With Trump stoking new speculation about his political ambitions every day, Cohen said "the phones have not stopped ringing, the fax machine is off the hook" and his email inbox is clogged. More than a few of those messages have to do with the issue that has catapulted Trump into the headlines recently -- birtherism.

"I am certain that the president was born in Hawaii -- I really am," Cohen said. "I am most irritated with the fact that this president has been exceptionally secretive when it relates to any personal documentation about his past. If you run on a platform of transparency, you should be transparent."

Cohen was the aide who flew to Iowa in a private plane bearing Trump's logo to meet with Republican operatives there in March. He said he may make a similar trip to another crucial early nominating state -- New Hampshire -- in the weeks to come.

Roger Stone, a Republican consultant known for his controversial brand of politics, is long-time Trump associate and a cheerleader for his presidential run (albeit without Trump's blessing). In an interview with ABC News, Stone described Cohen as a "nice guy" and an "enthusiast" but lacking the political expertise to manage the growing interest in Trump candidacy.

"If you need brain surgery, you go to a brain surgeon," Stone said. "You don't go to a dentist."

A case in point, Stone said, was Cohen's one-day Iowa trip that led to questions about his role as both a Trump Organization employee and a promoter of his boss's potential presidential campaign -- questions that he sought to answer by stating unequivocally that the trip and the website were paid for, not with any of Trump's money, but out of pockets of Cohen and Rahr, who made a fortune in the pharmaceutical industry.

Still, the trip triggered a complaint to the Federal Election Commission by a supporter of Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who alleged that the trip violated election law.

Cohen may be new to presidential politics, but he's not a total novice. In 2003 he briefly became a Republican to run for a New York City Council seat at the request of then-Gov. George Pataki. He lost that race to Democrat Eva Moskovitz by a wide margin. In 2009, he started a short-lived campaign for a New York State Senate seat, but dropped out of the race after a just a few weeks.

Michael Cohen and Donald Trump

By all indications, he and Rahr have more than enough personal wealth to finance the independent effort urging Trump to run. Cohen owns several residences in Trump buildings, including a home at Trump World Tower at United Nations Plaza, and Trump Park Avenue, just blocks from Central Park. His parents and in-laws have also invested in Trump properties in New York and Florida.

"Michael Cohen has great insight into the real estate market," Trump said of Cohen in a 2007New York Post interview. "He has invested in my buildings because he likes to make money -- and he does."

The feeling is mutual.

"I think the world of him," Cohen said of the billionaire real estate and reality television mogul who has said he will decide sometime before June whether to run for president. "I respect him as a businessman, and I respect him as a boss."

The two talk regularly -- "I speak to him even more than I did before," Cohen said -- and he has spearheaded a variety of projects for Trump, including sealing a business partnership in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, running a mixed martial arts promotion company called Affliction Entertainment and a firm that turns landfills into golf courses.

Cohen, whose position allows him to play at any of Trump's courses around the world, describes himself as a "decent" golfer and an avid tennis player. Much like Trump's, his circle of acquaintances include political leaders, actors and "super high net worth people," as Cohen calls them.

He only wears Dolce & Gabbana suits and Hermes ties. Even when he was a legislative intern for former Congressman Joe Moakley, a Massachusetts Democrat, Cohen says he was "always dressed to the hilt."

"It's very, very surreal," Cohen told ABC News. "I've been admiring Donald trump since I was in high school." (He said that when he was a young man he read Trump's 1987 book, "The Art of The Deal" cover to cover -- twice.)

Cohen grew up on Long Island. His mother was a nurse and his father was a surgeon who escaped a Nazi concentration camp with his family during World War II. He attended American University followed by law school and said he got his first taste of politics when he was a boy. A neighbor of his parents' invited him to walk precincts with New York Mayor John Lindsay in Atlantic Beach, Queens and Brooklyn.

Donald Trump's 'Pit Bull'

Like Trump, Cohen has donated money to both Democratic and Republican candidates over the years, including Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. He's hobnobbed with Hillary Clinton and the late Sen. Ted Kennedy. Cohen said he and Kennedy even once went sailing near the Kennedy Compound in Cape Cod and later shared a lobster and clambake.

After law school, Cohen went on to work at a personal-injury malpractice law firm in New York and later became a partner at the firm Phillips Nizer. He joined the Trump Organization in 2006 at Trump's invitation. He's married and has two children.

Cohen said he sees no conflict in his advocacy for Trump now and his past support for Obama. He said his concerns are three-fold: the "unsustainable" debt, the country's "ongoing and continuous" loss of jobs and the "basic overall lack of respect" that the rest of the world has for the U.S.

"I'm prepared to put the fact that I voted for Obama to the side," he said. I'm more concerned now about my children, future grandchildren, nieces and nephews, and everybody's children and families. I'm more concerned about them than I am about party affiliation."

[Levan Ramishvili]

Trump: Ultra-Conservative or Liberal in Disguise?

I’ve been saying that the only rational explanation for Donald Trump’s presidential antics is that he’s a stealth-liberal come to divide the GOP vote and sweep Obama to victory. Well, taking a walk down history laneshould help determine if I’m correct:

“We must have universal healthcare,” wrote Trump. “I’m a conservative on most issues but a liberal on this one. We should not hear so many stories of families ruined by healthcare expenses.”

The goal of health care reform, wrote Trump, should be a system that looks a lot like Canada. “Doctors might be paid less than they are now, as is the case in Canada, but they would be able to treat more patients because of the reduction in their paperwork,” he writes.

That’s from Dave Weigel, who has a great post up on the last time Trump was toying with a presidential race. At the time Trump said:

“I really believe the Republicans are just too crazy, right?” he told Tim Russert on Meet the Press. “I mean, just what’s going on is just nuts.”

I wonder what changed?

Now Trump has ditched the old Canadian-loving RINO and is going full-on Tea Party. He’s met with evangelical conservative, Ralph Reed – the same Ralph Reed who was caught up in the Jack Abramoff scandals – to bolster his image with conservative Christians. Trump has also taken on some of the pillars of the Bush administration like Karl Rove, and has earned the ire of a number of conservative pundits.

Still, his stealth-liberalism must be showing through. The Club for Growth has called Trump “just another liberal.”

Trump has even worked to discredit Republican foreign policy. In an interview on ABC he told George Stephanopolous:

George, let me explain something to you.  We go into Iraq.  We have spent thus far, $1.5 trillion.  We could have rebuilt half of the United States.  $1.5 trillion.  And we’re going to then leave.  So, in the old days, you know when you had a war, to the victor belong the spoils.  You go in.  You win the war and you take it.

Crazy birther claims, a foreign policy that includes plundering Middle East oil fields, the hair…either Trump is a stealth liberal, an ultra-conservative, or he’s starting to go a bit daft. I haven’t made up my mind yet.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Fifteen Elephants and a Clown

The Donald’s life has been seven decades of buffoonery.

By Kevin D. Williamson — July 28, 2015

If there was a good reason to distrust presidential candidate Mitt Romney, it had to do with his views on abortion. Not his position per se — as difficult as it is to understand the pro-choice tendency, there are people of good faith on both sides of the abortion question — but the fact that he arrived at that position so late in life and at a moment when his change of heart was politically convenient. Even if we assume that this was not simple cowardly political calculation, as in the matter of Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama’s evolving views on gay marriage, the situation must give us pause: If a man hasn’t figured out what he believes about abortion by the age of 50 — after having been a father, a governor, a business leader, and an influential figure in an important religious congregation — it may be the case that he is not ready for the responsibilities of the presidency.

Donald Trump is looking at 70 candles on his next birthday cake, and his mind is, when it comes to the issues relevant to a Republican presidential candidate, unsettled.

If you are looking for a good reason to quit the Republican party (as I did some years ago), you can start with the company you are obliged to keep in the GOP: At the moment, about one in five Republicans are rallying to the daft banner of Donald Trump, heir to a splendid real-estate fortune and reality-show grotesque, who is a longtime supporter of, among other Democratic potentates, Hillary Rodham Clinton, who remains, for the moment, the candidate against whom the Republican nominee presumably will run. (Herself’s struggles are for the moment only an amusement, though they may someday prove to be serious.)

Trump has moved between the parties a number of times, but on the issues he is at home with the party of his good friend Chuck Schumer: He is pro-abortion, he has proposed punitive taxes on the wealthy, he favors a Canadian-style government health-care monopoly, etc. A lifelong crony capitalist, he is an enthusiastic partisan of the thieving Kelo regime, under which government can seize private property in the name of “economic development” — for instance, throwing retirees out of their paid-for homes to make room for a casino-hotel with a large “T” on the façade. Until the day before yesterday, he took an indulgent view toward normalizing the status of illegal immigrants, perhaps mindful of the fact that Trump Tower was built in part by illegal-immigrant labor and that one of his associates was in fact jailed over the matter.

For the moment, Trump’s leading critic in the Republican field is former Texas governor Rick Perry, whose most famous public utterance is “Oops!” but who is Cicero next to Trump, Hyperion to a satyr. That Trump and Perry are received roughly as equals on the national stage is absurd, but politics thrives on absurdity. Perry has, to put it plainly, the best record of any modern American governor. Trump has celebrity and a knack for getting out in front of a parade, in this case ghoulishly grandstanding upon the corpse of Kathryn Steinle, a telegenic young white woman who was murdered by Francisco Sanchez, a Mexican illegal who had been deported five times and who apparently used a gun belonging to a federal agent in the killing. Trump has not offered even the outline of a serious program for stanching the flow of illegal immigrants, but he makes authoritative grunting sounds in the general direction of the southern border, which apparently is sufficient for one in five Republican voters. While the border crisis is indeed a national emergency, Trump makes it less likely rather than more likely that the federal power will be roused to do its duty, a fact to which Trump’s camp apparently is indifferent. It has fallen to the newly professorial Perry to instruct these idiot children, while the other candidate from Texas, Senator Ted Cruz, has mainly engaged in a sad me-too appeal to the Trump element. The contrast is telling, and is a reminder that Senator Cruz, for all his many attractive qualities, is a tyro.

Trump has moved between the parties a number of times, but on the issues he is at home with the party of his good friend Chuck Schumer.

The Trumpkins insist that this isn’t about Trump but about the perfidious Republican establishment, which is insufficiently committed to the conservative project. Fair enough. But what of Trump’s commitment? Being at the precipice of his eighth decade walking this good green earth, Trump has had a good long while to establish himself as a leader on — something. He isn’t a full-spectrum conservative, but he seems to have conservative-ish instincts on a few issues. What has he done with them? There are many modes of leadership available to the adventurous billionaire: Sheldon Adelson, the casino magnate who is the less famous and more competent version of Trump, is directly involved in campaigns, while Charles and David Koch have engaged in electoral politics and done the long-term (and probably more consequential) work of nurturing a stable of institutions dedicated to advancing the cause of liberty, and Bill Gates has put his billions behind his priorities. Trump has made some political donations — to Herself, to Harry Reid, to Nancy Pelosi, to Schumer — and his defense is that these were purely self-serving acts of influence-purchasing rather than expressions of genuine principle. There is no corpus of Trump work on any issue of any significance; on his keystone issue, illegal immigration, he has not even managed to deliver a substantive speech, a deficiency no doubt rooted in his revealed inability to voice a complete sentence.

Donald Trump, who inherited a real-estate empire worth hundreds of millions of dollars from his father, has had every opportunity to involve himself in the consequential questions of his time. He has been a very public figure for decades, with a great deal of time, money, celebrity, business connections, and other resources to put in the service of something that matters. Seventy years in, and his curriculum vitae is remarkably light on public issues for a man who would be president. One would think that a life spent in public might inspire at least a smidgen of concern about the wide world. He might have had any sort of life he chose, and Trump chose a clown’s life. There is no shortage of opportunities for engagement, but there is only one thing that matters to Trump, and his presidential campaign, like everything else he has done in his seven decades, serves only that end.

[Levan Ramishvili]

The Meanings of TrumpLooking for explanations for the Donald's rise.

by By Ross Douthat

When Donald Trump spoke so, well, Trump-ishly about John McCain’s military service a little over week ago, it occurred to me that the entire trajectory of his campaign, a whole cycle of boom and bust, might be contained within the weeks I took off from my column, and that I could return to work and simply never mention him at all. And then even though I’m officially back at the grindstone now, I had a similar thought reading his lawyer’s very, well, Trump-ish rantings about marital rape and the Donald’s pastyesterday … perhaps, I thought, the implosion would come before I could even finish up this post.

But I don’t think I’m going to get off that easily. No matter if his poll numbers crater eventually, Trump shown enough resilience that for now, attention must be paid.

And with attention has to come a concession: That I may have underestimated the Donald in the past. The last time I wrote about Trump, he was bestowing his endorsement upon a distinctly-uncomfortable looking Mitt Romney during the 2012 campaign — a photo-op that I rather piously argued was completely unnecessary for Mitt, since Trump’s fan base didn’t amount to a real political constituency, and his rumblings about throwing his hat into the ring as a third-party spoiler were “like his birther bluster – sound and fury, signifying only ego.”

Would I stand by that analysis today? Well … at the very least I’d hedge my bets. Trump isn’t going to get 25 percent of the GOP primary vote, or 25 percent of the general election vote as a third party candidate. But his surge is driven by real public interest, not just media fascination, and the amount of fun he’s having makes my “no possibility whatsoever” assessment of a third party scenario seem a bit too negative. And while a polling surge right now may be meaningless as a predictor of actual primary outcomes, that doesn’t mean that we can’t entertain theories about what to make of Trumpism as a political phenomenon — because a phenomenonit certainly is.

So here are several of those theories:

1) It’s all about immigration. Mickey Kaus had some fun last week with pundits who keep abstracting a vague anti-establishment message from Trump’s very specific focus on illegal immigration. And he’s right that the Donald’s immigration positioning is probably the sine qua non of his recent surge, since it’s been the source of most of the (attention-generating) controversy, and it’s also the place on the policy map where right-leaning Americans, G.O.P. and independent, have good reasons to trust almost none of the other candidates lining up and asking for their votes.

But at the same time, single-issue immigration candidates don’t usually surge to the front of presidential polls (there was never a Tom Tancredo boomlet, for instance). So while giving that issue it’s due, it isn’t unreasonable to try to look for a bigger picture to the Trump ascendancy. And one such picture might be that …

2) It’s about Perot-ism. This is Matt Continetti’s contribution, in a fine column: He points out that the broad shape of Trump’s campaign — not only the immigration posture but the economic nationalism, the defenses of “earned” entitlements, the Mr. Fix-It promises about D.C. dysfunction, the strictly secondary roles for supply-side economics and social issues and other elements of traditional right-wingery — fits pretty well with the profile of Perotism, and with the priorities and biases of the “radical middle” voters whom Perot famously rallied in 1992.

This analogy is complicated but not undercut by the fact that Perot took a lot of potential Bill Clinton voters whereas Trump seems poised to mostly hurt the G.O.P. nominee: Given that white voters have trended rightward since the early 1990s, you would expect a contemporary version of the Perot coalition to combine weakly-attached G.O.P. voters with some of disaffected whites who either voted reluctantly for Obama or stayed home rather than vote for Romney. There was a crunchy, Nader-ish part of the Perot vote, admittedly, for whom Trump probably has no appeal. But overall, as Matt Yglesias notes, Trumpism right now is basically the opposite of the Unity ’08/Bloombergist vision for a third party campaign, which plants it squarely Perot’s populist territory and the broader soil in which most major third party runs have flourished. Which is why, in turn, it’s reasonable for the G.O.P. to be a little bit nervous about that possibility.

Except that maybe the Republicans only have themselves to blame, because …

3) It’s about a hypercautious Republican field. This is Dan McCarthy’s argument: He notes that the Republican primary ballot has a lot of potentially-interesting contenders who keep shying away from drawing stark contrasts with one another, even when (as with Rand Paul and Marco Rubio) they would seem capable of presenting very different visions for the party. As a result, the many voters who sense that the G.O.P. needs to be dramatically shaken up haven’t found anyone or anything to get excited about (the various factions, libertarian and social conservative and Tea Partier, aren’t producing it either), which “leaves room for an outsize, outrageous personality, in this case Trump, to grab attention.”

I think this is partially unfair to the G.O.P. field, which seemed pretty interesting to a lot of people just a little while ago. But McCarthy is getting at something real: There’s been interesting stuff going on in the second tier, with Kasich and Perry and Fiorina and Huckabee, but it has seemed like in the absence of a clear frontrunner, or with the weakness of Jeb as a possible candidate for that role, a lot of major candidates (including Rubio and Walker, and also the underperforming Rand) have decided to basically present themselves as frontrunners-in-waiting, straddling many different identities and policies and keeping their freak flags at half mast, rather than running explicitly as insurgents and taking the risks that come with that role. (Hence Rubio’s all-things-to-all-factions tax plan; hence Walker’s ongoing policy vagueness; hence Paul’s ongoing attempts to finesse his differences with the party’s hawks; etc.)

And when so many talented politicians are trying to be blander and safer than they actually are, it gets a lot easier for someone who’s the opposite of bland and safe to start peeling away those voters — not the majority, but enough — who want to vote for a bull in a china shop instead.

Which brings us to what, exactly, those voters might be thinking …

4) It’s about a populist Republican base that’s once again fed up with its leadership. You can read Jay Cost’s Tweetstorm on this subject, or you can tease similar implications out of Ben Domenech’s piece on the state of the G.O.P. They’re both making the point that since the government shutdown exposed the limits of the “no” caucus in the House and the Senate elections elevated Mitch McConnell, there’s been a return to, well, business as usual in both bodies, in which much is promised to conservatives and little delivered, and the leadership’s priorities, on display just this week in the highway bill machinations, are pure K Street with barely a fig leaf of Tea Party conservatism overlaid. Then throw in the sense that Obama has been winning a series of victories, foreign domestic, in what’s supposed to be his lame duck period, and you have a climate that’s clearly ripe for some sort of right-wing populist discontent.

But still — to explain why it’s Trump instead of Cruz (who’s the one actually fighting with McConnell and Co. over their dealmaking) benefiting from this discontent, you still need some other variables besides conservative ideology. One might be the lure of pure ressentiment, pure policy-free anger; that’s what a lot of liberal analysts see when they look at Trumpism, it’s certainly visible (with, perhaps, a touch of cynicism worked in?) in the talk radio tendencyto rally around the Donald, and definitely visible among certain Trumpistas on Twitter.

But the Donald’s poll numbers don’t support this narrative fully: His support is spread out across different factions, independent as well as loyal G.O.P., and not obviously concentrated on the Republican Party’s rightward fringe. Which tends to confirm the Perotista idea, and also to suggest a final possibility …

5) It’s about liberation. This Onion piece, faux-written by Trump (“Admit It: You People Want To See How Far This Goes, Don’t You?”) gets at part of what I mean here; so does this Jesse Walker piece comparing the Trump candidacy to the campaigns of Norman Mailer and WFB and Hunter S. Thompson and others. Yes, of course Trump is feeding off and into toxic currents, but at the same time there’s something that’s joyfully ridiculous about his candidacy, to which people alienated from the political process might be particularly inclined to respond. He’s an actual Bulworth: Who knows what he’ll say? Who knows what he’ll do? Who knows where he’ll go? Who knows whose cell phone number he’ll give out next?

These are not questions we associate with most presidential campaigns, the populist insurgencies included. Even when the candidates are clearly trying to treat their candidacies as a lark, a stunt, a thrill, a sweater vest and a prayer, you know they’re still professional politicians and that there will be a fairly predictable pattern to the way they run and what kinds of things they say along the way.

But with Trump you have someone who is well and truly winging it, who isn’t just trying to play the anti-politician but actually deserves that label. And because of that identity, he gets to play, not the holy fool (because he is, in the end, a terrible person), but a kind of unholy version of the same. By which I mean that while you can accuse Trump of offering a farrago of nonsense, swagger, and paranoia, the one thing you can’t accuse him of is the partisan special pleading that deforms most anti-establishment populisms on the left and right. Ask him about the Iraq disaster, say, or the financial crisis, and you certainly don’t get brilliant insights, but you also don’t get an ideologically-correct answer about who’s to blame or what we should have done. You get instead, a real plague-on-both-their-houses attitude, which seems like an understandable response in this long era of elite failure, but which was mostly just channeled into Obamamania, Tea Party fervor or simple disaffection over the last few cycles, instead of giving us something further outside the normal partisan boxes.

Now that something further-out has quite possibly arrived. I don’t know if people will continue to find it attractive as all the endless skeletons spill out, and I don’t know if Trump will continue to find campaigning fun once that happens and his poll numbers inevitably drop a bit. If you forced me to predict, I’d bet on him sinking back to 10 percent pretty quickly; I’d bet against his running as an independent; and if he did go third party I’d bet on a Naderesque performance rather than a Perot-scale 10-20 percent. In the end, I just think his fundamental absurdity would make it hard for him to hold on to that much support amid the pushmi-pullyu forces of general-election polarization.

But as the long list of theories above suggests, we’re all still a little ways away from fully understanding the Trumph phenomenon, and that means that it’s unwise to bet too heavily on any specific endgame here. He won’t be in the White House in 2017, but exactly how and when he finishes the race seems a greater mystery than I expected when he joined.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Jumping Trump’s Train

Mickey Kaus

Rupert Murdoch has divined the real meaning behind Trump’s populist surge — it really reflectsfrustration with “endless regulations over people’s lives.” (“Thought this was Rand Paul’s issue,” Murdoch adds, helpfully.) Salena Zito knows that Trump himself is not important — what’s important is how his campaign reflects a transpartisan “skepticism about everything related to government,” an angry reaction against “incompetency” at the V.A., O.P.M. and F.B.I.. Ron Fournier reports that Trump’s popularity is really … well, some sort of Ron Fournierist outrage at everyone:

America’s ruling duopoly, long corrupted by lobbyists and donors, clinging to government institutions that work for party interests rather than for an e-connected populace buffeted by change,

OK! That about covers it. Note that none of these probing analysts even mentions the issue Trump’s most conspicuously campaigned on: immigration. It’s all about the issues they care about. Funny how that happens. Mike Kinsley used to call this the Howell Raines Fallacy — the assumption that “the great and good American people of course agree with me.” Especially when they’re angry! (Has E.J. Dionne written his version yet — the one about how Trump voters are really furious because the GOP Congress is obstructing Obamacare and neglecting the nation’s crumbling infrastructure? If he hasn’t, it’s coming soon.)

Only Dem blogger Greg Sargent of WaPo seems willing to even entertain the possibility that Trump gets his support from people who actually agree with him on the main issue he’s talked about. It can’t be that simple. …

[Levan Ramishvili]

Jay Cost Explains Trump and why GOP leadership is handling it wrong

1.    A few Twitterific thoughts on The Donald. His surge is a consequence of the principal-agent problem in the Republican party today.

2.    GOP voters (the principals) simply do not believe party leadership (the agents). They are not wrong in this regard.

3.    Party leaders overpromised to get elected in 2010 & 2014. Moreover, congressional GOPers are practitioners of interest-group liberalism.

4.    GOP voters might not know specific details, but they're aware of this, and don't trust leaders any more.

5.    This is a big reason why the party's fav/unfav #'s are worse than the Dems. It's GOPers who are giving negative read-outs.

6.    This creates a vacuum because the voters- by definition- are not leaders. Somebody has to fill that role. Enter Trump.

7.    While he is irresponsible and buffoonish, he is nevertheless filling a role that the current leadership class has failed to do.

8.    If the party leaders want to deal with Trump, they should take away the DEMAND for him...by doing what they say they'll do.

9.    I'm thinking of things like Ex-Im, highway pork, immigration. The list is long. 9/

10. Sure, GOP leaders want to prove they can govern responsibly (e.g. not shutdowns). But interest-group liberalism ≠ responsibility.

11. It also cuts directly against the promises they make every two years to win election in the first place.

12. They might also do themselves well by NOT referring to 20-30% of their own voters as "the crazies." Just as a for instance.

13. I really disliked Trump's comment about McCain, but McCain's comment about GOP base wrankles. THEY WERE HIS MOST LOYAL VOTERS in '08.

 

[Levan Ramishvili]

Trumpism would be the perfect ideology for a third party

by Matthew Yglesias

The past few weeks have revealed what a successful third party might look like in American politics. Not the milquetoast, deficit-cutting third party of elder statesmen's dreams but something very different.

A third party that makes waves in American politics would look a lot like Donald Trump (an idea even Trump has been hinting at lately).

Well, not the man himself, probably, since his persona is a little too ridiculous for the big time — but his ideas. Ideas that, if read with a modicum of generosity, sound like the sketch of a possible party platform.

Indeed, Trumpism is what a third party would have to sound like to get traction in America — a grab bag of issue positions that appeal to a substantial minority of the electorate but that neither party wants to wholeheartedly embrace because the ideas are too toxic in the elite circles that fund campaigns. But a Trump-like figure can run a national campaign on a Trump-like agenda since he's rich enough to fund himself.

Like Unity '08, but the opposite

When big shots in the worlds of politics, business, and media muse about alternatives to partisan politics, they tend to come up with an agenda cherry-picked from the establishment wings of both parties — an agenda that adds up to a globalization-oriented, business-friendly platform watered down with light dollops of concern for the indigent, the global poor, and the environment.

The politics of former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg — not coincidently, a man who was simultaneously a titan of business, politics, and the media — are an excellent template. He was liberalish on social issues but deferential to the police and armed forces; open to tax hikes to reduce the deficit and to government spending on infrastructure and basic research but fundamentally skeptical of the welfare state; friendly to the aims of environmental groups but hostile in practice to noisy green activists; disdainful of labor unions (especially in the public sector) but admiring of immigrants.

These were also the politics of the Simpson-Bowles Commission and its fabled "grand bargain" on long-term deficit reduction. Before that they were the politics of No Labels and Unity '08, two brainchildren of graybeard politicians and semi-high-minded political consultants who wanted to heal partisan wounds by having elites join hands across the aisle.

Trumpism is like the opposite of that. And with good reason. It consists of ideas that are endorsed by substantial blocs of the electorate but that lack representation in high-level US politics.

Bloombergism is precisely backward. It makes for fun elite discussion because it is popular among elites. But precisely because it is so popular among elites, both parties' agendas already bear its fingerprints, and the space for it to power a third party is limited.

Economic nationalism is a vote-getter

Recently, Donald Trump's main theme has been the evils of immigration, especially from Mexico. In this, he speaks for the nearly 40 percent of people who tell pollsters there are too many immigrants in America.

Gallup

For such a widely held view, "we should reduce immigration levels" attracts surprisingly little attention in big-time politics. Prominent Democrats almost unanimously endorse more lenient treatment of people who've already immigrated to the United States without legal permission, and they are joined by many prominent Republicans — including the party's 2008 nominee, John McCain, and current frontrunner Jeb Bush. Even conservative stalwart Scott Walker is dogged by stories in which wonks or donors say he privately favors reform.

Similarly, polls show that huge swaths of the electorate believe free trade agreements reduce Americans' wages, kill jobs, and even slow economic growth.

Polling Report

But though these concerns are shared by most congressional Democrats, every president — and virtually every major party nominee — for generations has been a proponent of free trade agreements.

Trump, however, has warned that the Trans-Pacific Partnership will "send even more jobs overseas," and favors steep tariffs on imports from China, Mexico, and other countries.

Welfare for the elderly

Trump is nominally positioned as a kind of conservative Republican, but as arecent Republican leadership summit in New Hampshire, Trump criticized other Republicans — including Chris Christie, Scott Walker, and Jeb Bush — who want to "do a big number" on Social Security and Medicare. Trump objected to cutting those programs, saying, "It’s not fair to the people that have been paying in for years."

Trump instead suggests that by minimizing outsourcing and increasing the number of American jobs, the budget issue with Medicare would "take care of itself."

Here, too, Trump is in sync with the voters who love expensive retirement programs for the elderly even while remaining somewhat skeptical of means-tested social assistance programs for the poor.

But the Trump worldview isn't just a grab bag of popular issues. It holds together. Political scientists Donald Kinder and Cindy Kam have shown that Medicare and Social Security are more popular among highly "ethnocentric" white voters, while anti-poverty spending is less popular among this demographic. Those "ethnocentric" whites are precisely the ones who are most hostile to immigrants and likely the ones who are most friendly to the anti-Obama "birther" messages that made Trump a political sensation in the first place.

Trumpism needs a rich candidate

Of course, this confluence of popular positions hasn't gone underexploited in American politics for no reason. It punches beneath its weight in the national discourse for the exact same reason that Bloombergism punches above its weight — money.

To get ahead in American politics you need to appeal to donors as well as to voters, and the constituency for conservatism minus entitlement cuts and free trade while doubling down on racism and xenophobia does not include a ton of rich people.

Which is to say that what Trumpism needs to be politically viable is exactly what Trump can offer — a self-financed campaign driven more by egomania and lust for the spotlight than any concrete notion of economic advantage. Trump himself is probably too much of a clown to capitalize on the potential appeal of his agenda over the long term. But a Trump-like figure with more of a conventional reputation as a businessman could find himself in a position to garner significant support as a self-financed third-party candidate. And while there's no precedent for a third-party contender actually winning a presidential race, there's ample precedent for independent bids altering the course of American politics by inducing one or the other of the major parties to co-opt its agenda.

In other words, Trump is a bit of a joke. But Trumpism could be a big deal.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Trump Slams Jeb, Praises Putin in Extensive Interview with Bill O’Reilly

When Senators Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Marco Rubio each made their respective 2016 presidential campaign announcements, they immediately sat down for interviews with Fox News’ Sean Hannity.Donald Trump has decided to go a different route, giving his primetime Fox interview to Bill O’Reilly.

Yes, tonight’s O’Reilly Factor will feature an extensive interview with Trump that is expected to cover a wide variety of topics. And, according to some advance excerpts provided by Fox, Trump is holding nothing back.

Trump has nothing nice to say about any of his fellow 2016 candidates, whether they are on the left or right side of the political spectrum.

“Well I don’t have a lot of respect for many of them, but yes I do a couple,” Trump said of the 2016 field, without naming any names. “But I will tell you I’ve been dealing with politicians all my life. They are all talk, no action.”

On Jeb Bush specifically, Trump added, “I’m not a big fan of Jeb Bush. The last thing we need is another Bush.”

As for Hillary Clinton, Trump said he laughs when he sees her talk about income inequality. “That can be beaten. That can be beaten. All you have to do is take a look at her donor list,” he said, admitting that he could lose the general election for attacking her as a woman. “Maybe I don’t win for that reason,” he said. “But maybe I do.”

But while Trump had plenty of negative things to say about the Americans he is running against, he was surprisingly genial on the topic of Russia President Vladimir Putin.

“Putin has no respect for our president whatsoever. He’s got a tremendous popularity in Russia, they love what he’s doing, they love what he represents,” Trump said. “I was over in Moscow two years ago and I will tell you – you can get along with those people and get along with them well. You can make deals with those people. Obama can’t.”

“I would be willing to bet I would have a great relationship with Putin,” he added. “It’s about leadership.”

Finally, Trump laid out his unique plan to defeat ISIS. “I say that you can defeat ISIS by taking their wealth,” he said. “Take back the oil. Once you go over and take back that oil they have nothing. You bomb the hell out of them and then you encircle it, and then you go in. And you let Mobil go in, and you let our great oil companies go in. Once you take that oil they have nothing left.”

“I would hit them so hard,” he continued. “I would find you a proper general, I would find the Patton or MacArthur I would hit them so hard your head would spin.”

“There’s nobody bigger or better at the military than I am,” Trump declared with typical understatement.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Thoughts on Trump

by Roger Kimball 

Here in the desert fastness of Santa Fe, the air is thin and Donald Trump seems very far away. I have been partly amused, partly alarmed, by the frenzied cataract of abuse Republicans have heaped upon the Donald. Just a few weeks ago, he was merely an annoyance, entertaining if you like bluster, but certainly not serious.  Then he made his remarks about John McCain not being a war hero, or at least, not the sort of war hero he, D. Trump, really likes.  I was at a dinner party the day Trump made that remark and was assured by a prominent pundit that Trump was now finished and good riddance. That hasn’t happened yet. In fact, Trump seems to keep rising in the polls. Today’sRealClearPolitics’s running average has Trump at  18.2 with someone named Bush a fairly distant second at 13.7. At this point in the game, that  same pundit assured us assembled serious thinkers, polls don’t matter. So we can discount the numbers.

Or can we?  The late, not-really-lamented Spy magazine used to described Trump as a “short-fingered vulgarian,” which seems about right.  What, when you come right down to it, does the man stand for?  What does he believe?  As Kevin Williamson has tactfully pointed out, we don’t really know. Trump has supported and indeed donated to Hillary. He is pro abortion.  He was, judging by his actions, pro-illegal immigration until, fifteen minutes ago, he was against.  He is good friends with Chuck Schumer.  And he sees nothing wrong with Kelo-like deicsions enabling the state to confiscate private property for (just to take a random example) Casino’s emblazoned with large gilded Ts.

No, Donald Trump is, as Kevin remarks, a clown.  But here are two things to bear in mind.  First of all, the wave Trump is riding will probably help Jeb Bush more than anyone.  As the Serious People who actually choose our political leaders contemplate the Trump phenomenon and panic, they are likely to do what they did with Bob Dole and cluster round the most anodyne, least threatening candidate, and that means Jeb, who is clearly the Establishment’s choice. (Headline in today’s Wall Street Journal: “Bush Drawing Big Bucks From GOP Establishment.”) As I have said before, I would rue a Bush candidacy, and indeed a Bush Presidency.  For one thing, two men from the same family in a quarter century is enough. For another, Bush is wet. Even assuming he won, he would merely keep the seat of the Presidenecy warm for the next left-wing Democrat would would embark anew on the process of dismantling the capitalist, freedom-loving principles that made the United States a beacon to the world.

[Levan Ramishvili]

The Trump campaign trademarked ‘Trumpocrat’

Donald Trump and his satellite family members/organizations/businesses have, over the years, owned a really impressive number of trademarks. He owned "The Board Room," which was a trademark for reality television shows. "The Art of the Travel Deal," which appeared to be an online travel agency. "Miss Photogenic Teen USA," which is self-explanatory. It was owned through Miss Universe, which is a trademark he also owns.

He trademarked "Westchester" (art prints, puzzles and letter openers), "Fakefest" (!) (a music festival) and "Tobacco Road" (entertainment services). And of course, all manner of "Trump _____" marks: Trump Steaks, Trump Money, Trump Records, Trump D'Elegance (an auto show), Purely Trump (a water) and Tour de Trump, which was a bike race.

A lot of the trademarks are now "dead" in the jargon of the Patent and Trademark Office, meaning that they are no longer recognized by the agency. The two greatest dead Trump trademarks, though, are these two.

Yes, that's right. Earlier this year, "Trump for President, LLC" trademarked "Trumpocrat" and "Trumpublican." The possible uses included "salt and pepper shakers; posters; shirts; ties; cufflinks; colognes; chocolate; nameplates; key rings; eye wear; playing cards; surfboards; editions of automobiles" and more. Colognes! "What's that captivating scent?" "It's 'Trumpocrat,' the new fragrance for Trump-voting Democrats."

We will note that, although it doesn't yet show up in the PTO's database (searchable here), Trump told an interviewer this week that he has also trademarked "Make America Great Again." We know at least one product that will bear that mark.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Trump in River CityDonald Trump is the Prof. Harold Hill of the presidential election.
DANIEL HENNINGER

In “The Music Man,” Meredith Willson’s great musical, super salesman Harold Hill talks the townspeople of River City, Iowa, into buying trombones, bassoons and drums to form a boys’ band. Then, after the people of River City have committed belief and money to him, he’ll skip town.

Donald Trump is America’s Music Man, and the United States is his River City. Unlike the original, the Trump version isn’t going to have a happy ending.

Like Professor Harold Hill, Donald Trump must know it’s all a fabulous scam. How else to explain that on June 4—just before his presidential announcement—the Donald came to Mason City, Iowa, Meredith Willson’s hometown and the model for River City. And where did Donald Trump address Mason City’s locals? In Music Man Square.

Here’s the Washington Post reporting on the Trump visit to the border at Laredo, Texas: “During a whirlwind visit . . . Trump blazed around in a presidential-style motorcade that included seven SUVs and even more police cars. Local officers blocked off roads, including Interstate 35, for Trump’s entourage.”

From “The Music Man”: “I don’t know how he does it, but he lives like a king, and he dallies and he gathers, and he plucks and he shines and when the man dances . . . the Piper pays him.”

Like Harold Hill, Donald Trump believes he can say anything and get away with it.

He said Mexico has an inferior culture, and later claimed that he’d win the Hispanic vote.

What he said about John McCain should have barred him from public life, but the Donald’s enthusiasts said it was no big deal.

On the “Hannity” show Monday night he attacked Scott Walker —for not raising taxes. “I looked into Wisconsin,” Mr. Trump said. “Their roads are a disaster, they don’t want to spend any money on roads because he doesn’t want to raise taxes.” He accused the Wisconsin governor of being “divisive, because everyone there is fighting with each other.”

So the Donald would have raised taxes on the people of Wisconsin, and he thinks the Republican governor who defeated the public unions and survived a recall election is “divisive.” No matter. The people of River City are desperate to believe, and so the man who wrote “The Art of the Deal” is leading in the national polls.

Is anything going on here other than clinical egomania?

Yes, and it’s no laughing matter.

The American anxieties Donald Trump has tapped into are real and rational. It is not the Mexican border. It’s what everyone in politics, including Hillary Clinton, knows has been the No. 1 concern of the American people for years: the U.S.’s underachieving economy.

The stark reality of the nation’s growth numbers could not be more clear. The U.S.’s average postwar growth rate is 3.3%, and has often been higher. Across the entire 61/2 years of the Obama presidency it has been about 2%, and often lower. The result is a populace that is becoming resentful, surly and anxious for a way out.

Fewer than 30% think the country is on the right track, according to the Real Clear Politics polling average. A highly cited Wall Street Journal/NBC poll last year found that 76% of adults doubt their children will have a better life than they do. The Great Recession ended in June 2009, six years ago; in May, a Fox News poll found that 60% of registered voters think we are still in a recession.

The labor-force participation rate, 62.6% last month, is at its lowest level in 38 years. In human terms, 432,000 people dropped out of the workforce in June, and nearly two million are called “marginally attached to the labor force” by the government. Why shouldn’t people think we’re still in a recession?

After his 2009 economic stimulus of $831 billion produced so little, Barack Obama off-loaded responsibility for the economy to the Federal Reserve, which has repeatedly overstated its growth projections. For much of the private economy, the Obama presidency has been almost seven years of “Survivor.”

Some conservatives believe the “Celebrity Apprentice” ringmaster has revived an inchoate “radical middle,” upset over “what the country has become.” If so, that’s just one more symptom of the core problem. During America’s dynamic, upward-moving economies of the 1950s, ’60s, ’80s or ’90s, no one whined about what the country had become. They banked it and led happy lives.

Other Trumpified conservatives argue that Ronald Reagan’s economic solutions to Jimmy Carter’s malaise are now irrelevant, which opens the door to Mr. Trump’s shapeless populism.

Here is what Reagan’s tax and regulatory policies produced from 1982-89: an economy that grew by a third and a standard of living, as measured by real disposable income, that grew by 20%. Sounds relevant to me.

Donald Trump’s one idea to reverse America’s Obama-driven descent into a chronically flaccid economic existence is that he would “force” Mexico to erect a fence. While Hillary Clinton this week proposed building a half-billion solar panels. The good people of River City deserve better.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Why They Like Him

The Republicans’ principal-agent problem.

Jay Cost

August 10, 2015, Vol. 20, No. 45

Donald Trump is not going to be the next nominee of the Republican party. The flamboyant businessman has made billions in real estate, but politics is another matter. He manifestly lacks the temperament to be president, and his conversion to the Republican party is of recent vintage. As the field narrows, and voters look closely at the other candidates, Trump will fade.

Still, the Trump surge should remind Republican politicians of a truth they may prefer to forget: Their voters do not like them anymore. Tune out Trump’s bombast and what’s left is a simple, compelling message to the Republican base: The rest of your party has been bought and paid for, but I’m my own man, and I’ll actually represent you.

All else being equal, it is surprising this message should resonate. For a party that does not control the White House, the GOP is in incredibly strong shape. Tallying up the state legislative, gubernatorial, and congressional seats, Republicans are as strong as they have been since the 1920s. History suggests that the GOP should win the White House, too: The Democrats are going for a historically rare third consecutive term; the incumbent president’s approval is weak; and their presumptive nominee has acute ethical problems.

Yet the Republican party’s approval rating is abysmal, hovering in the mid-30s. A party only hits such a low when its own supporters are disenchanted with it. The polling weakness squares with what one gleans listening to talk radio and reading right-wing websites. There is widespread distrust of the GOP among the most energetic and engaged conservatives.

And why should they trust this party? To win majorities in 2010 and 2014, congressional Republicans grossly overstated what they could accomplish so long as Barack Obama is president. Before the 2010 midterm, Mike Pence, at the time chairman of the House Republican Caucus, told Sean Hannity: 

What I’ve said is there will be no compromise on ending this era of runaway spending, deficits, and debt. No compromise on repealing Obama­care lock, stock, and barrel. No compromise on defending the broad mainstream values of the American people in the way we spend the people’s money at home and abroad. On issues that go straight to principle and straight to the concern the American people have on spending and taxes and values, there’ll be no compromise.

But, of course, there has been “compromise” on Obamacare. There had to be! Ours is not a parliamentary system, but a separation-of-powers regime in which the president retains substantial authority to block legislative action. Suggesting otherwise to voters, as Pence (and other senior Republicans) did, courts disenchantment.

Ditto the Senate. When, during the 2012 campaign, it looked like Republicans would take the upper chamber, Mitch McConnell suggested that Obamacare could be repealed through the budget reconciliation process, which requires just 51 votes. “The chief justice said it’s a tax. Taxes are clearly what we call reconcilable. That’s the kind of measure that can be pursued with 51 votes in the Senate,” he said. “If I’m the leader of the majority next year, I commit to the American people that the repeal of Obamacare will be job one.” Yet last year McConnell argued that it would take a filibuster-proof Senate majority to undo Obamacare. 

Since 2010, the actions of congressional Republicans have mostly fallen shy of campaign promises. From a short-term perspective, this may have been necessary. It is hard to mobilize your voters by saying, “Vote for me to stop the president from doing worse.” It is better to say, “Vote for me to roll back the president’s actions.” But over time this rhetorical overreach has facilitated a climate of distrust. Republican voters increasingly believe that their leaders, even if they had complete control of government, would not do half of what they promise on the campaign trail. 

The Republican party took control of Congress in 1994, but perhaps it is better to say that the opposite is true. Congress by that point was wholly immersed in what political scientist Theodore Lowi called “interest-group liberalism”: the systematic expansion of government at the behest of the interest groups that dominate the political process. For good-government conservatives, this system is doubly offensive because it expands government in a partial and unfair way.

While the Republican insurgents of the 104th Congress did a lot of good, they failed to demolish this regime. In many respects, they strengthened it. As Matt Continetti argues in The K Street Gang, Republican leaders wanted to build an insuperable majority by courting Beltway lobbyists that could lavish them with campaign cash. The 2006 midterm may have dashed that hope, but the congressional GOP is still deeply committed to interest-group liberalism. Look at the proliferation of earmarks, the cost of which increased 300 percent between 1995 and 2006; it was congressional Democrats that first put limits on them. Look at last year’s farm bill, which was a bloated payout to agribusinesses. Look at the new highway bill, which authorizes substantially more spending than the Highway Trust Fund can finance. Look at the Senate GOP’s support of the Export-Import Bank, despite the fact it is just corporate welfare.

Some of these issues are fairly deep in the policy weeds, so the average voter might not know the specifics. But there is no doubt that grassroots conservatives get the gist. Republicans have been promising since 1994 to reform government, soup to nuts. Twenty-one years later, Washington remains stubbornly unreformed. It does not take a Brookings white paper to figure out what has happened: Republicans in Congress did not follow through, even when they had complete control of government. And with a Democratic president, congressional Republicans still do far less than they could.

Then there is the hot-button issue of immigration, on which Trump has played up the wide divergence between the party’s base and leadership. The leadership, spurred by a panoply of interest groups, wants comprehensive reform that typically includes amnesty for illegal immigrants and an increase in legal immigration. Grassroots conservatives, meanwhile, are deeply concerned about the effect of massive immigration on wages, not to mention its downstream effects on the culture. Unlike the arcana of the farm bill, these are matters average Republicans grasp on an intuitive level, and they do not trust the leadership to serve their interests.

In economic terms, this is called a principal-agent problem. GOP voters (the principals) have empowered elected officials (the agents) to reduce and reform government, but the latter have not done so. Is it any wonder that a guy like the Donald can thrive in this situation? He is the perfect vehicle to express the deep frustration conservatives feel. Bombastic, brash, and indiscreet, he comes across as a straight-shooter who tells it like it is. After a generation of being misled by their leaders, many conservatives find this a breath of fresh air.

Of course, Trump is not what he claims to be. He is hardly a paragon of conservative virtue, having supported Democratic politicians and liberal causes until quite recently. And it is all well and good to be frustrated; it 
is quite another to do something about it. Trump would never get anything done, even if he could win a general election (which he can’t). His in-your-face style might work great on a reality TV show, but the Framers designed our system to thwart such bullies.

This is why principal-agent problems can be so dangerous. They create leadership vacuums that any two-bit demagogue may fill, to the detriment of everybody involved. In the case of Trump, his rise to the top of the heap has been an unfortunate time suck. The party is currently too distracted by the Donald to think about the big issues or determine which candidates are of presidential mettle. Worse, Trump is prone to saying outrageous things that needlessly alienate independent voters from conservatism.

It is fair to blame Trump’s supporters for this, at least in part, for they really should know better. There are a host of serious candidates who actually could upend the status quo in Washington, but they are lost amid Trump’s clown show. Still, there is a bigger point we must not miss: Donald Trump is not the Republican party’s real problem; he is a symptom of the problem. There is a generation-long climate of distrust between conservative voters and Republican politicians. Trump is simply taking advantage of this weakness.

Ultimately, the primary blame for Trump rests with the party’s leadership. If average conservatives really believed that the party would ever follow through on its campaign rhetoric, Trump would be an asterisk in the polls.

Jay Cost is a staff writer at The Weekly Standard and the author of A Republic No More: Big Government and the Rise of American Political Corruption.

[Levan Ramishvili]

What Voters See in Donald TrumpHis rise is not due to anger at government. It is a gesture of contempt for government.
By 

PEGGY NOONAN

I had a conversation this week with a longtime acquaintance who supports Donald Trump. She’s in her 60s, resides in north Georgia near the Tennessee line, lives on Social Security. She voted forBarack Obama in 2008 and was in fact the first person who alerted me to the breadth of his support. In 2012 she voted Republican, disappointed in Mr. Obama not from the left or the right but the center: He couldn’t make anything work or get anything done.

So, why Trump? “The whole country will be in better shape. And ISIS won’t like it that he’s in charge. He’s very wealthy and can turn around the economy. He’ll get things moving. The Donald will kick a—.” She knows other supporters locally and among friends of her son, an Iraq vet. “They’re completely disgusted and just furious, and he’s igniting their passion. He’s telling them ‘I will make this country great again,’ and they believe him.” Mr. Trump is dismissed as exciting, but “we have to get excited to get up out of the chair to vote.”

Does he strike her as a serious man, a patriot? Yes. “All he does is talk about how great this country is and how greater he can make it, how he wants to get good trade deals and take care of veterans. . . . He doesn’t need this job, he’s already got everything, it’s a pay cut. He doesn’t need the stature. I think he wants the job because he wants to do it.”

Does he have common sense? Yes, she says, he is concerned about what everyone is concerned about, except politicians. “A lot of deals have to be made and he knows the art of the deal. The biggest problem is all the illegal immigrants.”

Is it OK with you that the next president could be a reality star who plays the part of himself, who acts out indignation and fires people on TV? “It doesn’t bother me and it doesn’t bother the American people. And if you asked the people down South here, they don’t care either. They just want somebody in who’s plain and simple who can get the job done.” Otherwise, she worries, “we’re gonna be Greece in another four, five years.”

Does it bother her that Mr. Trump has never held elective office? She paused half a second. “It bothers me a little bit. But I think we need a very tough businessman with great business acumen. We can restore the highways and tunnels and airports, he’ll rebuild them. He’ll build a wall with Mexico. If he was a reality TV show guy that’s OK. Get it done.”

Afterward, a longtime GOP operative underlined her comments on infrastructure, but from a different angle: “Trump intuits that the Republican base loves this country and yearns for an American restoration. The GOP once was a party of industry—bricks and steel—and Trump, the builder, connects with that narrative.”

Some Trump anomalies that have to do with the tropes people use to categorize others:

He was born to wealth and went to Wharton, yet gives off a working-class vibe his supporters admire. He’s like Broderick Crawford in “Born Yesterday”: He comes across as self-made. In spite of his wealth he never made himself smooth, polite. He’s like someone you know. This is part of his power.

His father, a buyer and builder of real estate, was wired into New York’s Democratic machine and its grubby deal making. Donald knew the machine and its players and went on to give political donations based on power, not party. Yet his supporters experience him as outside the system, unsullied by it. He’s a practical man who did what practical men have to do.

He never served in the military yet connects with grunts. He has lived a life of the most rarefied material splendor—gold gilt, penthouse suites—and made the high life part of his brand. Yet he doesn’t come across as snooty or fancy—he’s a regular guy. A glitzy Manhattan billionaire is doing well with Evangelicals. That’s a first.

His rise is not due to his supporters’ anger at government. It is a gesture of contempt for government, for the men and women in Congress, the White House, the agencies. It is precisely because people have lost their awe for the presidency that they imagine Mr. Trump as a viable president. American political establishment, take note: In the past 20 years you have turned America into a nation a third of whose people would make Donald Trump their president. Look on your wonders and despair.

Mr. Trump’s supporters like that he doesn’t in the least fear the press, doesn’t get the dart-eyed, anxious look candidates get. He treats reporters with courtesy until he feels they’re out of line, at which point he calls them stupid. They think he’ll do that with Putin. His insult of John McCain didn’t hurt him, and not because his supporters have any animus for Mr. McCain. They just saw it as more proof Mr. Trump will take the bark off anyone.

They’re not nihilists, they’re patriots, and don’t experience themselves as off on a toot but pragmatic in a way the establishment is not. The country is in crisis, we can’t keep doing more of the same. “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” We have to do something different. He’s different. If it doesn’t work we’ll fire him.

Trump’s power is not name ID. He didn’t make his name in this cycle or the last, he’s been around 35 years. He’s made an impression.

His ideological incoherence will not hurt him. His core supporters don’t prize him for his intellectual consistency. He has called himself pro-choice but so are some of his supporters, and no one sees him as a ponderer of great moral issues. In the past he has described himself as “quite liberal” on health care. That won’t hurt either. An untold story right now is that everyone was “right” about health care. The Republicans were right that ObamaCare would not and will never work. Democrats—though they haven’t noticed because they’re so busy clinging to and defending ObamaCare—were right that America would support national health care, but not as they devised it. We’ll get out of ObamaCare by expanding Medicare. Most of America, after the trauma of the past five years, won’t mind.

The GOP is waiting for Mr. Trump to do himself in—he’s a self-puncturing balloon. True, but he’s a balloon held aloft by a lot of people; they won’t let it fall so easy.

The first GOP debate looms, next Thursday in Cleveland. If Mr. Trump were on the stage with the second tier, who have nothing to lose, one or two would go at him. But he’ll be with the first tier, who will treat him gingerly. A guess: He will come out with friendly dignity, shake hands, wait quietly for a question, attempt to demonstrate a statesmanlike bearing to anxious and opposed Republican viewers. But he won’t be able to sustain it. And his supporters won’t really want him to. They’ll want him to be The Donald. Bombast will commence.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Putin Would Eat President Trump for Lunch

293 JUL 31, 2015 3:40 PM EDT

By Leonid Bershidsky

Donald Trump keeps saying that, as president, he would have a good relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He's probably deluded: Putin doesn't make deals with brash, showy businessmen. He eats them for lunch.

In June, Trump told Fox News host Bill O'Reilly why he'd likely have a "great relationship" with the Russian leader. "He’s got a tremendous popularity in Russia, they love what he’s doing, they love what he represents," Trump said. "I was over in Moscow two years ago and I will tell you — you can get along with those people and get along with them well. You can make deals with those people. Obama can’t." 

At a golf tournament in Scotland this week, Trump reiterated: "I think I'd get along very well with Vladimir Putin. I just think so."

Perhaps as a result of this imaginary rapport between the billionaire and the ex-spy, American writers are tempted to compare Trump with Putin. "Doesn't Trump resemble an American Putin?" Jack Shafer wrote in Politico this week. "The two share nativist views, both seem to be head-over-heels narcissists, believe in a strong executive branch and think a day wasted if they haven’t bullied somebody. If Putin isn’t as germophobic as Trump, I’d be astonished." He added, "Maybe the best way to counter a madman in the Kremlin would be to put one in the White House?" 

The Washington Post did its own comparison, pointing out that Trump's unfavorable rating in the U.S. is about as high as Putin's. Even Trump himself was once manipulated into comparing himself with Putin -- and he showed uncharacteristic humility: "I've just heard for the first time that he has 40 planes and yachts and all that stuff, I mean, he has more than I do, that's some impressive list or stable that he's got."

No Russian, however, would find any basis for comparing the two men. Rather, Trump reminds me of two other Russians, neither of whom fared well under Putin. 

One is Yevgeny Chichvarkin, co-founder of the Yevroset chain of mobile phone shops. Like Trump, he is flamboyant and outspoken. Trump sold a line of rather tasteless clothes under his name until Macy's discontinued it earlier this month. Chichvarkin is famous for dressing like a pop star -- all loud colors and improbable cuts. Trump hosted "The Apprentice" on NBC; Chichvarkin was one of the five hosts of "Kapital" on Russia's TNT channel, judging   investment pitches from young entrepreneurs. Trump likes to curse, and so does Chichvarkin. 

In September 2008, it became clear to Chichvarkin that he would have to sell his business, by then the biggest mobile phone retailer in Russia, or face jail on shaky criminal charges. He sold out for an undisclosed but probably very low sum to Alexander Mamut, an intermediary with strong ties to the Kremlin. Then Chichvarkin took a shot at a political career, taking a top post in a small liberal party. Bad mistake. In December 2008, warned that police might be after him, he rode on the floor of a Moscow cab to avoid detection and fled to London. He says he will only return to Russia after the Putin regime falls.

The other Russian businessman who Trump somewhat resembles is Boris Berezovsky, a member of the first cohort of Russian oligarchs. A mathematician turned car dealer turned political operator, Berezovsky was a publicity-hungry megalomaniac inclined tooverstate his fortune. "I never make millions or tens of millions," he once said. "I only make billions." 

A worldly womanizer, Berezovsky believed that anything could be bought or sold. His close relationship to the family of former President Boris Yeltsin helped him become a legislator, a TV station owner and a senior government official. Berezovsky then claimed to have helped make Putin Yeltsin's successor. Soon after Putin became president, Berezovsky dared to criticize him over his handling of the separatist region of Chechnya. Prosecutors reopened an old criminal investigation of Berezovsky, who decided to remain in London. Eventually, he ran out of money; in 2013, he was found hanged in his bathroom.  The coroner failed to establish whether it was murder or suicide.

Chichvarkin and Berezovsky have something important in common apart from their resemblance to Trump. They lost their fortunes to the amorphous but deadly power of the state.

Topless photos and macho adventures aside, Putin is no showman. He's a colorless career bureaucrat with the steely core of a KGB man. The popularity he enjoys is nothing like stardom: It's a mixture of fear, love and submission. Putin doesn't do deals, as Trump does, or as Berezovsky and Chichvarkin once did, because he has never been a businessman. Putin is a man of the state. And the state can't be gamed or beaten. No deal is ever final until it takes its due. 

President Trump might believe for a time that he and Putin were getting along famously. President George W. Bush, who once said he had gained a sense of Putin's "soul," believed as much. Eventually, however, even Trump would come to understand that he was being mocked and manipulated, the Putin behavior that President Barack Obama can't stand. Trump's disappointment might produce an even more bitter confrontation than the one between Putin and Obama. 

[Levan Ramishvili]

TRUMPING

What happens when a reporter tries to take the GOP’s man of the moment seriously?

BY ANDY KROLL

AFEW WEEKS AGO, two of my editors ambushed me in the newsroom. Grinning mischievously, they said they had an urgent assignment for me: a story on Donald Trump. The magazine had planned to take the high road and ignore his presidential campaign, they explained, but the frenzy he had created and his strong standing in the polls were making the silent approach seem less noble than clueless. We had to say something fresh, something insightful about Trump—but what, and how?

Newsrooms everywhere appeared to be pondering the same question, with responses running the gamut from schizophrenic to cheeky to despairing. Earlier this year, CNN president Jeff Zucker instructed his producers to ignore Trump's antics as he publicly flirted yet again with the idea of running for president—but from the moment in mid-June when the billionaire officially jumped into the race, the network has covered his campaign as if it were a disappeared Malaysia Airlines flight. At Fox News, Rupert Murdoch was reportedly feuding with chairman and CEO Roger Ailes over the network's wall-to-wall Trump-tracking. By contrast, another leading voice of the Right, Glenn Beck's radio show, decided to become a Trump-free zone. "I just can't do another show about it," producer and guest host Stu Burguiere told listeners. 

Other outlets have tried more creative approaches. My former employer Mother Jones asked a kindergarten teacher to offer the other GOP contenders advice on dealing with a "Trump tantrum." The Huffington Postresponded to Trump's campaign-as-publicity-stunt with a stunt of its own, announcing that it would cover him under the "Entertainment" banner, rather than in the political section. "Trump's campaign is a sideshow," editorial director Danny Shea and Washington bureau chief Ryan Grim told their readers. "We won't take the bait. If you are interested in what The Donald has to say, you'll find it next to our stories on the Kardashians and The Bachelorette."

Here at National Journal magazine, we chased several different ideas before eventually settling on arguably the craziest of them all: If Trump wants us to take him seriously as a potential next president of the United States, well, then, we would endeavor to do just that. My task was to find out—if humanly possible—what Trump actually had in mind for the presidency. Who did he plan to listen to on policy, for instance, and how would he work with Congress? What did he hope to leave as a legacy after a term or two in the White House, beyond sealing up the border as tight as Tupperware? 

(RELATED: The Trump Conundrum)

For all the nonstop coverage his candidacy had attracted in its uproarious first weeks, those kinds of basic questions—basic, at least, for anyone seeking the presidency—had hardly even been asked, much less answered. But surely, we imagined, Trump had given them some thought, since he'd been regularly eyeing a run for higher office—president? governor of New York?—for decades. He had been, in a sense, the dog forever chasing the fire truck down the street. Now it seemed appropriate to ask: What actually happens if the dog catches the truck? 

BEFORE WE'D FIGURED out which angle to focus on, I set out to secure an audience with Trump. I grabbed a name and phone number from a press release on the Trump Organization's website ("DONALD TRUMP UNVEILS PHIL MICKELSON VILLA AT TRUMP NATIONAL DORAL"). A woman with a gentle voice named Hope Hicks answered. "I'm probably talking to the wrong person," I explained, "but I'm writing about Mr. Trump's presidential run and was trying to reach a spokesperson for his campaign." 

"That's me," Hicks replied. "I can help you." 

This seemed odd, but I pressed on and pitched an idea: I wanted to pose a series of straight-up questions to the man about what he plans to do as president. No B.S., no gotchas, no questions about the outrage of the day: These would be substantive queries about Trump's plans for the presidency. Hicks said she'd gauge Mr. Trump's interest and get back to me soon. For a brief moment I imagined myself sitting across from Trump under the now-iconic Trump Tower escalator, wearing my choicest off-the-rack Macy's suit. I thought maybe I'd buy a Donald J. Trump Signature Collection necktie for the occasion, if only to break the ice. 

Days passed with no response. The 24 / 7 drumbeat of Trump "news" continued apace: Sen. John McCain had angered Trump, which led to Trump insulting McCain, which led to Sen. Lindsey Graham calling Trump a "jackass," which led to Trump giving out Graham's personal cell-phone number at a campaign rally carried live on national TV. The afternoon that happened, I reached Hicks again to ask about my interview request. With Twitter, TV, and the blogs all ablaze over the Trump-Graham-McCain feud, I noted that she was surely being besieged with calls and emails. "I feel great," she told me. "I just woke up from a nap." 

In a subsequent call, Hicks said, "The campaign won't be participating." Next, I tried to speak to people close to Trump and glean some insight that way. My first call was to Michael Cohen. A lifelong Democrat who's an executive vice president at the Trump Organization, Cohen has been described as Trump's "pit bull" and likened to the character Tom Hagen, the consigliere to mafioso Vito Corleone in the Godfather movies. (Asked about the comparison, Cohen told ABC News in 2011: "It means that if somebody does something Mr. Trump doesn't like, I do everything in my power to resolve it to Mr. Trump's benefit. If you do something wrong, I'm going to come at you, grab you by the neck, and I'm not going to let you go until I'm finished." This past Tuesday, Cohen publicly apologized for defending his boss against a decades-old rape allegation from a divorce proceeding by claiming that legally "you cannot rape your spouse.") 

(RELATED: Trump-Free Scenarios for 2016)

I told Cohen that I wanted to understand what Trump would set out to accomplish as commander-in-chief and how he'd adjust to the very different life a president leads as compared with, say, a bon vivant business mogul. Cohen began to answer the latter question—"He's gonna have to downsize and move to the White House"—then caught himself and insisted that the rest of our conversation stay off the record. But he told me to send him some questions and he would pass them along to Mr. Trump. 

Spit-balling with my editors, we came up with six seemingly foolproof queries, each simple and easily answerable but designed to elicit something meaningful about Trump's plans and ambitions for the office he seeks. For the record, here's exactly what I asked:

"What qualities would you look for in a vice president?"

"Some people say the current president has not done a good job of outreach to Congress. How would you build relationships with members of Congress on both sides of the aisle?" 

"Aside from immigration, if you were to put your name on one piece of domestic-policy legislation, what would it be?"

"What would be the challenges of adapting to the presidential lifestyle?"

"Who would run your business empire while you are in the White House?"

"Your slogan is 'Make America Great Again!' What era do you think was the greatest in American history?"

The day I emailed those questions to Cohen, the campaign announced that Trump was traveling to Laredo, Texas, to eyeball the U.S.-Mexico border firsthand. Trump, of course, had caused an international uproar when, in his campaign rollout speech, he claimed Mexico was sending drug dealers and rapists over the border. I still wasn't sure which of my possible angles I was pursuing, but I booked a flight to Laredo anyway and copied the border coordinates provided by the Trump campaign into Google Maps. The pin landed in a vast, unfamiliar expanse of gray. As I zoomed out, the coordinates revealed themselves to be slightly off—they had sent me to within a few dozen miles of the border between China and Myanmar. 

(RELATED: The Appeal of 'Trump-ism')

THE VERY NEXT morning, Thursday, July 23, I stepped off a plane at Laredo International Airport, where the TV monitors were set to CNN: "TRUMP THREATENS GOP WITH THIRD-PARTY RUN," the Chyron graphics blared. "TRUMP: RNC 'NOT SUPPORTIVE' OF MY 2016 RUN." The candidate wasn't due to land for a few hours, so I grabbed breakfast at the airport and got to talking with a pair of British reporters from major U.K. publications. The younger one was a dapper-dressing, Los Angeles–based roving news reporter; the elder, a New York–based editor, had been in America since the early 1990s, when his newspaper had dispatched him across the Atlantic to cover Gennifer Flowers, the model and former Bill Clinton mistress. "Are you Trumping, too?" he asked as we introduced ourselves. 

I was curious what the Brits made of this whole Trump phenomenon. "I sit back and chortle," the younger, hipper one said. "It's George W. Bush all over again, innit? He hits a button with people. But do you really want him in charge of the nuclear arsenal?" 

The League of United Latin American Citizens had promised to muster "over a thousand protesters" to confront Trump at the airport, according to The Guardian, but we found a few dozen at most, clustered under the shade of a solitary tree and separated by a parking lot from the private terminal where Trump would be landing. The Brits applied their sunblock as the protesters took turns venting about Trump to the swelling ranks of reporters and cameramen. A guy from Univision staged a mini-demonstration with six of the protesters, asking them to chant, "Trump no! Raza sí!" into his microphone. 

Inside, the private-terminal lobby was crammed with reporters, photographers, and producers, all jostling to get out to the tarmac for Trump's arrival. A lone private-security agent stood in between the media horde and the doorway leading outside; a cacophony of voices was shouting out affiliations ("Washington Post!Excélsior in Mexico!"), begging to be let through. Hope Hicks, the Trump spokesperson, sparked a mini-stampede when she appeared with a box of campaign-issued press passes—admission tickets for the two coach buses the campaign had hired to carry reporters to the various stops on Trump's schedule. 

Ten minutes early, Trump's $100 million red-white-and-blue 757-200 plane taxied to a gentle stop. A phalanx of Escalades massed at the base of its stairs. Emerging from the rear of the plane, Trump waved and beamed broadly as he descended to the tarmac, looking as if the presidency were already his. His trademark bouffant lay hidden under a white baseball cap bearing his campaign slogan: "MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN." 

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Inside the terminal waiting room, the candidate briefly addressed the media scrum. Trump had originally been invited to Laredo by the local chapter of the Border Patrol union, but the group had rescinded its invitation at the last minute. The campaign had subsequently issued a statement saying that Trump was proceeding with the border visit anyway, despite the "great danger" he faced in doing so. A reporter called out: Did he really think visiting Laredo and the border was dangerous? "Well, they say it's a great danger, but I have to do it," Trump replied. He later elaborated: "People are saying, 'It's so dangerous what you're doing, Mr. Trump, it's so dangerous what you're doing.' I have to do it. I have to do it." Another reporter tried a different tack, asking: "Why is it dangerous?" Trump ignored the question and headed for his Escalade. We sprinted for the buses. 

The motorcade pulled out onto Interstate 35, headed for the border. It was a procession with all the trappings of a presidential visit: a cluster of blacked-out Escalades flanked by police cars with lights flashing, cops on motorcycles blocking traffic at intersections and on-ramps, and media bringing up the rear. Trump's original plan had him appearing alongside Border Patrol agents south of Laredo, about 10 miles from the Rio Grande River. But with the local union having backed out, the caravan would make its first stop at Laredo's World Trade Bridge, a major port of entry over the Rio Grande for semi-trucks shuttling goods between the United States and Mexico. 

As Trump toured the checkpoint, two busloads of reporters clustered under a small makeshift canopy pitched in a parking lot next to the border crossing. We fanned ourselves in the stifling heat, checked in by phone with our editors ("It's just a bit of a bum fight," I overheard one of the Brits saying. "Every man and his dog here"), and waited to hear what Trump might say.

(RELATED: Meet the Spouses of the 2016 Presidential Contenders)

WHEN HE'D finished his visit to the checkpoint, Trump was ferried to the media tent in a black SUV. In his white hat, blue blazer, khaki pants, and white-leather golf shoes, he looked as if he'd just emerged from the clubhouse at the Mar-a-Lago. After a few introductory comments from Laredo Mayor Pete Saenz, the candidate proceeded to deliver perhaps the strangest set of "prepared" remarks of the entire 2016 campaign (so far). Here was a candidate, mind you, who had distinguished himself from the rest of the Republican pack by savaging undocumented immigrants and accusing the Mexican government of sending rapists and other criminal miscreants over the border. And here is Trump's statement at the border, verbatim and in full:

"Thank you. Well, thank you very much for being here. It's been an amazing experience. Mexico is booming, absolutely booming. And Jesus [Olivares], the city manager, and Pete have done an amazing job right here. But a lot of what's happening here is because of the fact that Mexico is doing so well. Just doing beyond what anybody ever thought. And I don't know if that's good for the United States, but it's good for Mexico. Anybody have any questions?"

I peered around the tent. No one knew quite how to react. Nothing about the statement computed at all: Trump had come to the border to praise Mexico? Had the weather gotten to him? Had he succumbed to heatstroke? Had we?

The ensuing question-and-answer session was no less surreal. Reporters tried hard to extract something of substance, peppering Trump with questions about his views on immigration and immigrants and border security, and what exactly he proposed to do about any of it. It was futile at best, infuriating at worst. To wit: 

Reporter: "What do you say to the people I've spoken to this morning in Laredo who called you a racist?"

Trump: "We just landed and there were a lot of people at the airport, and they were all waving American flags, and they were all in favor of Trump and what I'm doing. Virtually everyone that we saw, there was such a great, warm—I was actually surprised—but there was such great warmth at the airport with all of those people that were there. So we're very, very honored."

Reporter: "There were plenty chanting against you."

Trump: "They were chanting for me."

Reporter: "They were chanting against you."

Trump: "I didn't see that."

With growing desperation, the reporters turned to policy questions:

Reporter: "What would you actually do to change the illegal immigration?" 

Trump: "Well, the one thing you have to do, and as Jesus was saying and as the mayor was saying, there is a huge problem with the illegals coming through. And in this section, it's a problem; in some sections, it's a massive problem. And you have to create, you have to make the people that come in, they have to be legal. Very simple." 

Reporter: "What would you do with the 11 million undocumented immigrants who are already here?"

Trump: "The first thing we have to do is strengthen our borders, and after that, we're gonna have plenty of time to talk about it."

After just ten minutes under the tent, Trump thanked us, turned on his white-leather heel, climbed back into an Escalade, and sailed away to the next stop on his magical border tour. 

The final event was a brief address to a few dozen Laredoans at a local reception hall. Flanked on both sides by refrigerator-sized security guards in tieless dark suits and earpieces, Trump explained why he'd come to Laredo—sort of: "This is about you, not about me," he said. "I heard you were here and I wanted to come." He sang the praises of the intrepid reporters who had braved the dangers of Laredo to tell the world about Trump's day on the border. "The press has been amazing," he said. "I really appreciate it. The turnout of press has been incredible." 

Moments later, he was back to haranguing the media, after MSNBC host José Díaz-Balart shouted out a question about Trump's "rapists" comment. "You know what, that's a typical case of the press with misinterpretation," Trump said. The Laredoans roared their approval; here was the guy they'd come to see! Díaz-Balart tried to ask his question again, but the candidate cut him off. "No, you're finished," he said, to another round of applause. 

Trump was soon finished as well. As his SUV pulled out of the reception-hall parking lot, he lowered his window and waved to the onlookers. A few people rushed the car for high fives and handshakes. Trump triumphant. 

Soon we were back where we'd started, at the Laredo airport. Trump greeted the reporters and seemed willing to take more questions, but when he was asked about Rupert Murdoch calling him "embarrassing," he said a quick thank you to us all and was gone. Less than four hours after he'd descended on Laredo, Trump was headed home to New York—leaving a bunch of dazed-looking journalists behind to shake their heads and wonder: What the hell am I supposed to report about that? 

"I FEEL DIRTY," I told the Brits as we headed back to the nonprivate part of the Laredo airport. Used. Chewed up. I couldn't help thinking about how my tweets and photos—my mere presence in Laredo—had helped to feed the insatiable hunger for attention and controversy that keeps Trump in the news. Or how, in return, he'd given me—us—absolutely nothing beyond a few hours of cable-news-style entertainment. 

I decided to spend the night in the terminal before catching an early connection the next morning. The younger Brit and I ordered dinner at the airport restaurant. He ate while racing to file his story before his 5:30 p.m. departure, and I picked at my brisket and eavesdropped on the conversation between him and his editor. It was a telling exchange. Each time the Brit tried to explain how useless Trump's visit had been, how little had been said or done, a long pause followed. No, I could almost hear the editor saying, we need some news. "I guess he did say that Latinos actually like him," the Brit finally conceded. "Suppose we could go with that." A story describing what had actually gone on—"Trump briefly visits border, says nothing"—was apparently unthinkable. 

It seems there were many similar reporter-editor conversations happening that afternoon. After the Brit departed, I settled for the night in a chair across from the ticket counters and began scanning the various accounts of the day's events. I expected to see stories confirming, perhaps even lamenting, the absurdity and futility of it all. Instead, what I read floored me. We'd all gone to the same events, heard the same remarks, yet the stories tended to describe Trump's visit in the same terms as a run-of-the-mill presidential campaign event—as if it had been just the kind of performance that a Jeb Bush or a Scott Walker, say, might have given if they'd scheduled a day at the border. In the clichés and tropes so common to political journalism, Trump was being described by perfectly respectable journalists as "defiant" and showing "flourishes of bravado"; his trip was a "whirlwind" that led to "yet another day of the headline dominance that has made him the summer's sensation." (The prize for the gushing-est sentence about Trump's border tour goes to the NPR reporter who, on the next day's Morning Edition, described Trump's jet as a "sumptuous, red-white-and-blue Boeing 757 with his name in huge gold letters that in lowercase mean 'to surpass,' 'to outdo.' " Oy.)

Political reporters are programmed to cover presidential candidates in a rigidly specific way. Present them with a purple-state governor or an ambitious young U.S. senator, and they can perform admirably. Drop in an aberration like Donald Trump—a sort of pseudo-candidate who defiantly knows nothing about the very issues he's running on and who openly mocks the accepted customs and niceties of American campaigns—and they don't know how to react, how to recalibrate. To be fair, some did attempt to convey the bizarre emptiness of Trump's rhetoric and the pointlessness of his visit, noting in journo-speak that he'd said "virtually nothing" or that he'd "ducked" questions about fixing the nation's immigration system. 

But if it was headlines Trump wanted—and you know it was—pretty much everyone complied. The New York Times: "Donald Trump, at Mexican Border, Claims Close Ties to Hispanics." Los Angeles Times: "At Texas-Mexico border, Donald Trump cites 'great danger' from immigrants." The Dallas Morning News: "Trump does Texas: At border, he blasts naysayers, predicts victory." The campaign could hardly have written them better itself.

Meanwhile, I still had a story to write—with the luxury of far more time than the daily reporters but without a single substantive word from Trump, or his colleagues, to put in the thing. The next morning, on a stopover as I flew back east, I called Michael Cohen to ask him about the status of the questions I'd sent—the ones about Trump's domestic-policy priorities and his ideas for improving relations between the White House and Congress. Cohen scoffed. "These are really kinda silly questions," he told me. "Where's Melania gonna put her wardrobe? Who really cares?" Never mind that I hadn't asked anything about Trump's wife or her clothes. 

Cohen told me to call Hope Hicks, she of the midday nap, and whittle my questions down to one or two. Back in Washington, I did just that. She took my call, put me on hold, brought me back on the line, then said she had to take another important call. "I'll call you right back," she said. I never heard from her again. 

So this is my story, such as it is. I have zero to report about Trump's plans for actually being president—except that, from all available evidence, he hasn't given it a moment's thought. My brief adventure in Trumping, in fact, left me convinced that the whole point of this campaign—the sum total of all the "there" that is there—is the spectacle itself, the loud, fast-motion visual feast provided by an insatiable yet boxed-in press corps tracking the man's every odd move and unaccountable utterance. 

Becoming president of the United States is, for Trump, beside the point. Sure, he's ahead in the polls, sometimes by double digits, but at this early date, those numbers are abstract and almost entirely meaningless—a fact that Trump probably understands quite well. There's no denying that his pugnacious attitude touches something raw in a swath of the American electorate; however, I'd argue that populist support isn't what fuels Trump, either. He mostly feeds off of us, the media. And we oblige him. Trump didn't fly to Texas for the Laredoans; he didn't go to the border to show he could be "presidential." He flew to Texas for me and the Brits and CNN. 

Think of it this way: If Trump's poll numbers were to completely bottom out next week, but the press was still following his every move, would he continue to campaign? I'd wager that he would keep going, polls be damned, with the same gleeful vigor. But if the opposite happened—soaring poll numbers and no round-the-clock press? I think it's a safe bet that Trump would pack it in and move on to his next "GREAT" thing. Honestly: If a Trump rally in Cedar Rapids or Spartanburg goes uncovered live by CNN or Fox, did it really even happen?

The media could quit him. The media should quit him. And that—I feel incredibly fortunate to say these words—is the last I'll write on the subject. 

 

[Levan Ramishvili]

Donald Trump’s Allure: Ego as IdeologyMr. Trump’s appeal fits today’s core political undercurrents: alienation, economic uncertainty and a craving for extremely confident leadership.
David Brooks

When America is growing and happy, the country is sort of like a sprinter’s track. As Robert H. Wiebe put it in his classic book “The Segmented Society,” when things were going well the diverse country comprised “countless isolated lanes where Americans, singly or in groups, dashed like rows of racers toward their goals.”

In times of scarcity and alienation, it’s more like bumper cars. Different groups feel their lanes are blocked, so they start crashing into one another. The cultural elites start feuding with the financial elites. The lower middle class starts feuding with the poor.

A few decades ago the sociologist Jonathan Rieder studied what was then the white working-class neighborhood of Canarsie, Brooklyn. People there were hostile both to their poorer black neighbors, who they felt threatened their community, and to the Manhattan elites, who they felt sold them out from above.

We are now living in a time of economic anxiety and political alienation. Just three in 10 Americans believe that their views are represented in Washington, according to a CNN/ORC poll. Confidence in public institutions like schools, banks and churches is near historic lows, according to Gallup. Only 29 percent of Americans think the nation is on the right track, according to Rasmussen.

This climate makes it hard for the establishment candidates who normally dominate our politics. Jeb Bush is swimming upstream. Hillary Clinton may win through sheer determination, but she’s not a natural fit for this moment. A career establishment figure like Joe Biden doesn’t stand a chance. He’s a wonderful man and a great public servant, but he should not run for president this year, for the sake of his long-term reputation.

On the other hand, bumper-car politicians thrive. Bernie Sanders is swimming with the tide. He’s a conviction politician comfortable with class conflict. Many people on the left have a generalized, vague hunger for fundamental systemic change or at least the atmospherics of radical change.

The times are perfect for Donald Trump. He’s an outsider, which appeals to the alienated. He’s confrontational, which appeals to the frustrated. And, in a unique 21st-century wrinkle, he’s a narcissist who thinks he can solve every problem, which appeals to people who in challenging times don’t feel confident in their understanding of their surroundings and who crave leaders who seem to be.

Trump’s populism is pretty standard. He appeals to people who, as Walter Lippmann once put it, “feel rather like a deaf spectator in the back row. … He knows he is somehow affected by what is going on. … [But] these public affairs are in no convincing way his affairs. They are for the most part invisible. They are managed, if they are managed at all, at distant centers, from behind the scenes by unnamed powers. … In the cold light of experience, he knows that his sovereignty is a fiction. He reigns in theory, but in fact he does not govern.”

When Trump is striking populist chords, he appeals to people who experience this invisibility. He appeals to members of the alienated middle class (like those folks in Canarsie) who believe that neither the rich nor the poor have to play by the same rules they do. He appeals to people who are resentful of immigrants who get what they, allegedly, don’t deserve.

But Trump’s support base is weird. It skews slightly more secular and less educated than the average Republican, but he doesn’t draw from any distinctive blocs. Unlike past populisms he’s not especially rural or urban, ethnic based or class based. He draws people as individuals, not groups.

Unlike past populisms, his main argument is not that the elites are corrupt or out of touch. It is that they are morons. His announcement speech was fascinating (and compelling). “How stupid are our leaders?” he asked rhetorically. “Our president doesn’t have a clue,” he continued. “We have people that are stupid,” he observed of the leadership class.

In other words, it’s not that our problems are unsolvable or even hard. It’s not that we’re potentially a nation in decline. The problem is that we don’t have a leadership class as smart, competent, tough and successful as Donald Trump.

Measured in standard political terms he is not ideologically consistent. As Peter Wehner pointed out, he’s taken so many liberal positions he makes Susan Collins look like Barry Goldwater. But ego is his ideology, and in this he is absolutely consistent. In the Trump mind the world is not divided into right and left. Instead there are winners and losers. Society is led by losers, who scorn and disrespect the people who are actually the winners.

Never before have we experienced a moment with so much public alienation and so much private, assertive and fragile self-esteem. Trump is the perfect confluence of these trends. He won’t be president, but he’s not an aberration. He is deeply rooted in the currents of our time.

[Levan Ramishvili]

The Donald Could Prove Hillary’s Trump Card

By Thomas Sowell — August 4, 2015

With Hillary Clinton’s multiple misdeeds coming to light and causing her political problems, reflected in her declining support in the polls, both she and the Democratic party have reason to be concerned. But both of them may yet be rescued by “The Donald,” who can turn out to be their Trump card.

Donald Trump has virtually no chance of becoming even the Republican party’s candidate in 2016, much less being elected President of the United States.

The reason is not hard to understand: Republican voters simply do not trust him, as the polls show. Nor is there any reason why they should trust him, given his chameleon-like changes in the past.

Why then is he the “front-runner” in the polls?

One reason is arithmetic. When there is a small army of Republican candidates, each with a tiny set of supporters, anyone with enough name recognition to get the support of a fifth or a fourth of the Republicans polled stands out, even if twice that many Republicans say they would never vote for him.

When both kinds of Republicans are counted, Donald Trump is both the “front-runner” and the leading pariah. The danger is not that he will get the nomination, but that his irresponsible talk will become the image of the Republican party, and that his bombast will drown out more sober voices that need to be heard, thereby making it harder to select the best candidate.

Many Republican voters are so disgusted with their party that they are immediately attracted to anyone who voices the outrage they feel.

More is involved than arithmetic, however. Many Republican voters are so disgusted with their party, especially over its repeated betrayals of them, and of the country, especially when it comes to immigration, that they are immediately attracted to anyone who voices the outrage they feel.

Donald Trump has turned this opening phase of the 2016 primaries into the Donald Trump Show. All of this might be very entertaining, if this were not a crucial juncture in the history of the country and of the world.

But, while all this political theater is going on, the world’s leading promoter of international terrorism — Iran — has gotten a “deal” that all but guarantees that they will have nuclear bombs and, not just incidentally, intercontinental missiles to deliver them.

Iran doesn’t need intercontinental missiles to reach Israel, which is closer to Iran than St. Louis is to Boston. Send not to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.

We can only hope that, somewhere among the many Republican candidates, there is someone who can, as president, make the hard decisions and take the hard steps required to undo the utter disaster that looms ahead, as a result of Barack Obama’s feckless foreign policies.

If ever there was a time to carefully sift through all the aspiring Republican candidates, in hopes of finding just one who might be up to the superhuman task ahead, in order to head off a nuclear catastrophe, this is surely the time to look for a solid, wise and steadfast leader.

A shoot-from-the-hip, bombastic show-off is the last thing we need or can afford. As for the Democrats, their leading candidate — Hillary Clinton — was one of the architects of the foreign-policy disasters that can turn into world-changing catastrophes.

As for the Republican mob scene, it is a challenge just to remember all the names of the candidates. These include many who must know, in their heart of hearts, that they have no real chance of getting the nomination. But, unless they withdraw, the public’s attention may well be fragmented over too many candidates for them to find a truly promising candidate for president.

— Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. His website is www.tsowell.com. © 2015 Creators Syndicate Inc.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Trump!

By Rich Lowry — August 4, 2015

I was a little skeptical that Trump would be “toast” for his comments about John McCain, but had no idea they would be the prelude to his rocketing to a substantial lead in all the polls. Judging by those surveys alone, you might rank the field as top tier (Trump), second tier (Walker, Bush), and everyone else. I still think political gravity will take hold, but that could take quite some time, and the longer it takes, the more of a problem he becomes, particularly for those candidates who assume they will inherit his voters when he fades.

As for Thursday’s debate, I hope he gets straight-up policy questions like any other candidate. The media has been incredibly tough on Trump as a general matter; at the same time, interviewers have tended to play to his strengths by asking him about his own comments, his poll numbers, and what other people have said about him.

[Levan Ramishvili]

How the GOP Can Neutralize the Donald Trump Threat

by Noah Rothman

Republican Party officials are, apparently, paralyzed with fear and indecision. This lamentably familiar condition was not brought about by the deft maneuvering of their Democratic opponents, but by someone who purports to be a member of the tribe: reality television star and 2016 presidential candidate Donald Trump. The GOP’s incapacitation in the face of this relatively minor challenge ahead of what is sure to be a testing presidential cycle does not bode well for the party’s electoral prospects. The conundrum posed by Trump’s self-aggrandizing, scorched earth candidacy is not an insurmountable one; in fact, it’s relatively modest. The Republican National Committee’s impulse has thus far been to attempt to contain Trump and mitigate the damage done by his irresponsible rhetoric, but in doing so the party has taken some unnecessary ownership of his candidacy. Trump cannot be contained. He cannot be reasoned with. The GOP has but one course available: neutralize him. 

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus was not without reason when he reportedly put a call into Trump’s office asking him to rein in his nativist rhetoric. The celebrity candidate has leveraged his name recognition and tapped into a sense of economic fatalism among Americans who have borne witness to wage and opportunity stagnation over the course of the Obama presidency. Trump has adeptly, if not admirably, fomented deep animosity toward the millions of illegal immigrants who live and work in this country. By definition, all illegal immigrants are criminals, and Washington’s refusal to stem the tide – indeed, policy makers are more eager to accommodate the nation’s illegal population and create incentives for new waves of border-crossers – is indicative of a lack of courage and seriousness on the part of American policymakers. But Trump’s contention, one that has been powerfully resonant among his conservative supporters in the activist grassroots, is that there is also an epidemic of violence perpetrated by illegal immigrants. This claim is simply not supported by anything other than anecdote.

Nevertheless, a great many honest, forthright, capable American citizens believe this myth and are convinced that Trump alone is speaking the “hard truths” that others won’t. The opposite is the case; his “hard truths” are, in fact, comforting fictions. Democrats are not fools. They know an opportunity when they see one, and the president’s party has taken to labeling the GOP the “ReTrumplican Party.” Their aim is to frame the GOP as a xenophobic institution and rob it of the Hispanic support that it needs to win the White House. To stop the bleeding, Priebus asked Trump kindly to “tone it down.”

It was a well-meaning move, but a misguided one. To acknowledge Trump’s reckless comments is to take ownership of them, and that has only enabled Democrats in their quest to cast Trump as the quintessential Republican. What’s more, Priebus was feeding the beast. Trump’s “anti-establishment” bona fides is only lent credibility by the RNC chairman’s handwringing. Finally, the deeply unprincipled Trump took the opportunity to contend that all the reportage on this call was wrong. Not only was he not reprimanded by the RNC chair, the reality television star claimed that Priebus congratulated him for telling it like it is. After all, the chairman of the RNC “knows better than to lecture me,” Trump claimed. “We’re not dealing with a five-star Army general.”

So much for Mr. Nice Guy.

But the GOP remains terrified of alienating Trump and his conservative supporters. They fear, according to a well-reported New York Times dispatch, that the real estate mogul might go rogue, mount a self-financed independent bid for the White House, and rob the Republican Party of what should be a good election cycle.

“Any top-down campaign by Republicans to marginalize Mr. Trump might encourage him to follow through with a threat to run on a third-party ballot,” the Times reported, “a scenario reminiscent of Ross Perot’s 1992 campaign, which diverged critical votes from President George Bush.”

When Trump’s Republican presidential bid flames out – and it will flame out, as any candidate with negative GOP voter disapproval as high as his must – Trump will consider the prospect of running an independent campaign. To do otherwise would be interpreted as a retreat, and the self-assured celebrity would probably rather sacrifice an exorbitant amount of money on a quixotic endeavor like an independent White House bid if only to save face. Those who make the case that 2016 could be 1992 all over again have a point, but the parallels are perhaps a bit overstated.

A superficial take on the 1992 election was that the populist H. Ross Perot exploded onto the political scene by denouncing the “sucking sound” of American jobs heading to Mexico if the NAFTA free trade agreement were ratified, and he cost George H. W. Bush just enough votes to allow Bill Clinton to win a plurality of the popular vote and 370 Electoral College votes. But the exit polling in 1992 indicated that Perot voters were split at 38 percent each on whether they would have voted for Bush or Clinton if the Texas businessman wasn’t on the ballot. The third-party candidate drew the support of 30 percent of self-described independents but also 18 percent of Republicans and 13 percent of Democrats to win 19 percent of the overall popular vote.

“Fully 53% of Perot’s vote came from self-defined moderates, 27% from conservatives and 20% from liberals; so about 10 points of his 19% came from self-described moderates, with 5 points coming from conservatives and 4 points from liberals,” Polling Report’s Tim Hibbitts noted. He added that voters who cast a Perot vote were angrier at the political system than were Bush or even Clinton voters, suggesting that they would not have voted for the incumbent if they had the chance. “And even in Ohio, the hypothetical Bush ‘margin’ without Perot in the race was so small that given the normal margin of error in polls, the state still might have stuck with Clinton absent the Texas billionaire,” theWashington Post reported at the time. As MSNBC host and political analyst Steve Kornacki accurately observed, the recessionary economy, not the third party candidate, cost the 41st President a second term in the Oval Office.

Now, back to Trump. His appeal to the conservative electorate is certainly founded in antipathy toward illegal immigration, but this is really an outgrowth of his populist, protectionist approach to international trade relations. As the liberal revolt over the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement demonstrated, antipathy toward free trade is not the province of conservatives alone. Polls suggest that a substantial number of partisan Democrats agree with Trump that the TPP is a “disaster.”

Trump’s suspicion of free trade is not the only position that is more in line with orthodox liberal thinking on policy matters. As the Washington Post’s Hunter Schwarz observed, Trump was not all that long ago the “liberal’s liberal.” In 1999, he considered himself “very pro-choice,” and told CNN host Larry King that he was “very liberal when it comes to health care.” Indeed, Trumps embrace of virtually every European aspect of “universal health care” was far more aggressively liberal than most of what was passed in the Affordable Care Act. In his book published the following year, Trump back an assault weapon ban and longer waiting times for gun purchasers. As recently as 2005, Trump lavished Hillary Clinton with both praise and campaign contributions. The billionaire hasdonated to liberals more than he has conservatives, including Democrats like Harry Reid, Ed Rendell, Rahm Emanuel, John Kerry, Charlie Rangel, Charles Schumer, and the late Ed Kennedy. The surest way to identify whether Trump has the country’s rather than his best interests at heart would be, as National Review’s John Fund noted, to ask him if he would eventually support the party’s nominee over Clinton. Few expect him to answer with an emphatic and unhesitant “yes.”

It’s unlikely that Trump will attract a significant number of Democratic votes if he did mount an independent presidential campaign given how viciously he has attacked Barack Obama over the course of his presidency. If, however, the Republican Party cannot through surrogates make a prolific Democratic donor with a history of embracing liberal positions toxic for conservative voters, they should just close up shop today. This is a surmountable hurdle, and Republicans are far more imperiled by contorting themselves in the effort to keep Trump inside the tent than they would be by casting him out and temporarily alienating his fickle, discouraged base of supporters. It’s only 2015, and the fundamentals do not suggest that Democrats will have the wind at their backs by November of next year. The GOP should stop being so scared of its own shadow and show Donald the door.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Donald Trump and the No Accountability Zone

by Peter Wehner

I’m on a vacation this week, and when the conversation with members of my extended family turned to politics, it turned, as it inevitably seems to these days, to Donald Trump.

The people I spoke with are, to a person, critics of Trump. (Several of them are Republicans.) They were curious to discuss, and at a loss to explain, his rise in the polls. I took the interest in Trump himself to be anecdotal evidence to support my belief that Trump can’t be ignored by the Republican Party; he needs to be confronted. The reason is that he’s generating enormous attention to himself, whether others disregard him or not, and to remain silent in the face of Trump’s provocations is to look weak or complicit. That doesn’t mean candidates need to obsess on him, but they do need to make their differences with him clear and emphatic. To their credit, several – Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Rick Perry, and George Pataki among them – already have.

Rather than recapitulating my case against Trump, I want to make an observation about Trump’s appeal to some parts of the Republican base. Before doing so, it’s necessary to start with the premise that Trump is no conservative, a case I’ve made before, as hasNational Review’s Jonah Goldberg. Mr. Trump once supported a Canadian-style single-payer health care system, massively higher taxes on the wealthy, and a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. He was “totally pro-choice.” He gave money to Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid, John Kerry and Ted Kennedy. He was a registered Democrat for most of the last decade. And he praised President Obama for doing “a very good job.”

Some of Trump’s flip-flops have been vividly captured in this video.

Any other Republican with this record would find his candidacy crippled. Yet for Trump, it hardly seems to matter. He operates in an Accountability Free Zone, where past stands, past statements, and past financial contributions are forgotten or forgiven.

The reasons for this, I think, is that Trump’s supporters don’t care about his past, his governing philosophy, or his governing agenda; all they care about his style. They believe he’s fearless, a fighter, politically incorrect, anti-establishment, hated by liberals, a man giving voice their frustration and rage at the political class. They believe the nation is collapsing, government doesn’t work, America is being beaten at every turn – and no one expresses that better than Trump. This deep disenchantment is what Trump is tapping into and what explains his appeal.

Now it needs to be said that Trump’s appeal is limited and his negatives even among Republicans are sky-high. Fifty-seven percent of Republicans, according to this poll, have a negative view of him. But what is disturbing is some conservatives not only find the Trump style impressive; it’s that they find the Trump style so impressive that it makes him immune from criticism. He gets a free pass on everything he’s said and done. The only thing that matters now is he’s targeting our enemies. He’s giving voice to our grievances. We on the right need to learn from The Donald.

In fact, the Trump style – crude, emotive, erratic, narcissistic, demagogic — should by itself be a disqualifier. That it’s not – that, for at least some number of self-described conservatives, it’s what makes him appealing — is a sad turn of events. They are embracing Donald Trump for the very reason they should be rejecting him.

[Levan Ramishvili]

[Levan Ramishvili]

American Democracy and Donald Trump’s Inevitable Collapse

by Jonathan S. Tobin

Are the obituaries the mainstream media are publishing for Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy premature? That’s the line Trump apologists are bound to take today as the fallout over his attempt to question whether Senator John McCain is a war hero continues. The kerfuffle over Trump’s branding of most illegal immigrants from Mexico as rapists and drug dealers only endeared him further to a sizeable portion of potential Republican primary voters. They shared his anger about a porous border and instinctively distrusted the herd mentality of media and business figures that rushed to label him a political untouchable. But the real estate mogul turned reality star and his backers should not labor under the delusion that he will get a similar pass for his egregious comment about McCain even if he is getting some support from the likes of Rush Limbaugh, whose antipathy for the conventional wisdom of the day appears to be overwhelming his normally sound political instincts and judgement. If his bid is, as our Pete Wehner wrote on Sunday,“toast,” then the moral of the story isn’t so much about the sheer nastiness and lack of character that Trump demonstrated when he made that remark and then doubled down on it, as it is the way the democratic process has of sorting out the political wheat from the chaff. While many observers on both the left and the right, often speak as if the voters are fools that are easily manipulated by media puppet-masters, Donald Trump’s inevitable collapse will illustrate the ability of the American public to sort out the presidential race.

Let’s concede that the popularity of Trump is based on more than the name recognition that comes with both wealth and a popular television show. His good poll numbers are the product of his willingness to say outrageous things and to position himself as outside the regular political process. While his isn’t the only candidacy rooted in the idea that the voters are hungering for a non-politician, Trump’s notoriety, instinctive populism, and impulsive willingness to say whatever is on his mind makes him a magnet for the disaffected and disillusioned regardless of the merit or the consistency of any of his positions. Saying aloud whatever such voters are thinking at any given moment is neither a sign of wisdom or statesmanship but it would be obtuse to deny Trump’s raw political talent.

But no one should think Trump’s likely decline in the coming weeks will be an accident of fate. It was inevitable that Trump would eventually say something that even most conservatives would abhor. But it was also inevitable that once his comments and his record started getting the sort of scrutiny that goes with a presidential race, even some of that rationalized his illegal immigration remarks would abandon him.

That isn’t because the establishment is working its way with the press or that he is being taken out of context or unfairly criticized. Rather, it is merely the normal function of American democracy in which thoughtless extremism and gutter character assassination is always going to be seen as not keeping with the sort of behavior we expect in presidents.

Many conservatives rightly lament the way the same liberal media failed in 2008 to hound Barack Obama over some outrageous statements he made and his radical associations the way they would a conservative with similar liabilities. But the reason Obama won had less to do with media bias than his ability to act like a president in the midst of a tough race against a Clinton machine that was willing to fight dirty. His presidential temperament was not a substitute for an ability to govern but, along with the good feelings generated by the historic nature of his candidacy, it distracted most voters from his extreme agenda that was only revealed in office. Yet both our political process and the basically moderate nature of both most voters inevitably gives a boost to those candidates who understand that the exercise of great power requires more than sound bytes. They must act as if they understand the gravity of the responsibilities to which they aspire whether they actually do so or not.

As Obama’s victories demonstrated, that doesn’t ensure that we won’t elect bad presidents. But the genius of American democracy is such that candidates that are obviously unqualified to even pretend to the presidency are usually discarded long before even the nomination races heat up. If you don’t believe me about that, then ask President Michele Bachmann who seemed to be riding a wave of populist enthusiasm exactly four years ago before crashing and burning as voters — and journalists — learned more about her and heard more of her foolish statements that marked her as someone who had no business being considered for the post of leader of the free world.

Conservatives often lament with good reason the bias of a mainstream media that seeks to take out their candidates with hit pieces and prejudiced coverage. But no matter how much the process of scrutinizing candidates may be distorted by the prejudices of many in the press, not even their skewed reporting can deceive American voters for long about the essential nature of those in the race.

While he retains the capacity to harm the Republican Party’s more viable presidential candidates by focusing all attention on his gaffes and may yet do even more damage as a potential third party candidate, Trump could not hide in plain sight for long. Say what you will about the influence of money or a biased press. Denounce a nomination process that has turned into a four-year marathon if you like. But what we are witnessing is something that is natural to American politics and highly commendable. Long before the parties choose their nominees, candidates like Trump will be found out and discarded by the overwhelming majority of voters. Even if the polls are still looking positive for Trump before they take into account the McCain comments, those inclined to doubt the future of American democracy should have more faith in the American people.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Trump: The Case for Despairing — About America

by John Podhoretz

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 seriousness 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.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Four Reasons Trump Will Fade

by Jonathan S. Tobin

Yesterday, our John Podhoretz spoke for many Americans when he found it impossible to view the rise of Donald Trump in the polls with anything but despair. John’s description of Trump’s approach to issues was entirely correct. In a business where outsize egos are a dime a dozen, Trump’s megalomania is a defining characteristic and his bluster has served to cover up the fact that he has a deplorable record on conservative issues and has no coherent approach to governance or ideology. The size of the support he has engendered is troubling because he could well alter the outcome of the 2016 election by either capturing the Republican Party nomination outright or it could encourage him to try a third party run that will guarantee victory for Hillary Clinton and the Democrats. But before we write off the GOP’s chances and begin the process of explicating the new political age of Trump, a moment of calm is called for. Though everything we are seeing in the last few weeks lends credence to the notion that the Trump phenomenon is real and permanent, it is important to remember that is it just as likely that the real estate mogul turned reality star turned presidential candidate will fizzle long before the votes start getting counted next winter. What follows are four reasons Trump will fade.

Yes, I know. To even suggest that Trump is not the embodiment of a new political revolution will bring down on me both scorn and vitriol from the celebrity candidate’s many fans that will compete with each other to channel their hero’s trademark viciousness in excoriating critics.

The attacks from Trump loyalists on that score won’t be entirely unreasonable. Trump’s support may not last but until it does disappear his fans are entitled to see it as a substantial endorsement of his personality and combative nature if not every aspect of his candidacy. Before we try to bury Trump, it’s important to understand that his boomlet is a genuine reflection of frustration on the part of a portion of the Republican base.

The key element that Trump exploited was anger about illegal immigration. Some of that can be dismissed as rooted in prejudicial attitudes toward Hispanics. Trump’s offensive comments about Mexican illegal immigrants being rapists and drug dealers may have rightly earned him some harsh condemnations but there is a portion of the electorate that is actually turned on by a willingness to flout both convention and courtesy. He is, after all, a reality TV star and the same qualities that work for him in that format help him in politics.

But not all of this is about prejudice. Much of it has to do with resentment of the political establishment of both parties. The fact that he is not really a conservative and hasn’t much idea about how government works doesn’t bother those who are so angry that they applaud a simple-minded blowhard approach that can’t distinguish between the political process and the problems it is failing to address. As our Pete Wehner noted last week, this is a case of populism masquerading as conservatism but that won’t stop Trump from garnering a sizeable share of a GOP base that may have, at least for the moment, decided that a full-blown outsider like Trump is to be preferred to other genuine conservative insurgents who are working within the political system including someone like Ted Cruz who seems at times to be attempting to blow it up from within.

But while it may seem like the Trump tide will never recede, let’s remember a few key facts about Donaldmania.

First, polls taken in the July of the year before a presidential election are not a reliable barometer of what the situation will be in the fall let alone the following winter and spring. Trump’s poll numbers are a product of enormous media coverage, celebrity and a contrarian streak in the body politic that will always applaud a genuine outlier. It may be permanent, but it could also vanish as quickly as it arose.

Second, the first debates may, as John pointed out, be all about Trump. But there is no reason to assume that his bluster will carry the day in that kind of a forum where he cannot hush critics or control the questions. Even if he blithely assumes that the force of his personality and celebrity will crush his more conventional opponents, that blind confidence could wind up making him look like a fool when arrayed against policy wonks and champion debaters who, unlike Trump, actually know what they are talking about when it comes to policy questions.

Third, the assumption on the part of some that a public that has been watching Trump on TV for years already knows all it cares to learn about the man is equally unfounded. I doubt that most of those on the right applauding his outrageous act are aware of Trump’s long history of backing for liberal causes and even his financial support for Hillary Clinton’s Senate campaigns and their family charity that operates as a political slush fund for the former first couple. Will that matter? Trump thinks not, but he shouldn’t be so sure. Trump has been subjected to intense scrutiny as a celebrity, but he has yet to learn that the gossip page items that actually help a TV star will hurt a presidential wannabe.

Fourth, as I noted last week, the basic culture of American democracy is something that is designed to trip up demagogues. This wouldn’t be the first case of populism run amuck in American history and there are some obvious examples of outlier figures having a major impact on the outcome of elections. A charismatic figure like William Jennings Bryan may not have offered any more of a coherent approach to governance than Trump in the 1890s, but the force of his rhetoric captured the Democratic Party for a generation. And, as John noted, Trump may turn out to be the second coming of Ross Perot with equally disastrous implications for Republicans as that Third Party candidate that effectively handed the country over to the Clintons. Americans many not always see through charlatans running for office, but underestimating their ability to smell a fraud is a sucker’s bet.

Make a note to call me a false prophet if I’m wrong, but the bottom line is that I still say Trump won’t be the GOP nominee. More than that, I believe we’ll look back at the panic he caused in the GOP this summer as another example of how the political class and pundits can be so wrapped up in the moment that they fail to see the big picture. It’s time to take a deep breath and wait for the inevitable moment when the air starts to come out of his balloon.

[Levan Ramishvili]

The Trump-Clinton Connection About More Than Cash

by Jonathan S. Tobin 

In detailing the four reasons why I think that Donald Trump’s current surge to the top of the Republican nomination race yesterday, I noted that the kind of scrutiny presidential candidates receive is different from that accorded celebrities. The real estate-mogul-turned-reality-TV-star-turned-politician is learning that lesson today as he is forced to endure the Daily Beast’s airing of the dirty linen from his first divorce. The site ran an article based on a gossipy book about Trump’s personal life published 25 years ago alleging that he had raped his first wife Ivana. The fact that the former Mrs. Trump denies the accusations she made at the time and is supporting Trump’s campaign should have taken the air out of the story. But what made it newsworthy were the vulgar threats Trump’s lawyer issued to the publication that the candidate has now walked back. It’s doubtful that anything the Daily Beast publishes will influence Trump’s fans, so perhaps we should simply file this sordid business away as another example of how nasty politics has become in the age of the Internet. But if anyone thinks this is anything but the start of the press’s excavation of his life, they are mistaken. If the last month of our national political life has been given over to the Donald show on the campaign trail, in the coming weeks and months we’ll be getting more information about Trump’s life than most of us will be able to stand.

The question of what is or is not the public’s business when it comes to presidential candidates can be a thorny one. There are plenty of reasons not to vote for Donald Trump for president without getting into his personal life. Moreover, the double standard by which Republicans are subjected to the sort of minute scrutiny that is usually not accorded liberals and Democrats also ensures that a lot of people on the right are going to instinctively sympathize with Trump or any other GOP candidate who is given a going over in this manner. The New York Times 2008 hit piece on John McCain alleging an affair that the article didn’t prove is a classic example. When, as in the case of Mitt Romney, there aren’t even hints of scandal in a candidate’s private life, the media will dig something else up like the Washington Post’s “expose” of his high school prank in which he and others gave another kid a haircut.

But when it comes to Trump, that sort of extensive digging won’t be necessary. He has spent most of the last 30 years more or less living on the New York Post’s Page Six gossip column. That won’t make it right, but it also ensures that there is a never-ending supply of embarrassing or undignified quotes or incidents to be brought up whenever possible. While a reality show or billionaire celebrity might want that kind of attention, this won’t help someone running for president. An example came this morning in the New York Timeswith a feature discussing the vast store of information about the candidate that can be culled from an examination of his testimony under oath in the countless lawsuits in which he has been involved during his decades in business. Compared to the fishing expeditions to put Mitt Romney’s largely exemplary business record under the microscope in 2012, examining Trump’s record will be like shooting ducks in a barrel for the media.

In response to the Beast story, some on the right are chirping about why it is that the same venues that are ready to recycle allegations of rape directed at him during the course of a nasty and expensive divorce battle when they never did the same with the credible evidence and allegations about former President Clinton raping Juanita Broderick. They are right about that. But that also points up a serious problem about Trump. In choosing him, Republicans would be embracing a candidate who is asking us to judge him by the same flexible standards that only a Clinton would demand.

Just as Clinton’s co-dependant claimed that those circulating unflattering information about the 42^nd president were part of a “vast right-wing conspiracy,” so now we have Team Trump threatening to ruin journalists for even thinking about writing stories about his past. Having a representative that denies that spousal rape is a crime is an invitation for the Democrats to air out their faux “war on women” meme in a way that would never work against Clinton. Indeed, the connection between Trump and the Clintons goes beyond his contributions to Hillary’s Senate campaigns and the Clinton Family Foundation. In Trump, the Republicans have found their own Bill Clinton, minus the charm and the skill in governing.

For Trump, the rape story was a “welcome to the NFL” moment in which he was reminded that running for president involves the press going over a candidate’s life with a fine tooth comb and airing incidents that all concerned would prefer to keep buried. That won’t deter those of his fans who love him because he is outrageous and not in spite of it. Just as some voters embrace because of his vile comments about John McCain’s time as a POW in Vietnam, others will regard such stories as a reason to back him all the more. But this Trump-Clinton connection chips away at the notion that he is invulnerable or electable. It should also pour cold water on the notion that he is somehow different from politicians. To the contrary, Trump embodies all of the worst aspects of our political life in terms of his gutter attack tactics and a Clintonesque sense of entitlement and belief that he should never be held accountable for anything he does or says.

[Levan Ramishvili]

The GOP Entertainment Wing’s Flight of Fancy

by Noah Rothman

Donald Trump is not running for president.

Oh, he acts like he is a candidate on a stage. And Trump has filed the requisite paperwork with the Federal Election Commission, as have hundreds of others. But he is not running a presidential campaign.

It might come as no surprise that the gaffe-a-minute reality television star has claimed that he has no use for pollsters. “I don’t want a pollster,” he told the New York Times. “Because if a pollster’s so good, why aren’t they running?” The logic is impeccable. But pollsters are not the only political professionals whose services Trump has eschewed. If the alleged presidential candidate had hired a consulting firm with a graphics department, he probably would not have promoted his candidacy by sending out an image with the American flag superimposed over the soldiers of the Nazi Waffen-SS that someone on Trump’s team apparently mistook for American troops. Say what you will about political consultants, at least they know the difference between U.S. soldiers and the German division responsible for their massacre at Malmedy. Perhaps that lapse explains Trump’s evident low regard for American servicemen and women who endure torture and deprivation in enemy custody.

Nor has Donald Trump or his team displayed much interest in the technical aspects of running for the president. Little things like developing an organization in the early primary states that is tasked with winning the requisite delegates to secure the party’s nod and transitioning into a grassroots general election support structure. “I met Mr. Trump for 30 seconds on May 9. Gave him my card. He hasn’t called me thus far,” South Carolina Republican Party Chairman Matt Moore revealed. Moore’s frustration is shared by Iowa and New Hampshire’s GOP operatives who say they have had little contact with Trump or his organization. That does not, however, mean the reality TV star has ignored the early states entirely. Earlier this month, Trump hired as his Iowa campaign co-chair a former contestant on his canceled reality television program The Apprentice. The move generated quite a few headlines and, for the Trump campaign, that seems to be an end in itself.

Anyone with even a passing understanding of how political campaigns are waged and won knows that what they are witnessing is a spectacle. This is not a presidential candidacy; it’s a vehicle for self-promotion. That makes the unwavering support that Trump has received from prominent members of what constitutes the “entertainment wing” of the GOP, its popular radio talk show hosts and commentators, that much more egregious. Showmen and women themselves, they recognize one of their own when they see him.

The Wall Street Journal editorial board admirably drew fire from the right this week when it briefly scolded an unnamed cadre of “conservative media elites” who serve as Trump’s “apologists,” but those the Journal admonished do little in the way of apologizing for the target of their affections. “Abettors” is perhaps a more apt description of those who would willingly facilitate a grift. Some of the most accomplished, seasoned, and bright members of the conservative movement’s commentary class have inexplicably given succor to a figure who is flagrantly misrepresenting himself and misleading their audiences.

Mark Levin, a constitutional scholar and a deservedly successful radio host, bizarrely declined to challenge Trump in the same way that he has other Republican candidates who have joined him on his radio program. “You know, your biggest problem is going to be the Republican establishment,” Levin advised after noting how his candidacy has resonated with the public and lamenting how the Republican members of the legislative branch are too quick to seek compromise with the country’s executive. This is a far cry from the Mark Levin of 2011 who called Trump an “airhead” whose tenuous grasp on free market economics sounded “stupid” to him.

When Trump refused to express support for Representative Paul Ryan’s budget proposal that reformed entitlement spending — very much an “establishment” Republican goal from an “establishment” Republican officeholder — Levin savaged the real estate developer for spouting the same vacuous platitudes he spouts today. When Trump advised Ryan to “sit back and relax” on the issue of entitlements, Levin reprimanded him furiously. “Apparently all your supporters are going to give you a pass on every damn thing you’ve ever said or done,” Levin exclaimed. “But not me.” What changed? Trump certainly hasn’t.

One of Levin’s radio colleagues, the accomplished radio host and Fox News contributor Laura Ingraham, appears equally blinded by frustration with congressional Republicans. “Trump filled a vacuum existing in GOP,” she said in praise of his willingness to attack “Bushism” and congressional Republicans. “Prediction: Trump numbers will not change — could go up after McCain dust-up. Establishment approval will go down.”

That’s a bizarre prediction, considering the pollster in the field on Sunday after Trump’s insulting remarks about Senator John McCain’s service record noted that the candidate who drew nearly 30 percent support over the weekend was down in the single digits after those comments generated publicity.

“So Trump won’t commit to supporting GOP nominee if not chosen,” Ingraham said of Trump’s refusal to rule out a third-party bid for the White House. She asked if Senator Marco Rubio or former Governor Jeb Bush would support Trump if he secured the requisite delegates, but she must know that there is a rather substantial distinction between not supporting a party’s nominee and actively trying to handicap him or her.

Even the astute Rush Limbaugh has succumbed to the passions of the moment. “The American people haven’t seen something like this in a long time,” Limbaugh said in praise of Trump’s refusal to apologize for questioning McCain’s record as a North Vietnamese hostage. “They have not seen an embattled public figure stand up for himself, double down, and tell everybody to go to hell.”

“Trump can survive this,” Limbaugh averred. He’s right, but only as long as Trump can count on the help of his friends in the GOP’s entertainment wing.

All the while, Hillary Clinton is relishing the attention she isn’t getting. The New York Times reported that Clinton’s team is weighing how best to give the GOP what it wants and inexorably link Trump, a doctrinaire liberal and Democratic donor, to the Republican Party. Reporting on its own poll of Republican primary voters, ABC News described those of his supporters who are most incensed over the issue of illegal immigration in America “nativists.” The conservatives behind the microphone in this country know exactly what’s happening here. While the Republican Party brass should welcome the chance to repudiate a vile self-promoting pretender like Trump, the conservative movement’s most booming voices seem intent on rendering that effort impossible.

Making one’s way in the business of political entertainment is incredibly difficult. Those who are successful in that profession have achieved their position only after dogged perseverance, years of hard work, and repeated displays of inborn aptitude. No one gets to where these and other accomplished personalities are today unless they are possessed of great talent, prudence, and a wealth of knowledge on history and civics, which makes this whole affair all the more demoralizing. Those who continue to prop up this faltering carnival act based on the mistaken premise that it somehow advances conservatism are making a grave error. All that is being advanced are individual careers. The Americans who truly count on the conservative program to better their lives and right the course this country is on are those who will suffer the most if Trump is allowed to indelibly tarnish their movement.

[Levan Ramishvili]

When Populism Masquerades As Conservatism

by Peter Wehner 

The Donald Trump candidacy has revealed something important about a certain slice of the conservative world. Many right-wing personalities – including Fox’s Eric Bolling and Steve Doocy, radio talk show hosts Mark Levin, Laura Ingraham, Rush Limbaugh and the writer/commentator Ann Coulter – have come to the defense of Donald Trump when he’s been criticized by the “establishment,” in part because he’s been criticized by the “establishment,” the theory being the enemy of my enemy is my friend. (Forget for now that many people who claim to be “anti-establishment” in fact personify the establishment by any reasonable definition.)

There have been notable exceptions, but even in the context of Trump’s comments on John McCain, the criticisms of Trump have been extremely muted. There were even some attempts to justify what Trump said. According to Trump’s defenders, his words were taken out of context. They praised Trump for not apologizing. It was Republican “midgets”who were attacking him. The reason Trump is being condemned is because he’s politically incorrect, it’s been said; he won’t play by the rules others do. The real offense was less what Trump said about McCain than the piling on by critics of the television host and hotelier.

“Donald Trump is like a Navy SEAL,” according to Fox’s Steve Doocy. “He never backs down when he’s in a fight.”

To be clear, not everyone I have mentioned supports Trump for president. But they all see things in Trump they admire; they are very reluctant to attack him, and they constantly give him the benefit of the doubt and praise what they consider to be his virtues. They repeatedly point to Trump as someone from whom other conservatives can learn, even someone they should emulate.

Now consider this: Most of the people I’ve mentioned have been critical, and often harshly critical, of former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, on the grounds that he’s not a “true” conservative. Some have even argued that Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush are “two peas in the same pod.”

This is a rather bizarre charge. You don’t have to support Jeb Bush for president in 2016 to acknowledge he was among the most successful and conservative governors in several generations. (Jeb Bush’s record was, as George Will has pointed out, “measurably more conservative” than that of Ronald Reagan during his two-term governorship of California. I’ve documented Governor Bush’s conservative achievements here.)

Now let’s turn to Trump’s record, which I’ve laid out before, and is essential to re-state for the purposes of my argument. Mr. Trump has supported massive tax increases on the wealthy, a Canadian-style single-payer health care system and is a fierce protectionist. He once declared himself “strongly pro-choice” and favored drug legalization. Earlier this year he accused Republicans who want to reform entitlement programs – the essential task for those who favor limited government — of “attacking” Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Barack Obama couldn’t have stated it better.

That’s not all. For most of the last decade, Trump was a registered Democrat. As of 2011, he had given a majority of his $1.3 million political contributions to Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, and Chuck Schumer.

Even on immigration, the issue that has won over the hearts of many on the right, Trump has been erratic. In 2012, he criticized Mitt Romney’s “crazy policy of self-deportation, which was maniacal. It sounded as bad as it was, and he lost all of the Latino vote … He lost the Asian vote. He lost everybody who is inspired to come into this country.”

Trump also said this:

For people that have been here for years that have been hard-workers, have good jobs, they’re supporting their family — it’s very, very tough to just say, ”By the way, 22 years, you have to leave. Get out.” … I have to tell you on a human basis, how do you throw somebody out that’s lived in this country for 20 years.

And in 2010, this:

You have American interests hiring [illegal immigrants], absolutely. And many cases, they’re great workers. The biggest problem is you have great people come in from Mexico working crops and cutting lawns that I’m not sure a lot of Americans are going to take those jobs. That’s the dichotomy. That’s the problem. You have a lot of great people coming in doing a lot of work. And I’m not so sure that a lot of other people are doing that work so it’s a very tough problem.

These are the kind of statements that, if said today, would cause Ms. Coulter to shake with rage. Yet the author of ¡Adios, America! The Left’s Plan to Turn Our Country Into a Third World Hellhole is among Trump’s strongest supporters.

Nobody in the GOP field has amassed anything like the liberal record of Trump. It makes Susan Collins’s political stands over the years look like Barry Goldwater’s. Yet some of those who fashion themselves as “constitutional conservatives,” principled and uncompromising, the heirs of Reagan, the keepers of the flame, have found themselves far more favorable to Trump than to Jeb Bush — a man who, unlike Trump, has sterling conservative achievements to his name. (What he and other conservatives like Marco Rubio don’t have is the serrated rhetoric of Trump.)

What this demonstrates – and why the whole controversy about Donald Trump is about more than simply Donald Trump – is that some of those who claim to speak for conservatism may not be quite as interested in conservative policies and conservative philosophy as they profess. At least, it’s become subordinate to other considerations. I say that because if policies and philosophy were as important as they claim, it seems reasonable to conclude that these same people would lacerate Trump (as they lacerate so many others they believe are insufficiently pure) rather than embrace and defend him.

There’s no rational reason self-described conservatives who accuse Jeb Bush of being a RINO, a “neo-statist,” and a Hillary Clinton clone would treat Donald Trump with respect and deference and find reasons to defend and praise him. Something quite odd is clearly going on here.

Mr. Trump is given a special absolution – amnesty, if you will – from his past/current liberal deeds and words. And that absolution, that amnesty, is granted by virtue of Trump’s style. He embodies what some on the right apparently believe politics needs more of. And that’s the problem for many of us. Trump embodies crudity and insults, anger and attacks, banalities and “barstool eruptions,” in the withering words of Charles Krauthammer. Yet it turns out that those qualities make a man like Trump, who has held left-wing positions, a star with some on the right. Being perceived as an enemy of the much-loathed “establishment” is a ticket to stardom. Nothing else really matters, or matters nearly as much.

Which leads me to my final point: What appears to be happening is that some of those who claim to be champions of conservatism are actually champions of populism. They are not the same thing, philosophically or temperamentally. (Populism has been defined as “an ideology which pits a virtuous and homogeneous people against a set of elites and dangerous ‘others’ who are together depicted as depriving (or attempting to deprive) the sovereign people of their rights, values, prosperity, identity and voice.” It has different manifestations, some more responsible and some less, but resentment is often a key ingredient in populism. It’s also a movement that’s been historically susceptible to demagogues, a concern held by philosophers from Plato and Aristotle to the American founders.)

There is room for populism within conservatism — it can be a “cathartic response to serious problems,” in the words of George Will — but it should not define conservatism. Yet increasing, in some quarters, it is; and the sympathy and support some on the right are giving to Donald Trump is clear evidence of this.

This distinction between conservatism and populism goes a long way toward explaining why different people on the right, who might otherwise agree on a fair number of things, react in fundamentally different ways to Donald Trump. And it’s why the Trump candidacy may well catalyze a broader, clarifying debate about what the true definition of conservatism is. For many of us who are conservative, Donald Trump not only doesn’t define it; he’s antithetical to it.

[Levan Ramishvili]

The Donald is Still Hillary’s Best Friend

by Jonathan S. Tobin

Hillary Clinton has long had good reason to like Donald Trump. The real estate mogul-turned-reality TV star-turned-Republican presidential candidate was a major donor to her campaigns for the Senate. He also gave $100,000 to the thinly-disguised political slush fund that is the Clinton Family Foundation, giving him the unique status as both a potential Hillary opponent and an enabler of the Clinton Cash scandals. But the former First Lady has even more immediate reasons to be grateful to The Donald. Trump’s domination of the news cycle the last few weeks has not only sucked all the oxygen out of the room for other Republican candidates. The relentless coverage of his every move and outrageous statement has also had the effect of obscuring the slow motion implosion of her presidential campaign. Had he stayed on the sidelines to kibitz as he has in previous election cycles, it might have been Hillary’s horrific poll numbers and her increasing weakness against an implausible Bernie Sanders candidacy might be leading the cable news shows. Instead, we’re treated to daily analyses of Trump putdowns of fellow Republicans and coverage of his appearances as if they were global summits. If this keeps up — and at this point, there’s no reason to think it won’t — Hillary may be able to ride out the summer and the fall without too much attention being paid to her troubles.

There’s no point denying that Trump is the most entertaining presidential candidate we’ve had in a long time even if he’s also the least thoughtful and most vulgar. Every Trump event, such as the chaotic dog-and-pony show he put on at the border in Laredo, Texas yesterday, is transformed by the sheer unpredictability of his behavior into a global news event covered obsessively by the cable news networks. The same goes for every interview as pundits and journalists wait for Trump to insult one of his GOP rivals or to hint, as he has this week to the horror of his party, that he might run as a third-party candidate next year if the Republican National Committee offends him with “unfair” treatment.

For the moment, all this has the effect of leaving all the more credible would-be GOP opponents of Hillary flailing in frustration at Trump’s antics, insults and ability to rise in the polls. The more they hit back the more Trump likes it since it feeds his image as a “fighter” who is out to knock off a failed political establishment. But the cooler heads among them have to know that it can’t last. Sooner or later, Trump is going to start being scrutinized the way presidential candidates are examined and his record of support for liberals and liberal causes will start to take the air out of his balloon. Trump’s negatives are too high to allow him to be a legitimate threat for the nomination let alone the general election. Republicans should also be confident that his buffoonish persona is also bound to trip him up enough times to ultimately undermine any notion that he ride the support of a populist surge and anger about illegal immigration to the nomination.

But the help all of this is giving to Hillary is priceless. Trumpmania has enabled her to fly beneath the radar even when she weighs in on hot button issues. Her defense of Planned Parenthood in the face of their infant body parts sale scandal may impress the liberal base of the Democratic Party, but it also exposes her to attack. Yet no one is talking about Hillary allowing her to get away with continuing to refuse to talk to the press.

More important, the Trump factor has also almost silenced discussion of Hillary’s toxic poll numbers in battleground states against possible GOP opponents as well as the terrible results she gets on whether people trust her. In a normal political year, this would become the number one story lending further momentum to the surprisingly effective challenge to her coronation by Senator Bernie Sanders or even tempting other more plausible candidates like Senator Elizabeth Warren or Vice President Joe Biden into the race.

Clinton also has to hope that Trump is so enjoying the ride he’s on that he won’t want to get off even when he fails to win primaries next winter and spring. It’s easy to imagine Trump manufacturing some feud with the RNC and attempting a third-party run next summer and fall. Of course, that would be the ultimate favor for Hillary and the Democrats since it would more or less guarantee her election as president no matter how weak a candidate she proved to be.

The extension of the Trump campaign well into 2016 is the ultimate nightmare for Republicans, but there is little they can do about it other than to try and ignore him and hope, as they should, that the overwhelming majority of voters reject his brand of faux conservatism. In the meantime, he will continue to give aid and comfort to the Clinton campaign that is far more valuable than his past financial support for their fake charity or her Senate campaigns.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Donald Trump and the American Id

From the August 10, 2015, issue of National Review

By Kevin D. Williamson — August 6, 2015

Oh, you’re goddamned right this is Vegas, baby! because the Planet Hollywood Las Vegas Resort and Casino is the only truly appropriate venue for a show like the one we have right here. For your consideration: the carefully coiffed golden mane, the vast inherited fortune, the splendid real-estate portfolio, the family name on buildings from Manhattan to the Strip, the reality-television superstardom, the room-temperature-on-a-brisk-November-day IQ. The only thing distinguishing that great spackled misshapen lump of unredeemed American id known as Donald Trump from his spiritual soul mate, that slender lightning rod of unredeemed American id known as Paris Hilton, is — angels and ministers of grace, defend us! — a sex tape. The gross thing is, you can kind of imagine a Trump sex tape: the gilt pineapples on the four-poster bed, the scarlet silk-jacquard sheets, the glowing “T” in the background, the self-assured promises that this will be the classiest sex tape the world has ever seen — that it’s yuuuuuuuge! — the cracked raving 69-year-old Babbitt analogue barking inchoate instructions off camera . . . no, no more, that way madness lies.

The awful, horrifying, despair-and-cringe-inducing real-talk truth that is causing the more mobile and proactive among us to start downloading those teach–yourself–Swiss German apps onto our iPhones and to read up on the finer points of immigration law is that the Donald Trump presidential campaign is the Donald Trump sex tape, an act of theater performing precisely the same functions as Paris Hilton’s amateur porn-o-vision escapade: exhibitionism, theatrical self-aggrandizement, titillation, etc., all of it composing a documentation of transient potency to be shored up against the inevitable passing of that potency. Trump is a post-erotic pornographer, and his daft followers are engaged in the political version of masturbation: sterile, fruitless self-indulgence.

RELATED: What’s Behind the Trump Bump

Spend any time around the Trumpkins — the intellectually and morally stunted Oompa Loompas who have rallied to the candidacy of this grotesque charlatan — and you will hear purportedly heterosexual men working up freestyle paeans to Trump’s alleged virility — those “pussies in Washington” aren’t ready for “a real man like Trump,” as one put it — and cataloguing his praises in exuberant gonadal terms, with special attention paid to calculating the heaviness of the Trumpian scrotum relative to the equipment being packed by, e.g., Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio. One says: “He is the only one that has the balls to tell the truth and to stand up for America.” “Trump’s got the balls,” proclaims the headline in a right-wing blog. “Donald Trump is a perfect example of an alpha male,” declares a commenter at (ahem!) Bodybuilding.com. “Alpha males lead for a reason,” retorted a Trump admirer when National Review’s Jonah Goldberg called for an “intervention” for the Trumpkins. Members of the GOP establishment, says another, “don’t know how to handle an extroverted alpha male personality like Trump” — ritualistic prostration of the faithful before Trump’s presumptive “alpha” social status being fundamental to the Trumpkin liturgy. Sensing the emergent theme, the left-wing columnist Michael Tomasky declared in the Daily Beast: “Trump’s got the GOP by the balls.”

Speaking in Vegas, his blood-flushed face a hypertensive moon rising against the background of a much larger photographic version of that same violet face, Trump declared: “I’m much, much richer than what they say,” one of the few complete sentences he managed to utter over the course of a performance that inspired Reason’s Matt Welch to observe: “This isn’t a speech, it’s a seizure.”

How the hell did this happen?

‘I’m really rich,” Trump said during the announcement of his presidential candidacy. The scene was — what else could it have been? — Trump Tower in Manhattan, a real-estate development built in part by illegal immigrants, which embarrassing fact obliged one of Trump’s subcontracting minions to take a plea deal including jail time. (But not to worry, Trumpkins — they were Polish illegals, not abominable Mexicans!) Riding an escalator down to the lobby with his chin cocked up like Barack Obama’s or Benito Mussolini’s, Trump entered to the tired sounds of “Rockin’ in the Free World,” by Neil Young, who immediately demanded that Trump stop using his song. That created a typical Trumpian controversy: Trump responded by saying that Neil Young, a Canadian and a Bernie Sanders enthusiast, was looking for a payday. He tweeted (because that’s how we litigate political disputes these days) a message: “For the nonbeliever, here is a photo of @Neilyoung in my office and his $$ request — total hypocrite.” There was indeed a picture of a decrepit Neil Young shaking hands with a decrepit Donald Trump, but the accompanying document wasn’t a request for compensation for the use of Young’s music: It was just the signature page of a preferred-stock purchase agreement, which could indicate anything. Trump later said in sour-grapes mode that the song was just one of many on his playlist (“Music of the Night,” from Phantom of the Opera, and “Memories,” from Cats, are in the rotation, too, because that’s totally appropriate and not at all weird) and went on to disparage the songwriter. That’s the signature Trump move, right there: make a lot of noise, and, when possible, make that noise about money.

RELATED: Fifteen Elephants and a Clown

“I’m rich,” Trump says, endlessly. How rich? “Very rich.” Very? “I mean my net worth is many, many times Mitt Romney,” as he put it some time back. “Much, much richer.” Critics and opponents? Not rich. “Can’t buy a pair of pants,” he said about Goldberg. That’s most of Trump’s argument, and practically the entirety of the Trumpkins’ argument: How could a guy with that much money — so much more money than a nobody like you, loser! — not have something going on?

About that . . .

Donald Trump is not the source of the Trump family fortune. That would be Frederick Christ Trump, Donald Trump’s father, the self-made real-estate mogul who had controlled more than 27,000 New York City properties by the time of his death in 1999. Fred Trump was in many ways the cultural and financial inverse of his son: He didn’t build gold-hued towers with his name on the front, but built, managed, and developed thousands of modest apartment buildings (some of them exceedingly modest; the line between “low-income developer” and “slumlord” is not a bright and straight one) and row-house blocks, mainly in unglamorous sections of Brooklyn and Queens. Unlike his son, he never put the family name on a strip joint–cum–casino in Atlantic City and never was a party to a series of high-profile bankruptcies. But by the end of his life he had amassed a portfolio worth about $400 million in 2015 dollars.

In his most recent financial disclosures, Trump claimed to have about $300 million in cash and marketable securities. The rest of the vast Trump fortune is . . . vague. Forbes, which has been on the Trump-net-worth beat for a few decades, estimates that his actual worth is about half what he claims. Fred Trump set his son up in business, buying him a decrepit housing development in Cincinnati (what was your college-graduation gift?) and financing its redevelopment. The project went well, and Trump eventually was hired to run the family business. How well he has run that business is not clear. Trump companies have been through a number of headline-grabbing bankruptcies, prominent among them the Atlantic City casino–hotel–strip joint bearing the Trump name. Trump’s inept and debt-happy management resulted in the watering down of his stake in the casino group to about 5 percent, and he no longer serves on its board of directors or in any official capacity. These properties are TINO — Trump’s in Name Only — so don’t expect him to lose any sleep over the recently declared bankruptcy of the Trump International Golf Club or the probable backsliding into bankruptcy of the Trump Taj Mahal, once his pet project and now mostly somebody else’s problem. Trump doesn’t want much to do with these Trump properties.

RELATED: Trump’s Disturbing Rise Shows Political Intemperance Isn’t Limited to the Left

That’s the odd thing. Trump is always going on and on and on about how rich he is, but his largest asset is an asset only from a certain point of view: He values the Trump brand at more than $3 billion, more than any building, resort, golf club, or financial instrument in his possession. There are more than a few financial analysts who scoff at the notion that he could actually sell the brand for anything near that amount of money. Maybe Trump, or at least his people, understands this on some level: A previous valuation had the brand worth more than $4 billion. And it’s not entirely clear who wants the Trump brand on his merchandise just now, other than Trump.

Macy’s dumped Trump — the store had sold a selection of hideously tacky Donald J. Trump–branded shirts and ties, inevitably made in China and Mexico — when the candidate started bellowing that the Mexican government is intentionally flooding the United States with rapists, a proposition for which there is, unsurprisingly, no evidence. Trump is not very much interested in the world outside the narrow confines of his skull. When Macy’s announced that it was severing its relationship with Trump, Trump had a full-on chimp-out, proclaiming that “Macy’s stores suck and they are bad for U.S.A.” and calling for a boycott. The Trumpkins began circulating claims that tens of thousands of people were boycotting Macy’s and cutting up their Macy’s cards, another claim for which there is — unsurprisingly — no evidence. “Now, Macy’s hurts, because the head of Macy’s I thought was a great friend of mine, Terry Lundgren,” Trump said, falling into his familiar, nearly monosyllabic rhythm. “Now this is a man I played golf with. I was with him all the time. He really was, was, was — you understand, because I don’t forget things.” His response to the CEO’s concerns about the fact that Hispanics are not very keen at the moment on buying stuff labeled “Trump”? “Terry, be tough! They’ll be gone one day.”

That’s Trump’s big idea on the immigration problem: They’ll be gone one day.

Macy’s wasn’t alone in the dump-Trump movement. Trump just announced a $500 million lawsuit against Univision, because the television network, not wanting to be associated with Trump and the horde of Mexican rapists that lives in his head, has decided not to carry the Spanish-language broadcast of the annual parade of Trump-owned vulgarity known as the Miss USA pageant. A bewildered Trump protested that “nothing that I stated was any different from what I have been saying for years.” (Yeah.) Univision dismissed the lawsuit as “factually false and legally ridiculous.” Trump is just paranoid enough to believe that his opponents aren’t political critics, good sense, and decency, but rather a nation-state, namely Mexico: He has said — in public, with a straight face — that Univision, which is based in midtown Manhattan, dropped Miss USA on orders from the Mexican government. “Mexico put the clamps on Univision. Mexico has a lot of power over them.” When an audience member in Las Vegas criticized Trump’s dopey immigration rhetoric, Trump demanded: “Did the government of Mexico ask you to come here?”

Univision, of course, is not alone. NBC followed suit and dropped the English-language Miss USA broadcast. More important, NBC gave Trump the heave-ho from The Celebrity Apprentice, the reality-television show that, unlike Trump-branded casinos in Atlantic City and Trump-branded golf resorts in Puerto Rico, makes a lot of money. Trump was already going to miss one season — running for president is a full-time job, as it turns out — but NBC made it very clear that he is not welcome back. Trump had been contemplating a return to the show — “They wanted me to do The Apprentice,” he says, though who knows whether that is true — but later slipped into his usual wet-diaper-rage thing, proclaiming that NBC could not see the wisdom of Trumpism because its executives are “so weak and so foolish.”

Failing casinos and golf courses, no Univision, no Apprentice, no ugly Macy’s shirts. And still Trump insists his name constitutes a $3 billion brand. Brand of what? Canned tuna?

Nothing succeeds like success — and nothing fails like failure. Trump knows this, which is why Donald J. Trump feels the need to lie a great deal about Donald J. Trump’s success.

Nothing succeeds like success — and nothing fails like failure. Trump knows this, which is why Donald J. Trump feels the need to lie a great deal about Donald J. Trump’s success. Example: He has claimed, repeatedly, that his Art of the Deal is the best-selling business book of all time. It has been very successful, selling around 1 million copies since its publication in 1987. But it hasn’t sold a quarter of the books that the relatively recent Good to Great and Rich Dad, Poor Dad have sold, and its sales are barely a rounding error on those of such perennials as How to Win Friends and Influence People and The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Walter Isaacson’s recent biography of Steve Jobs has sold three times as many copies as The Art of the Deal. Selling 1 million books is no mean feat, but where Trump is concerned, Trump deals exclusively in superlatives: the biggest, the best, the classiest, etc.

None of that is ever true, of course. Trump-branded shirts and ties at Macy’s weren’t the best, finest, classiest, most stylish shirts and ties to be had; they weren’t even the best shirts you could get at Macy’s. Trump-branded casinos and hotels are not the best, most luxurious, most high-end accommodations in the world — they’re embarrassing, and the people sipping cocktails at the Sky Lobby bar at the Mandarin Oriental in Vegas are not secretly wishing they were at the Trump. Trump Tower is far from the nicest residential building in its neighborhood, much less in all of New York City. Trump-branded golf courses are not the greatest golf courses in the world. The Apprentice isn’t the top-rated reality-television show in the history of that sorry genre.

This is what rich-kid’s disease looks like when the rich kid is pushing 70.

RELATED: Trump Fans, It’s Time for an Intervention

Trump’s admirers believe that they have found in their champion a man who tells it like it is, but he is the opposite. A literal Republican in Name Only, Trump holds political views that were, until the day before yesterday, up-and-down-the-line progressive: pro-abortion, pro-Kelo and supportive of other tools of crony capitalism, and, if the words of Donald J. Trump himself are to be believed, pro–amnesty for illegal immigrants, too — not for 11 million, but for the fictitious 30 million he discussed with Bill O’Reilly:

You have to give them a path. You have 20 million, 30 million, nobody knows what it is. It used to be 11 million. Now, today I hear it’s 11, but I don’t think it’s 11. I actually heard you probably have 30 million. You have to give them a path, and you have to make it possible for them to succeed. You have to do that.

Trump has switched between the Republican and Democratic parties more times than he has switched wives (you think his ex-wives would call him a truth-teller?) and is a longtime political and financial patron of Charles Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Hillary Rodham Clinton, the woman against whom he presumably would be running if the Republican party were to lose its damned mind and nominate him.

That Trump for a hot minute is leading in the GOP-primary polls may tell us something useful about the Right, its constituents, and its internal politics, namely that the problem with populist conservatism is that it is populist but not conservative. But what it mainly tells us is that P. T. Barnum was right, and that he has not been forgotten. If Planet Hollywood is booked next time, Trump can always go down the road to Circus Circus.

— Kevin D. Williamson is roving correspondent at National Review. This article first appeared in its August 10, 2015, issue​.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Which Donald Trump Will Debate?

Karl Rove 

Which Donald J. Trump will show up at Thursday night’s Republican debate in Cleveland?

There’s the Trump who calls the other GOP candidates “clowns” and responds to criticism with schoolyard insults. Then there’s the Trump who last week tweeted about the coming debate: “it is certainly my intention to be very nice & highly respectful of the other candidates.” Mr. Trump seems to have recognized that as the candidate atop the Republican heap, he now will be held to a higher standard than he was as a celebrity polling in low single digits. 

Even more interesting than the style Mr. Trump brings to the stage is what opinions he has with him. Over the years he’s held many conflicting positions on many important issues.

Will the Trump who walks on stage Thursday night be the one who in 1999 told CNN’s Larry King that “I’m quite liberal and getting much more liberal on health care”? The one who wrote in his 2000 book, “The America We Deserve,” that the U.S. should consider a single-payer health system like Canada’s government-run plan? That system “helps Canadians live longer and healthier than Americans,” this Trump wrote. “We need, as a nation, to re-examine the single-payer plan, as many individual states are doing.” Or will debate viewers instead get the Donald Trump who earlier this year called ObamaCare a “filthy lie” and “total catastrophe”?

The Trump who shows up Thursday night could be the one who in 1999 told NBC’s “Meet the Press” during a conversation on abortion that “I’m very pro-choice.” Or it could be the Trump who told Bloomberg Politics in January that “I’m pro-life and I have been pro-life,” and who now says he’s willing to shut down the federal government to defund Planned Parenthood. 

The Trump who in 2000 wrote, “I support the ban on assault weapons and I also support a slightly longer waiting period to purchase a gun” might be there. Or it might be the Trump who told AmmoLand last month that “the Second Amendment is a bedrock natural right of the individual to defend self, family, and property.” 

On Thursday night Trump the taxman could show up. “I would impose a one-time, 14.25 percent tax on individuals and trusts with a net worth over $10 million,” he wrote in that 2000 book. But so might the antitax Trump. “I fight like hell to pay as little as possible for two reasons. Number one, I’m a businessman,” he said on Sunday. “The other reason is that I hate the way our government spends our taxes. I hate the way they waste our money. Trillions and trillions of dollars of waste and abuse.”

One Trump opposed the flat tax offered by Steve Forbes in 2000, writing in his book that “only the wealthy would reap a windfall.” The other Trump said on Fox News earlier this year that he favors “a fair tax, a flat tax or certainly a simplified code.”

The Trump who tweeted last Sunday that GOP presidential candidates who spoke at the Koch donor conference were “puppets” might attend the debate. But so might the Trump who was a registered Democrat for most of the 2000s, who donated thousands of dollars to Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy and John Kerry, and who explained those gifts recently by saying, “I’ve contributed to everybody. They did whatever I said.” It would be worth knowing what this Trump told Sens. Reid, Clinton, Kennedy and Kerry to do. 

This may be the same Trump who gave $20,000 in 2006 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to help elect a Democratic majority in the House and make Rep. Nancy Pelosispeaker, and the one who says he knows politicians are controlled by their big donors because “I used to be one of those people.”

Thursday night, Americans could see the Trump who criticized Mitt Romney in a November 2012 interview for his “crazy policy of self deportation which was maniacal. It sounded as bad as it was, and he lost all of the Latino vote. He lost the Asian vote. He lost everybody who is inspired to come into this country.” 

In this same interview, this Trump said Republicans need to back comprehensive immigration reform “to take care of this incredible problem that we have with respect to immigration, with respect to people wanting to be wonderful productive citizens of this country.” Or viewers could see the Trump who characterized immigrants this way in June: “You have people coming in, and I’m not just saying Mexicans—I’m talking about people that are from all over that are killers and rapists, and they’re coming into this country.”

There’s even a Trump out there who was a registered Democrat in 2004 because, as he told CNN, “It just seems that the economy does better under Democrats.”

Whichever version of Trump appears at the debate Thursday, it will be interesting to see how Republicans react—and whether the moderators drag any of the other Trumps on stage, too.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Rudeness is Not a Conservative Principle

By Jonah Goldberg — August 8, 2015

So now The Donald is in hot water for making a crude menstrual insult. This is as good a time as any to make a simple point, one I make to young conservative activists all the time. Just because being rude or crude is un-PC that is not, in itself, a defense of being rude or crude. You would think social conservatives in particular wouldn’t lose sight of this. But many have, at least going by my email and twitter feed. In the debate, Trump defended his long record of piggish comments about women on the grounds that we don’t have time for political correctness. I agree with that. But surely we have time for a modicum of good manners? We are now in the crazy stage where people are shouting at me that I (or Charles Krauthammer, or George Will or Erick Ericson or Kevin Williamson) must be a liberal if I don’t support Trump. Never mind that the objective evidence leans overwhelmingly that support for Trump puts your conservative convictions in doubt. Are we really going to go down the insane path of saying that real conservatives must abandon good manners and respect for women to demonstrate their purity? Count me out of that nonsense.

And, even if you yourself think Trump’s comments are funny or entertaining or not that big a deal or just a gaffe, at least ponder for a second about whether you think they will help Republicans win the presidential election. Everyone loves Reagan. Everyone says we need a great communicator. Well, the point of being a great communicator is to communicate. That is to say, it is to persuade people. If you think that Trump is the right guy for that project, you’re the one who just doesn’t get it.  

[Levan Ramishvili]

Asking Trump Whether He’d Support the GOP Nominee Was Anything but ‘Unfair’

By Jonah Goldberg — August 8, 2015

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is Jonah Goldberg’s weekly “news”letter, the G-File. Subscribe here to get the G-File delivered to your inbox on Fridays.

Deer Reader (and all of you who never get tired of jokes about reading off of ungulates),

I wonder if, right before his show-of-hands question, Bret Baier turned to the guys sitting behind him and said, “Watch this. It is about to go down.”

I don’t have much use for defenses of Donald Trump in general, but the one I have the least patience for is that the opening question to all the candidates of whether they would support the eventual GOP nominee and forgo a third-party run was “unfair.”

Just to set the stage: This was literally the stage — like the physical stage — of the next Republican convention. This was the first debate in the contest for the nomination to lead the Republican party. Donald Trump is the frontrunner in the polls for that nomination and he has, several times in recent weeks, suggested he might take his marbles and go if he’s not the nominee. But it was unfair to ask him about it?

Donald Trump has suggested he might take his marbles and go if he’s not the nominee. But it was unfair to ask him about it?

Imagine there’s an election for your high-school chess club or your local Shriners group or the Regional Association of Men Who Eat Over the Sink (I’m treasurer). And one guy has been saying over the last couple weeks that if he doesn’t get elected the next president he will quit this organization and set up a rival one. You don’t think it’s fair to ask him about that?

But wait, as an oppo-researcher says to his boss when playing him a video of a Debbie Wasserman Schultz press conference, “Hold on. It gets dumber.”

Contrary to what you might have read over the urinal at Mother Jones, Bret Baier doesn’t work for the GOP. So even if you think it’s unfair for a Republican to expect an answer to that question — which is crazy talk — you have to have your head so far up Donald Trump’s red-velvet-lined ass you can see the glow of the nickel slot machines, to think it’s out of bounds for a journalist to ask that question.

RELATED: Trump: All Bluster and Babbitt

And by the way, what’s up with the whining? All I ever hear from Trump supporters is how “he fights” and “he doesn’t back down” and — of course — “you just don’t get it.”

Well, if it’s too mean to ask this “fighter” to hold up his hand to answer a question he basically begged the world to ask him, is he really deserving of the label? Trump was given an opportunity to explain his position. Go back and read his response. Here it is:

I cannot say. I have to respect the person that, if it’s not me, the person that wins, if I do win, and I’m leading by quite a bit, that’s what I want to do. I can totally make that pledge. If I’m the nominee, I will pledge I will not run as an independent. But — and I am discussing it with everybody, but I’m, you know, talking about a lot of leverage. We want to win, and we will win. But I want to win as the Republican. I want to run as the Republican nominee.

I know what you’re thinking: It’s like when Abraham Lincoln spoke at Cooper Union. Oh, I don’t mean Lincoln’s address. That was a marvel of erudition and coherence. I mean the crazy shirtless guy with a horseshoe sticking out of his open fly shouting, “Did you feed the cat!?” who was dragged out of the room five minutes before Lincoln spoke.

By the way, I will make a similar pledge. If I’m the nominee, I vow not to run as an independent as well. Similarly, if I’m made King of America I will not make any effort to become King of Australia.

WHAT DON’T I GET AGAIN?

I know, I know. I “just don’t get it.”

Which reminds me, here’s a hint, people: If your best argument is “You just don’t get it,” you’re probably the person who doesn’t get it. Why? Because “You just don’t get it!” is not an argument. Sure, I understand if you say it after you’ve made a serious case with facts, data, and logic. But when you start out with “You just don’t get it,” the brain farting is all on your end of the conversation. It roughly means: “Earth logic is useless in communicating why I think this guy should be the nominee. So I will, like an ugly American, shout the same phrase over and over again on the assumption that with greater decibels comes greater understanding.”

RELATED: A Fabulously Awful Night for Donald Trump

As I learned from wading through a river of pro-Trump tweets last night to the point where I felt like I was escaping Shawshank prison through a sewer pipe, what I apparently don’t get is that Trump won’t commit to the party because he needs “leverage.” The word “leverage” is even in his response; it stands out like a lone crouton in that wilted word salad of his.

I understand why Trump won’t pledge loyalty to the nominee — it’s not complicated. He’s threatening the party to make nice on him or else. That may be a smart tactic. But if that’s his tactic, what’s your objection to asking him about it again?  

TRUMP, PUTANESCA STYLE

By the way, I think Rand Paul was exactly right, if not exactly effective, in his critique of Trump last night. Trump’s argument is that as a businessman he had no choice but to essentially buy politicians.

BAIER: . . . You’ve also supported a host of other liberal policies. Use — you’ve also donated to several Democratic candidates, Hillary Clinton included, Nancy Pelosi.

You explained away those donations saying you did that to get business-related favors.

And you said recently, quote, “When you give, they do whatever the hell you want them to do.”

TRUMP: You’d better believe it.

Trump added a few moments later that as a “businessman”:

I give to everybody. When they call, I give.

And do you know what?

When I need something from them two years later, three years later, I call them, they are there for me.

He even went so far as to insinuate that he bought most of the people on the stage with him last night. That prompted one of my favorite moments. Rubio said he didn’t get any money from Trump adding, “Actually, to be clear, he supported Charlie Crist.”

I remember a time when “the base” hated people who supported Charlie Crist. Now, because of the reality-warping power of Donald Trump, supporting Charlie Crist isn’t only defensible, it’s what all the smart businessmen do.

RELATED: Trump Alters the Way the Rest of the Field Is Perceived

Seriously: What the Hell is wrong with conservatives who denounce crony capitalism in theory but forgive it in practice? Trump is like a john damning the prostitutes he beds for being whores. Since when does being a businessman mean never having to say you’re sorry?

Oh, and what are we supposed to make of Trump’s boast — boast! — that he bribed Hillary Clinton to attend his wedding? Why is this something you would pay for? Why is this something you would admit? I mean, how is this proof of Trump’s shrewdness as a businessman? I get paying Hillary Clinton to get a zoning favor or a tax break or something like that. But how does having Hillary Clinton eating your canapés help your bottom line?

The guy is bragging about how, as the greatest businessman ever, he shrewdly buys politicians — and his example is getting Hillary Clinton to attend his wedding? I guess not since John D. Rockefeller got Mrs. Harding to attend his daughter’s piano recital has there been a more deft move in the world of high-stakes business. As I joked on Twitter last night, “It profits a man nothing to give his soul to gain the whole world, but for …. Hillary Clinton at your wedding?”

I could of course go on about the idea that the savior of American conservatism is a man who thinks socialized medicine works great in Canada and Scotland and who seems to honestly believe that illegal immigration “was not a subject that was on anybody’s mind until I brought it up at my announcement” two months ago.

But, again, the problem is I “just don’t get it.”

[Levan Ramishvili]

Trump, All Bluster and Babbitt

By Kevin D. Williamson — August 7, 2015

There were some low moments during the debates yesterday, both from the candidates (I often want to ask Rick Perry the question that JulesWinnfield asks that poor idiot in Pulp Fiction right before things go bad: “English . . . do you speak it?”) and from the moderators, too (“So, Dr. Carson, you’re black . . . ”). But the lowest moment was the big cheer Donald Trump got for his Rosie O’Donnell line and for his follow-up denunciation of political correctness.

That was a low moment for two reasons. First, it was a lie, albeit a lie that may have been offered in jest: Trump’s ungallant behavior hardly has been restricted to O’Donnell.  Second, political correctness is in this case a dodge: The complaint isn’t that Trump violated some rarefied code of conduct dreamed up this morning by the dean of students. As Megyn Kelly reminded him: “You’ve called women you don’t like ‘fat pigs,’ ‘dogs,’ ‘slobs,’ and ‘disgusting animals.’ . . . You once told a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice it would be a pretty picture to see her on her knees.” If you think that saying that sort of thing is merely a violation of political correctness and effete coastal liberal etiquette, try it on some dry-land cotton farmer’s wife or daughter and see if you live to boast of your free-spiritedness.

Trump afterward bawled that Kelly’s question was “not nice.” That’s fairly typical Trump: Call a woman a pig and you’re brashly disregarding political correctness; get criticized for it by the nice blonde lady on the news and you cry like a little princess who can’t find her favorite tiara in time for the tea party she’s throwing for her stuffed unicorn.

That is one of the problems with Trump that the Trumpkins don’t understand. It is true that the our inability to control our borders is an existential threat to these United States and that the crisis of illegal immigration is felt most intensely in downscale communities that do not register on Washington’s radar or Wall Street’s. But Trump’s buffoonery makes it less likely rather than more likely that something substantive will be done on the question. It is the case that the cult of political correctness is very much alive, that it is used to stifle criticism of powerful people and institutions and to render certain thoughts unspeakable. But if your solution to political correctness is to abandon manners and standards of conduct wholesale, then you are simply muddying the waters, making it less likely that we can respond intelligently to the little autocrats when they pipe up.

Trump’s buffoonery makes it less likely rather than more likely that something substantive will be done about our inability to control our borders or solve our illegal-immigration crisis.

There is a kind of addiction to frisson at work, one that’s common among commentators and public figures. One is confronted with some po-faced p.c. policeman who insists that it is improper to acknowledge or speak about, e.g., the high rates of welfare dependency among non-whites relative to whites. And maybe one gets a nice little thrill from the squealing when one stomps all over that nonsensical sensibility. All good and fine and merry, but some people develop a jones for that feeling. You’ve all seen it: A man saying perfectly reasonable things about crime or poverty or the Middle East ends up a year or two down the road collecting Rhodesian flags and carefully tracking the number of Jews who have served on the Federal Reserve board. Ask him how and why he became a nutball, and he’ll protest that he has simply been liberated from the surly bonds of political correctness.

For Trump there’s an additional factor at work: desperation. As the debate last night made obvious — obvious enough even for those drawn to Trump, if they can bear a moment’s intellectual honesty — that blustery, Babbitty persona is really all he has. Asked to provide evidence for his daft conspiracy theory that our illegal-immigration crisis is a result of the Mexican government’s intentionally flooding the United States with platoons of rapists, Trump’s answer was, essentially, “I heard it from a guy.” Challenged on his support for a Canadian-style single-payer health-care system, Trump described the system of his dreams in one word: “better.” As though nobody had ever thought: “What we need is better policies instead of worse policies.” Trump’s mind is so full of Trump that there isn’t any room for ideas, or even basic knowledge.

Bluster, as it turns out, can get a man pretty far in life. (And a lot farther if his bluster is accompanied by the better part of a half-billion dollars in real estate inherited from his father.) But as every glass-jawed bully eventually finds out, if bluster is all you have in life, you’ll eventually get found out.

And at that moment, it will become clear that you are not a courageous defender of free thought and speech, but only an ass. Donald Trump is incapable of being embarrassed; we’ll see how long that holds true of his admirers.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Reflections on the Trump Circus

By Andrew C. McCarthy — August 8, 2015

I’ve paid very little attention to the Donald Trump boomlet. I confess to enjoying Kevin and Jonah’s columns on the subject, but I’d enjoy their columns if they were writing about toothpicks. When asked about it, I’ve told people, “Ignore it and it will flame out on its own.” I’ve never met Donald Trump that I can recall. He’s a big New York personality and I’m Bronx born and bred, so of course I’m familiar with him. But I’ve never seen his TV shows, his news interviews are vapid, and I haven’t taken his presidential campaign any more seriously than I took his high-profile handwringing about running for this or that in the past.

What about all this psychoanalysis of the conservative base? We’ve heard the trope: Trump’s poll numbers can’t be ignored because they are not so much about him as about the anger he is tapping into – anger at the bipartisan Beltway political establishment. Well, as anyone who cares to read my columns knows, I am not exactly a stranger to that anger. I don’t need Donald Trump to draw my attention to it, and I don’t see him as a viable vehicle for representing it since he has a history of supporting positions and politicians responsible for a lot of that anger.

Besides, at this stage, 15 months before the 2016 election, the 20 percent mark at which Trump hovers is not very impressive for someone as well known as he is (a relatively unknown Carly Fiorina, for example, has a much higher ceiling than a Trump with negatives in the 60s). So I haven’t been able to work up much interest. I don’t believe even the Republicans are self-destructive enough to nominate someone who would spend the whole race explaining the boatload of money he’s donated to his opponent and other Democrats.

It appears the inevitable peter-out is happening. Better earlier than later, I suppose – with all the damage being done to the country in Washington, it’s ridiculous to spend all this time on a circus. But I must say the latest Trump misadventure is doing no one proud.

Trump said an asinine thing about Megyn Kelly – actually, a series of asinine things, but one in particular that stood out. No point in repeating it; I’ll simply note that Trump has implausibly denied what he said, and more plausibly (though not convincingly) denied that he was suggesting the anchor questioned him harshly because it was “that time of the month.” And please spare me about how his meaning is indisputable. If Bill Clinton had said what Trump said, we’d be treated to weeks of analysis regarding the audibility and epistemology of “whatever” versus “wherever”; Clinton’s indignant denials that anything offensive was intended would be accepted as dispositive by plenty of media folk. Eventually, we’d be somewhere between “I’m sorry if you misunderstood me” and “mistakes were made,” and the commentariat would “move on.”

The Trump circus is a bigger story today because Erick Erickson, with a pique that may have been just a wee bit calculated, ceremoniously disinvitedThe Donald from the Red State confab in Atlanta at which many in the GOP field are speaking. Kevin has already noted that Erick has a track record of statements that might make Trump blush. I would only add that this record includes provocative remarks about male dominance to which Megyn famously took offense – he took a lot of heat, and a cynic might figure he’s trying to make amends.

Some observations.

1. Donald Trump, as is his wont, has not apologized. To my mind, an apology is in order regardless of whether he said what he is accused of saying (he did) or meant what he is accused of meaning. (I am open to the argument he didn’t mean it because if he did, it suggests pathology – coming so soon after his initial refusal to apologize for bizarre remarks he made about Senator John McCain’s ordeal as a prisoner of war).

Trump should apologize because a gentleman does not speak the way he spoke; it was uncivil and unmanly. Trump has obnoxiously attempted to cover his asininity in the glory of a crusade against “political correctness.” Insisting on gentlemanly behavior, however, is not political correctness – it is correctness. (I tweeted that observation earlier in admiring reaction to Jonah’s post explaining something that should never have to be explained: rudeness is not a conservative principle.)

2. I don’t understand how so many automatically leap from the premise (actually, the fact) that Trump said something offensive to the conclusion that he should therefore have been disinvited from the Red State forum. Look, it’s Erick’s party and he is well within his rights to invite or disinviteanyone he chooses. If I were he, I hope that I’d bear in mind the indulgence I’d received for my own similar offenses, but that’s for him to decide. My point is that it was poor judgment, in principle and under the circumstances, to withdraw the invitation.

It happens that Megyn is a friend of mine. I don’t know if she’s had any reaction today, but I am betting she would never disinvite Trump from a Fox appearance over an offensive remark made about her or a colleague; she’d have him come in, confront him, let him try to explain himself, and let the audience be the judge. That’s what I think Red State should have done.

It’s a candidates’ forum (at least in part), Trump is still a candidate (at least for now), a number of people probably attended the event because he was advertised as a speaker, and it would have been worthwhile to put him to a choice of apologizing or trying to justify himself. It would have told us a lot about him but maybe even more about people who, for whatever reason, see him as a credible conservative candidate at this critical juncture in our history.

3. The worst thing about all this has been the competition among other candidates regarding who could pretend to be the most offended. I was sorry to see National Review’s reporting get caught up in it.

I confess partiality to Senator Ted Cruz, and this certainly informs my take.

An earlier post on the Corner announces, “Cruz Praises Megyn Kelly, Does Not Condemn Trump.” Let’s put aside the accolades for Megyn, since that seems to be a box candidates feel required to check today. Asked directly about Trump, Cruz is reported to have said, “I think every candidate should treat everyone else with civility and respect.” The unmistakable implication is that Trump was uncivil and disrespectful. Cruz did not say that explicitly, but it was patently clear that this is what he meant. He argued, correctly, that the episode was a distraction from the catastrophic problems facing the country and then moved on to one in particular – Iran.

Describing this transition, we report that Cruz “shamelessly changed the subject.”

Now, let me preface this by saying that National Review’s reporters (very much including Alexis Levinson) do a fabulous job, especially covering GOP goings on in Washington. Furthermore, if we were going to compile a list of National Review writers who have occasion to wince now and then over the way they’ve described breaking news, yours truly would be at the top.

Let’s also acknowledge the politics here –this is, after all, political reporting. There is a theory, probably well-founded, that Cruz calculates that when The Donald implodes, Cruz stands to inherit much of Trump’s support since Cruz is a candidate (maybe the candidate) who authentically represents the anger Trump has tapped into. Therefore, the theory holds, he is trying to avoid offending Trump’s supporters by taking shots at their champion, which would only provoke Trump to lash out at him, alienating voters who like Trump. And of course, Cruz has not worn kid gloves in his attacks on the Republican establishment, so the implication is – Heavens to Betsy! – there may be some political hypocrisy at work.

Fine. But “shamelessly changed the subject”? In a post prior to the Cruz post, we report that Mike Huckabee lauded Megyn, declined to attack Trump, and got testy (or as testy as the amiable former governor ever gets) because the Trump questions were distracting from his campaign themes. This is almost exactly what Cruz did – the difference being that Huck, unlike Cruz, does not appear to have suggested that Trump was uncivil and disrespectful. Yet the Huck post conveys a sense of admiration for how the governor sidestepped the Trump mess, while the Cruz post portrays the senator as an opportunist.

There’s nothing wrong with reporting that a politician may be acting opportunistically when the circumstances colorably suggest it. But how about a little consistency? The remaining candidates at Red State poured it on, one thicker than the next: Trump is offensive, a coward, a Clinton agent, a danger to the GOP; Megyn is the best, the brightest, the hardest working, etc., etc. Now, all those things may be true, but does a single one of these candidates really harbor these passionate feelings about the antagonist and the protagonist in this drama? Were they really singing Megyn’s praises on Thursday night after getting grilled for a couple of hours?

Why do I suspect that maybe, just maybe, they were shamelessly and opportunistically expressing outrage they calculated would please the voters they are courting?

[Levan Ramishvili]

Netanyahu and Trump: The Soldier and the Shopkeeper

By Kevin D. Williamson — August 9, 2015

On days when the political headlines contain both the names “Netanyahu” and “Trump,” one risks whiplash just opening the newspaper.

This may seem like a strange thing for an adult not resident in a psychiatric institution to write, but in my ideal world, there would be a lot more Donald Trumps and a lot fewer Benjamin Netanyahus. Netahyahu spent much of his youth as a soldier, serving in an IDF special-forces unit in the War of Attrition and the Yom Kippur War, and has spent much of his political career trying simply to ensure that his lonely little country will survive, beset as it is by hostility on all sides. By way of contrast, Trump’s career in business has from time to time constituted an assault against creditors and good taste both, but Trump’s life has been the sort of life that is possible only in nations blessed by peace and prosperity. Napoleon scoffed that the British were a nation of shopkeepers, but even while we honor the courage and sacrifice of the fighting man, a nation that spends more of its time and energy keeping shop or, God forgive us, developing casino resorts is a happier nation than the one whose men and women are obliged to spend their time soldiering.

It is naturally very difficult for us Americans to understand the domestic political realities of Israel. Israel is not a party to the pending U.S.–Iran nuclear deal, but Israel has more of a stake in the outcome than does the United States, at least in the near term. All honest parties acknowledge that some portion of those unsequestered Iranian funds are going to find their way into financing terror operations, and that may be of some direct concern to the United States at some point down the road; it will be a critical concern for Israel the day after the funds are released. The prospect of an Iranian nuclear weapon being lobbed into Tel Aviv is much closer than that of one being lobbed into San Francisco.

The prospect of an Iranian nuclear weapon being lobbed into Tel Aviv is much closer than that of one being lobbed into San Francisco.

We can afford to joke about that sort of thing; a left-wing talk-radio host this week did a bit about Netanyahu refusing to recognize Pluto as a planet and Israel reserving its right to defend itself against Pluto-related aggression. (Left-wing talk radio is not very funny.) In Israel, they’re taking things rather more seriously: Netanyahu, who is conducting an aggressive campaign to persuade Congress to reject President Obama’s accord with Tehran, was rebuked by the Israeli president, Reuven Rivlin, a member of his own party, on the grounds that the prime minister’s actions might undermine Israel’s relationship with the United States, which would be a potentially mortal blow to Israeli security. “The prime minister is leading a campaign against the United States as if we were equals,” he said. “We are to a large extent isolated in the world at the moment. . . . I’m not a pessimist but for the first time I see that we are alone.”

But of course Israel is not alone. As an American ally met with a blend of indifference and hostility from the Obama administration, it is part of a growing club that nobody wants to join.

The Israelis are not helpless sheep. They are an unacknowledged nuclear power, and their history has forced them to accommodate reality in ways that citizens of more-insulated nations can comfortably ignore. (For now.) A very large majority of Israelis believe that the Washington–Tehran deal makes a nuclear Iran much more likely, and a near-majority (47 percent in the last poll) support a military strike against Iran to attempt to hobble its nuclear program. This is familiar ground for the Israelis and for Netanyahu, who began getting serious about entering politics around the time Israel bombed an Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981. The Israelis are not defenseless, but there are not very many of them, and they do not have very many friends in a world that is embarrassed and offended by Jewish national assertiveness.

Meanwhile, our headline writers remain without a sense of irony: “Donald Trump goes nuclear on John McCain,” reads one; “Daily News goes nuclear on Donald Trump,” reads another. These are the nuclear exchanges on our political mind right now, and the combat that concerns most at the moment is verbal.

We don’t take things too seriously. But as strongmen from Islamabad to Pyongyang keenly appreciate, a nuclear weapon or two has a wonderful capacity for commanding the attention of one’s neighbors, and distant unserious world powers, too. North Korea couldn’t produce a can of tomato soup under its own steam, but it can bring the United States to heel with its handful of nuclear weapons. The ayatollahs understand this; Benjamin Netanyahu understands this — it’s obvious enough even for Chuck Schumer, who has announced that he will oppose the Iran deal.

Perhaps even Donald Trump understands that, though the fact that we are obliged to ask is part of the problem.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Trump indicts America's ruling class

His rise is a symptom of an increasingly isolated and tyrannical elite.

Glenn Harlan Reynolds

Watching the Donald Trump kerfuffle from across the Atlantic, British journalist Milo Yiannopoulos tweeted: “Republicans smugly predicting Trump will fail from self-inflicted wounds don’t see what a stunning admission of their own failure that is.”

He’s right. The rise — and, for that matter, the fall, if fall it is — of Trump is an indictment of the GOP establishment and, for that matter, of the American politicalestablishment in general. And that failure bodes poorly for the future, regardless of what happens to Trump.

Trump’s rise is, like that of his Democratic counterpart Bernie Sanders, a sign that a large number of voters don’t feel represented by more mainstream politicians. On many issues, ranging from immigration reform, which many critics view as tantamount to open borders, to bailouts for bankers, the Republican and Democratic establishments agree, while a large number (quite possibly a majority) of Americans across the political spectrum feel otherwise. But when no “respectable” figure will push these views, then less-respectable figures such as Trump or Sanders (a lifelong socialist who once wrote that women dream of gang rape, and that cervical cancer results from too few orgasms) will arise to fill the need.

But Trump and Sanders are just symptoms. The real disease is in the ruling class that takes such important subjects out of political play, in its own interest. AsAngelo Codevilla wrote in an influential essay in 2010, today’s ruling class is a monoculture that has little in common with the rest of the nation:

“Never has there been so little diversity within America's upper crust. Always, in America as elsewhere, some people have been wealthier and more powerful than others. But until our own time, America's upper crust was a mixture of people who had gained prominence in a variety of ways, who drew their money and status from different sources and were not predictably of one mind on any given matter. TheBoston Brahmins, the New York financiers, the land barons of California, Texas and Florida, the industrialists of Pittsburgh, the Southern aristocracy and the hardscrabble politicians who made it big in Chicago or Memphis had little contact with one another.

“Today's ruling class, from Boston to San Diego, was formed by an educational system that exposed them to the same ideas and gave them remarkably uniform guidance, as well as tastes and habits. These amount to a social canon of judgments about good and evil, complete with secular sacred history, sins (against minorities and the environment), and saints. Using the right words and avoiding the wrong ones when referring to such matters — speaking the ‘in’ language — serves as a badge of identity. Regardless of what business or profession they are in, their road up included government channels and government money because, as government has grown, its boundary with the rest of American life has become indistinct. Many began their careers in government and leveraged their way into the private sector.”

To this ruling class, the rest of the country is sometimes an annoyance or obstacle, sometimes a source of necessary funds or votes, but always the “other” — not our kind, dear. Too ignorant, too unpolished, too unconnected to the right institutions and pieties to really count. With ruling-class Republicans having more in common with ruling-class Democrats than with the people they rule, it’s unsurprising that, as Codevilla predicted in a later essay, millions of voters feel orphaned. Democracy doesn’t do much for technocratically set policy that always seems to reflect ruling-class preferences, and people feel they’ve lost control of their own fates.

Of course, orphaned voters aren’t a bug but a feature for a ruling class that would prefer to rule without them. But in a democracy, which America still is, voters don’t stay orphaned forever.

In this election cycle, Trump and Sanders have come forward to claim the orphaned vote. It’s very likely that, this time around, the ruling class will manage to put orphaned voters back in the political orphanage by the time Election Day rolls around next year.

But the orphans will still be there, still longing for someone powerful enough to give them a voice. And the politician who will ultimately manage to do so, unless our ruling class does a better job of listening, could be one who will make Trump and Sanders look mainstream.

Trump and Sanders are only symptoms. Failed leadership is the disease.

Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor, is the author of The New School: How the Information Age Will Save American Education from Itself.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Donald Trump Is the New Ron Paul

501 AUG 7, 2015 4:33 PM EDT

By Megan McArdle

I spent yesterday from 5 p.m. to midnight watching Republican presidential candidates debate each other -- well, mostly watching them give brief answers to predetermined questions. The second debate, aka The Big Kid's Table, was the best moderated debate I've ever seen, with serious, tough questions that targeted the weakest points of the men answering them. The questions gathered from Facebook were sillier, but provided great enjoyment for our intrepid band of debate-watchers, who were a mite fatigued after hours of talking points.

For me, the high point came when Donald Trump announced that he had made a donation to Hillary Clinton in order to ... get her to come to his wedding. Where to begin with such a statement? I have known brides and bridegrooms who cherished a vulgar belief that weddings have a three-figure admission fee, in cash or kind.  But outside of romantic comedies, I have never heard of an American wedding in which the payments ran the other way. Trump touts himself as a dealmaker, but if this is an example of his negotiating prowess, do you really want him in charge of your international treaties? "I'm afraid I won't even consider withdrawing our troops from your border unless you also allow me to give you a billion dollars, a weekend for two at the Maui Hilton, and a personal guided tour of the White House!"

When I pointed this out on Twitter, a Trump fan of indeterminate sincerity tweeted back "Wake ... up, sheeple!"

How did this man get onto the stage? And how can we get him off, given the apparent passion of his base, who flood online polls with support for The Donald? He and Bernie Sanders are giving me flashbacks to those heady days of 2007, when a rash mention of Ron Paul's name in a column, much less criticizing his somewhat tenuous grasp on monetary economics, was good for hundreds of comments and emails, assuring you that Dr. Paul was going to be the next president of the United States because he was FINALLY offering Americans a REAL ALTERNATIVE. (Ron Paul supporters favored ALL CAPS so that you would UNDERSTAND that they were SERIOUS ABOUT CHANGE, or perhaps because the RON PAUL COMMEMORATIVE KEYBOARDS they had bought had some sort of TERRIBLE MALFUNCTION.)

Donald Trump is not going to be president. Bernie Sanders is also not going to be president. Their appeal to their supporters is precisely the reason they are not going to be president. Every few years, a large number of Americans need to learn the same lesson: The reason you don't hear the solutions that you want coming from the boring, scripted, mainstream politicians who get elected is that the solutions that you want  do not appeal to the majority of your fellow countrymen. 

You could think of an elected politician as a little bit like Applebee's, or Olive Garden, or TGI Fridays, or [insert ubiquitous restaurant chain here]. The food at these places is not horrifying. It's fine: bland, familiar, and heavily reliant on fat, salt and sugar rather than innovative flavor combinations to tickle your tastebuds. Luckily, salt, fat, and sugar are tasty, so pretty much anyone in the country can walk into one of these restaurants and find something to eat. But no one in history has ever walked out of one saying "Finally, a real alternative to the same old sweet, fatty, salty sameness! Finally, a restaurateur who has the courage to offer us radical change in our menus, and flavors we've never tasted before!"

Now, there is a market for that kind of restaurant. It consists of a small number of educated people living in urban areas. You can make a decent living catering to their tastes with your new jalapeno-marshmallow-crusted wallaby napoleon with a side of deep-fried rhubarb-infused lard.

What you cannot do is get the majority of Americans to eat there. If you want a mass market -- and it's hard to get elected to national office with just the hipster vote, or even the Celebrity Apprentice vote -- then your menu options need to center on the conventional, the inoffensive, and the bland. Because when you're dealing with a lot of people of varying tastes, you have to be at least as worried about driving people away as you do about pleasing them.

Donald Trump's appeal seems to be largely that he will say any old thing that pops into his head. And for a sizable segment of the population, which is sick of being shushed by their self-appointed betters in the coastal corridors, that's refreshing. Every time the chattering classes go into paroxysms about Trump's latest outburst, that merely heightens his appeal, in the same way the chattering classes sometimes enjoy not-so-appealing foodstuffs precisely because the folks back in Peoria would hate it.  Ultimately, however, this is a bad reason to elect someone president -- sort of like marrying a deadbeat alcoholic with commitment issues because your ex-wife hates her. 

And when we move beyond two people making a disastrous mistake, and try to get 100 million or so other people to jump on board, it's not merely unwise, but impossible. As Joe Scarborough remarked during the last round of oversubscribed GOP primaries, "The Republican Party does not nominate crazy." They may flirt with crazy. But when it's time to settle down, they pick the boring, middle-of-the-road candidate that they can bring home to the folks in Peoria ... and Atlanta ... and Cleveland ... and Portsmouth. So do the Democrats. Because ultimately, they want their guy in the Oval Office more than they want an authentic, election-losing alternative to the status quo.

Like many Americans, I enjoyed the Trump antics last night. There's nothing wrong with that. But there is something wrong with believing that this man might actually become president. I mean ... wake up, sheeple.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Trump Virus and Its Symptoms

By Charles C. W. Cooke — August 10, 2015

A plague is sweeping the land, gathering victims of all shapes and sizes and turning them into fools. Its name — for now — is Trumpism.

The Trump virus’s primary effect is twofold: First, it implants in its hosts the unshakable conviction that one of the most execrable clowns in the history of these United States is a hero who deserves to be elevated to the White House; then, having inculcated the conceit, it removes the faculties that are necessary for its removal. The results are ruinous. As might the partisans of a deliberately unfalsifiable conspiracy theory, those who have been stricken soon come to believe in earnest that there is no such thing as a fair-minded or legitimate criticism of their swashbuckling charge, and that all embarrassments, mistakes, and inadequacies are in fact signs of imminent victory. To converse at length with a committed Trumpite is, in consequence, akin in nature to conversing at length with a moon-landing denier: Every protestation is taken as a clear indication of complicity in the cover-up; distinctions between matters of minor and major import are disintegrated at will; run-of-the-mill inquiries are received as telltale signs of “fear” or of “hatred”; and bluster and the turning of rhetorical tables (“so who do you like: Jeb?”) substitute for patience and for forthrightness. There is a certain irony in this. By their own insistence, Trump’s devotees consider themselves to be the rebels at the gates; by their dull, unreflective, often ovine behavior, they resemble binary and nuancless drones, as might be found in a novel by Aldous Huxley or Yevgeny Zamyatin.

In parallel, the Trump virus yields a second — and equally potent — symptom: It provokes otherwise intelligent people into an ugly form of civil confusion. Because the Trumpite has invariably arrived at his conclusion before he has considered his premises, he is prone to disastrous conflation when pressed to explain himself. Thus does he mistake boorishness and vapidity for courage and the common touch. Thus does he muddle together self-interest and public spiritedness. Thus, ultimately, does he come to believe that fatal weaknesses should be conceived as dazzling strengths. In a sane world it would be abundantly clear to anybody whose research skills extend to the casual use of Wikipedia that Donald Trump not only lacks crucial government experience but that, insofar as he has hitherto connected with that world, his behavior has been appalling. And yet, because Washington is a mess and a plague o’ both your houses! tendency currently obtains, the Trumpite is prone to assert without evidence or reason that these clear deficiencies are in fact a remedy for its ills. In the main, such gymnastics are roundly comical — comparable, perhaps, to a person’s choosing a disabled man to run in a marathon because he is especially bombastic. “But he can’t even walk,” the naysayers might observe. “That’s thepoint!” would come the inexplicable reply. “He’s not like the others!”

Alas, difference is soon taken as a virtue in and of itself. To any moderately informed observer of the present political scene, it is evident that Donald Trump is not in fact a conservative, and that his political instincts tend more often than not in precisely the opposite direction. For those who describe themselves as “conservatives,” this should present something of a problem. But, because he does not operate within the same world as the much-loathed Mitch McConnell — and because he cannot therefore be judged on the basis of anything concrete — the man’s ideological indiscretions are being steadfastly ignored. For decades now, our friends on the progressive left have wondered in vain what it might take to convince a sizable portion of America’s rightward-leaning dissenters to embrace single-payer health care, advocate stricter gun control, propose higher taxes on the wealthy, endorse the broad use of eminent domain, defend protectionism in trade, affirm the pro-choice cause, and cozy up warmly to the likes of Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi. Today, they have their answer: It takes a general dissatisfaction with the status quo, and the cheapest of P. T. Barnum knockoffs to exploit it.

For both the friends and the foes of conservatism, it will be tempting to conclude that the root cause of the Trump phenomenon is the rank stupidity of the voting public. This, though, would be a mistake. In truth, the Trump surge is being caused by an unwillingness on the part of his champions to distinguish between the illness that they seek to remedy and that remedy itself. Livid at the stagnation and discord of the Obama years, appalled by the dysfunction and hollowness of Washington, D.C., and dismayed by the immediate-term prospects for recovery, a number of conservatives have arrived at a reasonable prescription: that something, somewhere, needs to change in their movement, and that it may take radical action in order to provoke an alteration. Alas, in an attempt to expedite reform, many have hitched their wagons to the first sign of disruption that has come along. Given the scale of the disappointment that so many feel, one can grasp the temptation. But a virus is a virus is a virus — even when the patient is actually ill.

—  Charles C. W. Cooke is a staff writer at National Review.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Trump

By Rich Lowry — August 9, 2015

People are again predicting his demise. The widely admired Megyn Kelly is definitely a riskier target for him than John McCain was. But since an enormous amount of his appeal is based on saying outrageous things and not apologizing for them, it’d be foolish to think that anything that has transpired since Thursday will sink him. I wouldn’t be surprised, though, if the debate and its aftermath check or reverse the progress he’d been making in the internals of the polls (higher favorable ratings, fewer Republicans saying they’d never consider voting for him, etc.).

I basically only have one barometer for whether Trump has gone too far–and that’s when Ted Cruz is willing to criticize him directly. We haven’t reached that point yet. I take Andy’s point about how all the other candidates are making their own calculations how to respond to Trump, too, but the gentle treatment Cruz affords the mogul is especially noteworthy given how eager he usually is to attack other Republicans and the fact that Trump has the most flagrantly RINO record of anyone in the field. So I don’t doubt that he shamelessly changed the subject as Alexis said, because this is something he really, really doesn’t want to have to address for now. (And as a general matter, I appreciate Alexis’s robust coverage of the flap that consumed the political world this weekend).

More broadly, it’s pretty clear where the drift of this thing is heading, which is not toward Trump winning the nomination, but toward Trump somewhere along the way saying he’s been treated unfairly — by the GOP, by the media, by Jonah Goldberg, et al. — and declaring next year that he’s seriously considering an independent bid. Even if he didn’t ultimately pull the trigger, it would guarantee another couple of months of attention for Donald Trump, which is the only thing that matters for Donald Trump.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Donald the Whiner

By Rich Lowry — August 11, 2015

Donald Trump is given to superlatives, so let’s do him the honor of pronouncing him the most fabulous whiner in all of American politics.

By Trump’s own account, he’s the baddest, smartest thing going, except if you ask him a challenging question, in which case he kicks and screams and demands to know how anyone could treat him so unfairly.

Trump followed up his shaky-at-best performance at the first Republican-candidate debate, hosted by Fox News, with days of complaining that he hadn’t been afforded the respect he deserves.

According to Trump, he’ll bring Vladimir Putin to heel. He’ll make Mexico pay for a border fence. He’ll take the Middle East’s oil. Assuming, that is, no one says a discouraging word to him. Then he’ll lose it.

The mogul did indeed get a series of tough questions from the Fox debate moderators (disclosure: I’m a Fox News contributor). But Trump, as Trump always reminds us, is leading in all the polls. It is not unusual — indeed, it is to be expected — that a front-runner gets more scrutiny than the also-rans.

What were the affronts that Trump had to suffer? He was asked right at the beginning whether or not he would rule out running as an independent, a natural question of someone seeking the Republican nomination for president. Trump predictably got booed when he wouldn’t pledge to support the eventual nominee, although he allowed, in a characteristic Trump tautology, that he would support the nominee — if he’s the nominee.

Thanks, Donald.

Then Fox anchor Megyn Kelly asked him about how he would respond to inevitable attacks from Hillary Clinton in a general election over his crass insults of women through the years. This set Trump off, but does anyone think if, say, Jeb Bush had ever called a woman a pig or a dog, he wouldn’t get asked about it, too?

If “never complain, never explain” is a good rule of life, Trump is 0 for 2.

Trump handled the ensuing flap with his typical aplomb and class, which is to say he flailed about wildly and hurled witless insults. He denied that he said the things Kelly alleged he had, even though he did. He called Kelly an overrated lightweight. Finally, he bizarrely said that “there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.”

When this was interpreted as a reference to her menstrual cycle, Trump objected that there was no way he possibly could say something so crude — all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. He also insisted that when he said  “wherever,” he had been about to say Kelly’s nose or ears, but stopped himself to get on with more important points — which happened to be more insults of Kelly.

For someone who prides himself on being the bold truth-teller, Trump has a penchant for trying to litigate his way out of his controversial statements. When he said a few weeks ago that John McCain wasn’t a war hero, he backtracked and tried to prove that he hadn’t said what he obviously had.

If “never complain, never explain” is a good rule of life, Trump is 0 for 2.

His typical response to any controversy is to boast of his own exceptional greatness — the Fox debate would have been nothing without him, the other candidates told him afterward that he had won, etc. — and to call anyone who has crossed him a loser. If Trump is aware of the fact that there is such a thing as a witty put-down, he is certainly not capable of summoning one.

If he didn’t want to be wrong-footed on the biggest stage of the campaign so far, he could have thought about what questions he might have been asked and about possible answers. This is what candidates have done before debates since time immemorial. Trump was satisfied with Plan B: to wing it and, when it didn’t go to his liking, whine like a spoiled child who didn’t get a pony for his birthday.

[Levan Ramishvili]

The Donald and DecadenceHow Trump's sort of populist nationalism differs from the European variety.

by By Ross Douthat

I tried to avoid the coals-to-Newcastle phenomenon that is Trump coverage this weekend by writing my Sunday column on immigration politics in Europe instead, with a particular focus on how the widening population differential on either side of the Mediterranean, already roiling European politics, is likely to create a kind of sweeping “Eurafrican” interaction over the next fifty years, with truly unknowable results. It’s a big topic, a lot bigger even than the yugeness of Trump … but there are, yes, links between the two phenomena, which my old friend Reihan Salamteased out a bit for Slate last week:

… Trump is very far from a Republican regular. He represents an entirely different phenomenon, one that bears little resemblance to garden-variety American conservatism.

Go to almost any European democracy and you will find that the parties of the center-right and center-left that have dominated the political scene since the Second World War are losing ground to new political movements. What these movements have in common is that they manage to blend populism and nationalism into a potent anti-establishment brew. One of the first political figures to perfect this brand of politics was the very Trumpian Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian media tycoon who rose to power as part of a coalition of right-of-center parties in the mid-1990s, and who has been in and out of power ever since, dodging corruption charges and worse all the while. More recently, the miserable state of Europe’s economies has fueled the rise of dozens of other parties. Britain’s Labour Party has been devastated by the rise not only of the leftist Scottish National Party, but also by UKIP, a movement of the right that has been growing at Labour’s expense by campaigning against mass immigration, and by largely abandoning what had been its more libertarian line on the welfare state. UKIP’s leader, Nigel Farage, has a penchant for bombast that endears him his working-class base, which might sound familiar to you.

Read the rest, with which I concur but to which I would add one important further point: To the extent that the seeds for a populist-nationalist movement exist in the United States, and to the extent that Trump is watering them with his own personal elixir, I think our own anxieties differ somewhat from the essential fears of Europe, in that in the U.S. there’s slightly less anxiety about the loss of national identity and a little more anxiety about the loss of greatness and exceptionalism and economic supremacy and (though most people wouldn’t phrase it this way) empire.

Which is not to say that the immigration issue isn’t inextricably linked to populism generally — even to Bernie Sander’s sort, a little bit — and to Trump’s particular (if complicated) appeal. (Don’t hurt me, Mickey!) But if you look at his rhetorical posture overall, including the way he led things off at last week’s debate, the Trump Narrative (TM) is less about threats to American national identity per se, in the style of Marine Le Pen or Farage with La Belle France or Little England, than it is about the collapse of American competence, effectiveness, and success. Thus Trump is less likely to say that we’re getting overrun by the Mexicans than he is to say that we’re getting beaten by the Mexicans (and their government), in the same way that (he argues) we’re getting beaten by everybody: ISIS, the Chinese, the Iranians, you name it. If you want to cast him as just a nativist, his slogan “Make America Great Again,” can be read as a dog-whistle to some whiter and more Anglo-Saxon past, but I think it makes more sense to just take it literally – as a complaint about everything from the failed Iraq adventure (another frequent Trumpian theme) to the general stagnation of of our economy and the sclerosis of our government, and an implicit plaint for the days (which most of his supporters remember) when America won the Cold War and by-God Put a Man on the Moon. (And even built a single-payer health care system for old people … but that, folks, was “a different age.”)

The theme of ebbing greatness isn’t absent in European populist politics, of course, particularly in France. But it’s not always themajor theme, because European societies have had to come to terms with their lost power, their vanished empires, across years and generations. Whereas the challenges posed to Europe’s nations by immigration and assimilation are fresher (especially on a continent where peace was finally gained after World War II in part by a bloody rationalization of national borders along ethnic lines) and potentially sharper (because of the role of Islam and Islamist terrorism), and more likely (given population trends) to grow apace with every passing year.

Again, it’s not that the immigration issue doesn’t matter in America; as a moderate-restrictionist, comprehensive-reform skeptic obviously I think it does. But America has experience with assimilation that Europe lacks, we have the advantage of a federal system that partially limits balkanized responses to migration, we share borders with peoples who mostly share versions of our (ancestral) religion and increasingly inhabit functional democracies, and the population balance between North and South America is just much more, well, balanced than the differential between Europe and the regions to its south.

Of course Latin America isn’t the only source of U.S. immigration, and Africa’s demographic surge will probably have repercussions for American in-migration and domestic politics as well. But still I’m doubtful that the issue would play quite the same role in a real populist-nationalist upsurge that it has in Europe; it would have to be subsumed into broader fears about American economic and geopolitical decline – the (defensible and bipartisan) sense that while our very existence may not be at stake, our public institutions are in decay, our military can’t win wars, our leaders are corrupt, and in every other way we simply aren’t the America (!) that we have traditionally imagined ourselves to be.

That this argument would be expressed and championed, at present, by a magnificent specimen of decadence like the Donald – a coarse much-married Richie Rich-cum-crony capitalist who boasts about bribing politicians and exploiting bankruptcy laws to enrich himself – is perhaps an irony, or perhaps simply the way that these things inevitably go (as the Berlusconi example suggests). The best way to think of Trump, it seems to me, is as a parody of a send-up of how Americans like to imagine themselves. But perhaps a decaying imperium simply conjures up the critics it deserves.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Why Donald TrumpIsn’t Going Away

He’s not a Republican phenomenon. He’s part of a troubling global movement toward populism and nationalism.

By Reihan Salam

To understand the rise of Donald Trump, you’d do well not to fixate on the fact that he’s running under the Republican banner. During Thursday night’s Fox News debate, Trump made it clear that failing to secure the GOP nomination wouldn’t stop him from exploring an independent candidacy. And honestly, he’d be crazy not to. Trump is very far from a Republican regular. He represents an entirely different phenomenon, one that bears little resemblance to garden-variety American conservatism. That’s why Republicans shouldn’t fool themselves into believing that one lackluster debate performance will send him packing.

Go to almost any European democracy and you will find that the parties of the center-right and center-left that have dominated the political scene since the Second World War are losing ground to new political movements. What these movements have in common is that they manage to blend populism and nationalism into a potent anti-establishment brew. One of the first political figures to perfect this brand of politics was the very Trumpian Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian media tycoon who rose to power as part of a coalition of right-of-center parties in the mid-1990s, and who has been in and out of power ever since, dodging corruption charges and worse all the while. More recently, the miserable state of Europe’s economies has fueled the rise of dozens of other parties. Britain’s Labour Party has been devastated by the rise not only of the leftist Scottish National Party, but also by UKIP, a movement of the right that has been growing at Labour’s expense by campaigning against mass immigration, and by largely abandoning what had been its more libertarian line on the welfare state. UKIP’s leader, Nigel Farage, has a penchant for bombast that endears him to his working-class base, which might sound familiar to you.

The Danish People’s Party went from the far-right fringe to become Denmark’s second-largest party by combining anti-immigration sentiment with a commitment to protecting social programs that serve native Danes. In neighboring Sweden, the Sweden Democrats are trying to pull off a similar feat, which is challenging in light of the party’s neofascist roots. France’s National Front has been a major player for decades, yet under its current leader, Marine Le Pen, is on the verge of a major electoral breakthrough, despite near-constant infighting. The most successful populist movements in southern Europe—Podemos in Spain, the Five Star Movement in Italy, and Syriza in Greece—are generally on the left rather than the right, yet they’re just as aggressively anti-establishment as their right-wing counterparts.

So what does any of this have to do with Trump? As a political outsider, Trump has the freedom to say or do almost anything. While every other Republican on stage Thursday night made an effort to demonstrate their conservative bona fides, justifying this or that heresy by invoking the Bill of Rights or the memory of the sainted Ronald Reagan, Trump had no compunction about breaking with ideological orthodoxy. When asked about his past support for a Canadian-style single-payer health system, Trump didn’t back down. Instead of repudiating his past position, or apologizing for it, he said that “as far as single-payer, it works in Canada. It works incredibly well in Scotland. It could have worked in a different age, which is the age you’re talking about here.” Why didn’t Trump reverse himself? It could be that he recognizes that there are many GOP voters who are just as passionate about defending Medicare as they are about protecting America’s borders, and that the prospect of Medicare-for-all might not faze them. Or it could be that he realizes that the forces that have pushed him to the top of the GOP primary fight are far bigger than just the Republican Party, and he need not toe the line to keep his candidacy alive.  

 

[Levan Ramishvili]

Donald Trump won't rule out a third-party run. Here's how the GOP could try to block it.

by Andrew Prokop 

Donald Trump's musings about running for president as a third-party or independent candidate have struck fear into the hearts of many Republicans, sincehe could well split the conservative vote and throw the election to the Democratic nominee.

Unless, that is, he's blocked from even appearing on the ballot by "sore loser laws."

Already in Ohio and Michigan, existing sore loser laws would block a Trump third-party bid if he runs in the primaries and loses. And if Republicans pass similar measures in other swing states, the damage from a third-party or independent Trump candidacy could be contained.

It's a sort of nuclear option that the party could take in a last-ditch effort to stop Trump from tanking their presidential chances. But he certainly wouldn't go down quietly. As Ezra Klein recently wrote, "There's nothing Donald Trump hates like being called a loser."

What is a sore loser law?

Sore loser laws block someone who runs and loses in a party primary from running in the general election as the candidate of another party, and/or as an independent, depending on the wording. These laws are essentially meant to protect the major parties' prerogatives, and to prevent divisive primary splits from carrying over to the general election. Yet they've also been criticized for bolstering the dominance of the two party system, and for restricting voters' options.

According to an article by Emory law professor Michael Kang, 47 states have some form of a sore loser law on the books, the language and severity of which vary. (Some merely block third-party bids; others apply to independent or even write-in candidacies.) Luckily for Trump, though, only a few of these state laws actually apply to presidential elections.

One of the few that does, however, is in the hugely important swing state of Ohio. And according to its secretary of state — Republican Jon Husted — Trump has already disqualified himself from running as a third-party or independent candidate there. Husted said last week that Trump's participation in the Republican debate and his FEC statement of candidacy are enough to do the trick, as USA Today's Paul Singer wrote.

That's a stronger interpretation than several other states, where you have to actually appear on the ballot to lose your third-party option. Theoretically, Trump could skip the Ohio primary or file for the ballot but withdraw. If he does decide to take this route, he'll surely contest Husted's interpretation of the law in court.

Another option — running as a write-in candidate — wouldn't work in the state. Ohio law says write-in votes will only be counted if they're for people who have filed a declaration of intent to be a write-in candidate, which the sore loser law preventsTrump from doing.

Michigan's sore loser law could also trouble Trump. Back in 2012, Gary Johnson ran for the Republican nomination, but planned to run on the Libertarian Party ballot in the general election. But Johnson failed to withdraw his name from the GOP primary contest in time — he was three minutes too late in filing his request. As a result, and despite a legal battle, he was blocked from appearing on the ballot in the general.

Would Republicans in other states pass sore loser laws to stop Trump?

If Trump continues to dangle the possibility of an independent candidacy, Republicans in other key states could pass similar sore loser laws applying to the presidential contest. Such a blatant anti-Trump move would likely result in some backlash, but party elites might calculate that it's worth doing anyway, since Trump puts their presidential chances at such risk. In Florida, Wisconsin, and Nevada, the governorship and state legislature are all in Republican hands (though it might be awkward for Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker to sign such a law, considering he's running for president himself).

But if the GOP makes such a move, expect many Democrats to suddenly wax loquacious about how undemocratic sore loser laws are for their own partisan reasons. Virginia's governor is Terry McAuliffe, a longtime close ally of the Clintons. Colorado, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania have Democratic governors, too, and Iowa's state Senate is (barely) controlled by Democrats. They have little incentive to do the GOP presidential candidate a favor.

Republicans could accurately make the case that in the long run, both major parties will be helped by sore loser laws. But the potential short-term benefits of a Trump independent candidacy could be so great for Democrats that it would be a tough sell.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Donald Trump will inevitably flame out. Here’s why.

By Michael Gerson August 10 at 7:39 PM  

In the first Republican debate, the klieg light that Donald Trump always carries around with him revealed four or five presidential candidates who, under the right circumstances, could beat Hillary Clinton. (Trump was not among them.) But there was also a moment that could predict the defeat of the GOP in 2016.

No, I’m not talking about Sen. Ted Cruz heaping praise on Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi — a military-backed ruler who jails journalists and has sentenced hundreds of opponents to death or life in prison — as a model in dealing with Islamism. And no, I am not talking about Sen. Rand Paul’s smirk when New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie raised the memory of 9/11 victims and their families.

The single most important event of the campaign so far was Trump raising his hand and refusing to commit to the eventual GOP nominee. At that moment, Republicans saw a likely dystopia. Trump has gotten a hint of what it might be like to stand on the only stage sufficient to his self-image. He thinks that a Trump-branded White House might actually be possible. It is not a view held by any serious political observer. That doesn’t matter. Some public figures — Harold Stassen, Eugene McCarthy — never recovered from the beatific vision, and spent the rest of their lives trying to recover it.

Trump will flame out. And since he is constitutionally incapable of accepting fault, he will blame the GOP for arson. As someone prone to conspiracy theories — on presidential birth records, vaccines and the scheming Mexican government — Trump is probably gathering string to prove a plot against him involving Megyn Kelly, the GOP establishment and the American Gynecological and Obstetrical Society. So he is keeping his third-party options open.

Trump’s actual performance in the debate demonstrated the real reason he will flame out. He called the other candidates “stupid” while failing to show mastery of a single policy issue. If you actually listen to him and try to follow his reasoning, the result is the intellectual version of a hangover.

Trump says that the campaign finance system is broken, which he knows because he took full advantage of it to buy politicians. So we are being told: You should elect me to protect you from people like me. The taking of graft, it seems, is deeply corrupt, while the giving of graft is just part of the game. The Trump syllogism: Every politician is bought by billionaires. Only billionaires can fund their own campaigns to avoid being bought. Therefore only billionaires can save us from billionaires.

Listen again: During the debate, he boasted of taking his investors — who are not “babies” but “killers” — for a ride, utilizing bankruptcy laws to his advantage, then divesting from Atlantic City before its economy crashed. This fits the image of the coldhearted, capitalist fat cat better than anything Mitt Romney managed. Trump plays monopoly with other people’s money, then mocks them as suckers for trusting him.

I realize there is little upside in analyzing Trump’s words. Those who support him are not looking for fancy language, or political correctness, or logical coherence, or human decency — all those establishment poses. They would rather have a candidate who accuses a woman of being hormonal, then repeats the charge that she is a “bimbo,” then tries to cover up the whole mess with a clumsy deception.

In a parliamentary system, Trump might found his own party and win a few seats in the legislature (the Italians, after all, once elected a professionally active porn star to parliament). In the United States, the options are all or nothing. As a third-party candidate, Trump could easily tip a close election to Clinton. How do Republicans persuade him to choose nothing?

The best, maybe only, option is to ensure that his poll numbers deflate quickly, making it obvious that a lavish campaign for the Republican nomination and, later, the difficult task of getting on 50 ballots will end in humiliation. This will require establishment Republicans to stop playing political bank shots off his rise and make clear he has moved beyond the boundaries of serious and civil discourse. And it will require conservative populists to recognize that an alliance with Trump is effectively tying their movement to an anvil (the RedState summit disinvitation is a good start).

It is better to risk a short-term backlash than a predictable, long-term political disaster. So Trump’s inevitable self-marginalization must be given a push.

 

[Levan Ramishvili]

GOP's Trump problem will fade, but Democrats' Bernie Sanders troubles are just beginning

Jonah Goldberg

We are trying to be reasonable," an organizer for Bernie Sanders' Seattle rally said.

The black female protesters who stormed the stage became enraged. "We aren't reasonable!" they shouted back. "If you do not listen to [us], your event will be shut down," one of them declared to the crowd.

Sanders caved to the protesters from the Black Lives Matter movement and gave activist Marissa Johnson the microphone. "I was going to tell Bernie how racist this city is, even with all of these progressives, but you've already done that for me. Thank you," she said, apparently in response to members of the crowd who booed her. I suppose if you've already conceded that you aren't reasonable, it's not hard to argue that booing an uninvited rabble-rouser is "racist."

It's understandable that all eyes have been on the insane food fight Donald Trump has instigated on the right. Even Trump's biggest detractors — and I count myself among their number — have to concede that Trump is awfully entertaining. But while the spectacle on the right seems like a canceled TV reality show pilot — call it "Desperate Billionaires of Manhattan" — the spectacle on the left is no less fascinating or significant.

Sanders, the lifelong independent socialist running for the Democratic nomination, has been gathering historic crowds, much larger than anything Hillary Rodham Clinton or Trump have been able to manage. Saturday's rally drew 15,000 people. The following night in Portland, Ore., 28,000 reportedly attended. The best Clinton has done — in her adopted home state of New York, at her kickoff event no less — was 5,500.

The Clinton team is clearly nervous. Her poll numbers have been plummeting as Sanders' have been surging. The campaign moved up its ad buys from November to this month. She's been tacking ever further left.

The trouble for Clinton and the Democrats generally is that while Barack Obama was able to unite the factions of the left to get himself elected, it's not clear anyone else can.

Obama wanted to be a Reagan of the left, a "transformative" president who moved the magnetic poles of American politics leftward. The jury is out on that project, but he did succeed in at least one sense. Reagan united foreign policy hawks, social conservatives and economic conservatives — the famous three legs to the stool of the conservative movement.

Obama did something very similar on the left. He united the civil rights or identity politics wing, the economic or egalitarian wing and the more elitist technocratic wing. Obviously, these movements overlap — just as the different factions of the Reagan coalition overlapped — but each has its own priorities and passions.

Aided by his experience as a former community organizer and his historic status as the first black president, Obama held the coalition together through force of personality.

The Democratic Party has always had internal conflicts. Franklin D. Roosevelt's coalition contained socialist Jews and blacks and Southern segregationists. That coalition held for 20 years after his presidency. But the Obama coalition seems to be fraying while he's still in office, and none of his presumptive heirs have the charisma or skills to repair or sustain the coalition.

Sanders has charm, but the Jewish socialist transplant from Brooklyn has spent his political life in a state that has only 7,500 blacks. He lacks the vocabulary to appeal beyond the white left. Meanwhile, the black left, an indispensable voting bloc, has no standard-bearer in the primaries and is clearly angry about it.

Clinton's most comfortable in the role of elitist technocrat, which is great for fundraising from Wall Street and wooing Beltway journalists, but it's not so useful for wooing voters in a populist environment. Thanks to her husband, she still has goodwill among African Americans. But she lacks the charisma, passion or personal story to excite either the black left or the white left. The woman who left the White House "dead broke" makes five times the average American's annual income per speech.

The GOP's Trump problem will eventually melt away. I suspect the Democrats' troubles are far more durable.

 

[Levan Ramishvili]

Donald Trump Is Winning The Polls — And Losing The Nomination

By NATE SILVER

Twelve years ago, in August 2003, Joe Lieberman led in most polls of the Democratic primary. Eight years ago, in August 2007, Rudy Giuliani maintained a clear lead in polls of Republicans, while Hillary Clinton led in polls of the Democratic nomination contest. Four years ago, in August 2011, Mitt Romney began with the lead in polls of Republican voters, but he would be surpassed by the end of the month by Rick Perry, the first of four Republican rivals who would at some point overtake Romney in national polling averages.

Lieberman, Clinton, Giuliani and Perry, as you’ve probably gathered, are not the faces atop Mount Rushmore. Only Clinton came close to winning the nomination.

But the problem isn’t just that the national polls at this stage in the race lack empirical power to predict the nomination; it’s also that they describe a fiction. I don’t mean to suggest that Donald Trump’s support in the polls is “fake.” I have no doubt that some people really love him or that he’d be the favorite if you held a national, winner-take-all Republican primary tomorrow. However, the “election” these polls describe is hypothetical in at least five ways:

• They contemplate a vote today, but we’re currently 174 days from the Iowa caucuses.
• They contemplate a national primary, but states vote one at a time or in small groups.
• They contemplate a race with 17 candidates, but several candidates will drop out before Iowa and several more will drop out before the other states vote.
• They contemplate¹ a winner-take-all vote, but most states are not winner-take-all.
• They contemplate a vote among all Republican-leaning registered voters or adults, but in fact only a small fraction of them will turn out for primaries and caucuses.

This is why it’s exasperating that the mainstream media has become obsessed with how Trump is performing in these polls.

So you should ignore those national polls entirely? In a literal sense, they do have some correlation with election outcomes: Even this far out, a candidate near the top of the polls is a somewhat better bet to win the nomination than one near the bottom. But that’s like projecting a major league pitcher’s numbers from high school stats: Sure, you’d rather draft a random 17-year-old with a 2.14 ERA than another one with a 3.31 ERA if that’s all the information you have to go by. But that data doesn’t reveal very much, and its predictive power tends to be swamped by other indicators (everything from the pitcher’s strikeout-to-walk ratio to his scouting reports).

In the case of presidential primaries, indicators such as endorsementsand support from party elites tend to be more reliable indicators of eventual success. To the extent that you’re looking at polls, you should probably adjust for name recognition and the amount of media attention a candidate is receiving. And you should account for favorability numbers and second-choice preferences, since all but a few candidates will eventually drop out of the running.

It’s possible — pretty easy, in fact — for a candidate to improve his standing in the polls while he simultaneously lowers his chance to become the nominee. Currently, the average GOP voter has a favorable view of seven Republican candidates; being agreeable won’t help you stand out in the near term, even though the nomination is aconsensus-building process in the long term.

What about being a jerk? If you can make yourself the center of attention — and no candidate in modern memory has been moreskilled at that than Trump — you can potentially turn the polls into a referendum on your candidacy. It’s possible that many GOP voters are thinking about the race in just that way now. First, they ask themselves whether they would vote for Trump; if not, they then choose among the 16 other candidates. The neat thing about this is that you can overwhelmingly lose the majority in the referendum — 75 percent of Republicans are not voting for Trump — and yet still hold the plurality so long as the “no” vote is divided among a sufficient number of alternatives.

Another trade-off comes from entrenching your appeal with a narrow segment of the electorate at the expense of broadening your coalition. I’ve seen a lot written about how Trump’s candidacy heralds a new type of populism. If it does, this type of populism isn’t actually very popular. Trump’s overall favorability ratings² aremiserable, about 30 percent favorable and 60 percent unfavorable, and they haven’t improved (whatever gains he’s made among Republicans have been offset by his declines among independents and Democrats). To some extent, the 30 percent may like Trumpprecisely because they know the 60 percent don’t like him. More power to the 30 percent: I have plenty of my own issues with the political establishment. But running a campaign that caters to (for lack of a better term) contrarians is exactly how you ensure that you’ll never reach a majority.³

At FiveThirtyEight, however, we’re fairly agnostic about what will happen to Trump’s polling in the near term. It’s possible that he’s already peaked — or that he’ll hold his support all the way through Iowa and New Hampshire, possibly even winning one or two early states, as similar candidates like Pat Buchanan and Newt Gingrich have in the past.⁴ Our emphatic prediction is simply that Trump will not win the nomination. It’s not even clear that he’s trying to do so.

Footnotes

1. At least in the way the media usually interprets them. ^
2. That is, among all Americans, not just Republicans. ^
3. Nor, in all likelihood, could Trump win with a plurality of votes or delegates because the Republican Party, which controls the nomination process, would unite against him. ^
4. There are a lot of in-between cases, of course: Trump could hold his support until a few weeks before the voting starts and then see it collapse rather suddenly, as happened to Howard Dean in 2004. ^

[Levan Ramishvili]

Donald Trump’s Six Stages Of Doom

By NATE SILVER

The recent polling surge by Donald Trump has launched a thousand stories about Trump’s “unprecedented campaign.” But it’s nothing all that unusual: Similar surges occurred for almost every Republican candidate four years ago, including Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich (twice).

History’s lesson isn’t necessarily that Trump’s candidacy will go bust tomorrow, however. There are plenty of examples of fringe or factional candidates who held on to their support for much longer than the month or two that Cain and Bachmann did. Sometimes, they did well enough in Iowa or New Hampshire, or even won them. Pat Buchanan claimed New Hampshire in 1996, for instance, while Mike Huckabee won Iowa in 2008. Steve Forbes took 30 percent of the Iowa vote in 2000.

The lesson, rather, is that Trump’s campaign will fail by one means or another. Like Cain, Bachmann and Gingrich, Buchanan, Huckabee and Forbes came nowhere close to winning the Republican nomination.

If you want absurd specificity, I recently estimated Trump’s chance of becoming the GOP nominee at 2 percent. How did I get there? By considering the gantlet he’ll face over the next 11 months — Donald Trump’s Six Stages of Doom:

Stage 1: Free-for-all

When it happens: This is the stage we’re in now; it will continue through the next couple of months.
Potential threat to Trump: Increased attention to other GOP candidates.

One of the occupational hazards for those of us who write about politics for a living is a kind of time dilation. If you’re charged with filing several campaign stories a week, then two or three weeks can seem like an eternity.

But most Americans have other things on their minds right now. Paying the bills. Finally taking that vacation. Baseball. They’re not really paying a lot of attention to the campaign. Based on historical patterns of Google search traffic, the level of public interest in the primary campaign right now is less than one-tenth as high as it will be later in the cycle.

This is why it’s absurd to focus on how Trump’s polling is changing from day to day. When Trump made his idiotic comments about John McCain’s military service a few weeks ago, there were a few news outlets like the New York Post who suggested it might bring about his immediate demise. We wereskeptical of that conclusion at FiveThirtyEight. For a variety of reasons, Trump isn’t affected much by negative media coverage — it may even help him. But a lack of media coverage might be a different story.

If, like most Americans, you’ve been paying only passing attention to the GOP campaign, then pretty much the only candidate you’ll have been hearing about is Trump. According to data compiled by the Media Research Center, Trump has received more network news coverage than Jeb Bush, Scott Walker and Marco Rubio combined. So if a pollster calls you and rattles off 17 names, and there are six or seven candidates you like well enough, which name might you mention when asked for your first choice? Possibly Trump, since his name will be top-of-mind. There’s a near-perfect correlation, in fact¹ between how much news coverage a candidate has received and where they rank in recent national polls:

The causality here is murky. Do candidates receive more news coverage because they’re polling well? Or do they poll well because they receive more news coverage? Undoubtedly, there’s some of both, which creates the possibility of a feedback loop.

But the circuit could be broken once there’s some news about another candidate. Every Republican on stage will have the opportunity to make news in the debate tonight, for instance. It’s possible we’ll still be talking about the Trump surge in a few weeks, but it’s also possible that we’ll be contemplating the Ben Carson or Ted Cruz or Chris Christie surge instead.

Stage 2: Heightened scrutiny

When it happens: Mid-November or thereabouts, as voters up their level of attention to the campaign
Potential threat to Trump: Polling support doesn’t translate to likely, more-informed voters.

In the general election, Labor Day is the traditional benchmark when there’s a substantial acceleration of public interest in the campaign. I’m not sure there’s quite the same demarcation in the primaries, but, in my experience, the timbre of the race will have changed by Thanksgiving or so. Voters, especially in the early voting states, will be doing less “window shopping” and instead will be thinking about who they might cast a ballot for. The polls will change too, starting to home in on what they deem to be “likely voters.” There’s some evidence that Trump is over-performing among “low-information voters.” By November, their ranks will decrease: They’ll either have become more informed, or they’ll be screened out by pollsters because they aren’t likely to vote.

Stage 3: Iowa and New Hampshire

When it happens: Feb. 1 and Feb. 9, based on the provisional calendar.
Potential threat to Trump: Middling performance in one or both states, either in an absolute sense or relative to polls.

Eventually, we’ll have some real votes to test the polls against. The odds are that the polls will be pretty far off in the first few states; they’re historicallynot very accurate in primaries and caucuses. One reason for this, perhaps the principal one, is because turnout is hard to predict. Trump has built some semblance of an organization in Iowa (he has less of one in New Hampshire), but it probably won’t be the best in the state at persuading voters to turn out.

Despite the relatively poor track record of polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, however, they have a major influence on how the results are interpreted by the press. Historically, the candidates who get the most favorable media coverage and receive the biggest “bounces” out of Iowa and New Hampshire are not those who perform the best in an absolute sense but instead those who beat the media’s expectations. It’s possible that Trump will master expectations management between now and Iowa, but, given his tendency to trumpet every favorable poll, he could also set himself up for a fall. A Trump who finishes in third place with 14 percent of the vote in Iowa won’t have much to brag about.

Stage 4: Winnowing

When it happens: mid-February through mid-March
Potential threat to Trump: Other candidates drop out, and remaining ones surpass Trump.

But some candidates with parallels to Trump have done perfectly well in Iowa and New Hampshire. In fact, there’s been about one such Republican, on average, in every contested election cycle. Below, I’ve listed past Republican candidates who (i) had less than 5 percent of the party’s endorsement pointsas of the date of the Iowa caucuses, meaning they had very little support from the party establishment, but (ii) won at least 20 percent of the vote in Iowa anyway. There are six of these candidates, ranging from rabble-rousers like Buchanan to religious-right candidates like Huckabee, to another self-funded billionaire in Forbes.

The problem is that they didn’t go very far from there, winning an average of just 14 percent of the popular vote across all the remaining primary and caucus states that year. Even a candidate who did a little better than that, retaining 25 or 30 percent of the vote, would soon be bypassed as the rest of the field consolidated down to one or two other establishment-backed alternatives. This is especially likely to be a problem for Trump. Contrary to what you may have read elsewhere, he’s actually not all that popular among Republicans. His favorability ratings among Republicans have improved since before he declared himself a candidate² but remain in the bottom half of the GOP field and well below the standard of candidates who have been nominated in the past.

We’ll handle the final two stages together:

Stage 5: Delegate accumulation

When it happens: mid-March through final primaries in June
Potential threats to Trump: Poor organization in caucus states, poor understanding of delegate rules, no support from superdelegates.

Stage 6: Endgame

When it happens: June through Republican National Convention, July 18-21
Potential threat to Trump: The Republican Party does everything in its power to deny him the nomination.

If Trump makes it past Stage 4, we’ll have to consider his campaign successful, up to a point. He’ll have gotten further than any similar candidate has in the past. But he’d still be a long way from winning the nomination, and the final two stages might be his hardest yet.

The Republican Party’s delegate selection rules are straightforward in some states but byzantine in others, especially in caucus states where delegates are sometimes not formally pledged to the candidate who apparently earned their support on election night. Furthermore, about 7 percent of delegates to the RNC are party leaders — what Democrats would call “superdelegates” — who are usually not bound by the results of the popular vote in their states at all.

This introduces a little bit of slack into the system. It works in favor of establishment-backed candidates, or those who have an intricate understanding of the delegate rules. And it works against candidates like Trump.

Regular FiveThirtyEight readers will be familiar with “The Party Decides”paradigm of the nomination process. It posits that the nominee represents the consensus choice of influential members of the party, and that rank-and-file voters serve mostly to vet and validate the candidates in the event of a close call.

Much of the party’s influence consists of what you might call “soft power,” the ability to influence outcomes by persuasion rather than coercion. But the party also has some “hard power”: It literally makes the rules. It can rule against candidates it doesn’t like in the event of delegate-counting disputes. It can probably even change the rules midstream. There isn’t a lot of precedent to worry about violating, since it’s been 40 years since Republicans came close to a brokered convention.

If Trump made it this far, the Republican Party would go to extraordinary lengths to avoid nominating him. In “The Party Decides” view, parties are basically looking for two things from their nominees: They want them to be reliable (meaning, they can be counted on to enact the Republican agenda once in office), and they want them to be electable (meaning, they can win in November). It’s hard to think of a candidate who does worse on those two measures than Trump. He’s exceptionally unpopular among independent voters. But he also has a checkered political past that includes once having supported abortion rights and universal health care. For the Republican Party, he’s the worst of all possible worlds.

So, how do I wind up with that 2 percent estimate of Trump’s nomination chances? It’s what you get³ if you assume he has a 50 percent chance of surviving each subsequent stage of the gantlet.⁴ Tonight’s debate could prove to be the beginning of the end for Trump, or he could remain a factor for months to come. But he’s almost certainly doomed, sooner or later.

Check out our live coverage of the first Republican debate.

Footnotes

1. 0.92, if you’re scoring at home. ^
2. Possibly since before Trump declared himself a candidate, it also wasn’t clear that Trump was a Republican. ^
3. Rounding to the nearest whole percent. ^
4. That might be a generous estimate for some stages, particularly Stage 4 — which has choked off all Trump-like candidates in the past — and Stage 6. ^

[Levan Ramishvili]

Donald Trump’s very weird (but not unprecedented) two months

By Philip Bump

There are two reasons that those who care are paying such close attention to presidential polling right now. There's 1) this week's big Republican debate, which will use national polling to determine the 10 people who will make the main debate stage. And 2) there's the fact that the guy who's leading in the polls is Donald Trump.

One can read the Trump numbers in a lot of different ways. It still seems extremely unlikely that Trump will maintain as big a lead over the next five months as he has today -- of course, we've been wrong about this kind of thing before -- but it's much more obvious that theories of Trump's inaccuracies and disparagements weighing him down were wrong.

Real Clear Politics has daily data on Trump's polling average going back to May 27. This is how the past two (-and-a-half) months have gone, with major milestones indicated. The yellow line tracks how much Trump trailed the polling leader -- or how much led the field. (The individual dots are the dates that polls were completed, not released.)

Again, the obvious thing here is that the comments about illegal Mexican immigrants and John McCain have not even been speed bumps. If anything, they helped grease the skids, giving Trump more attention and allowing him to pivot to popular issues (illegal immigration, veterans, etc.). The first time Trump took the lead in RCP's average was the day after the McCain comments.

What's also obvious is that this surge is still pretty fledgling. The spike happened shortly after his Arizona rally with Sheriff Joe Arpaio, less than a month ago. Granted, three weeks is a long time, but it's not unprecedented. In 2012, Rick Perry led in the polling average for 41 days, from Aug. 24, 2011, to Oct. 3. Newt Gingrich led even longer.

If we compare Trump's lead to the periods that Perry and Gingrich led, we see that this is hardly unusual -- by the standards of the new presidential primary usual-ness.

Trump won the month, there's no question, and proved a lot of pundits wrong. But there is certainly some precedent for all of this being a very flashy flash in the pan.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Donald Trump Is The Nickelback Of GOP Candidates

JUL 29, 2015 By NATE SILVER

Despite what you may have read elsewhere — or heard from the man himself — Donald Trump is not all that popular with Republican voters. Sure, he’s in first place in many polls. But Trump is near the back of the pack by another important measure.

In the chart below, I’ve taken an average of favorability ratings from seven polls of Republican voters that were conducted wholly or partly after Trump made his comments about John McCain on July 18. They include national polls from CNN, Public Policy Polling and YouGov, along with polls of Iowa and New Hampshire from each of Marist College and Monmouth University.¹

On average in these polls, Trump’s favorability ratings among Republicans are barely better than break-even: 47 percent favorable and 43 percent unfavorable. Among the 17 Republican candidates, Trump’s net favorable rating, +4, ranks 13th, ahead of only Chris Christie, Jim Gilmore, Lindsey Graham and George Pataki.

And yet, in these same polls, Trump is the first choice of an average of 20 percent of Republican voters — the highest in the field, ahead of Scott Walker (14 percent) and Jeb Bush (12 percent).

What’s going on? On Twitter yesterday, I likened Trump to the bandNickelback: disliked by most people but with a few very passionate admirers. The best contrast to Trump is Marco Rubio: like a “lite rock” radio station, he’s broadly acceptable but few people’s favorite. Rubio’s favorable ratings are much higher (56 percent) than The Donald’s, and his unfavorable ratings are much lower (16 percent). But only 6 percent of Republicans list Rubio as their first choice.

The Nickelback analogy isn’t perfect. As the Republican strategist Patrick Ruffini points out, the bulk of Trump’s support in polls isn’t necessarily coming from passionate Republicans but rather from “low-information voters” who may not turn out in Iowa and New Hampshire. That doesn’t mean none of Trump’s support is real, however. There’s another factor that helps him: He’s highly differentiated from the rest of the Republican pack.

Real Clear Politics’ David Byler, analyzing the text of Republican candidate announcement speeches, found that Trump was bringing up far different concepts and issues than any other Republican, including his personal wealth, business success and ability to negotiate deals. FiveThirtyEight’s own, more subjective way of analyzing the Republican candidates — what we call the “five-ring circus” — comes to a similar conclusion. Given the ever-changing grab-bag of issues that he’s campaigning upon, Trump is hard to classify, but his stylistic flourishes (if not his background) probably place him closest to the tea party or populist wing of the Republican Party. Either way, there’s no one else quite like him.

Rubio, by contrast, has lots of competition. He’s well-liked by voters across different constituencies of the Republican Party. That’s potentially a good position, since the nomination race has historically been a consensus-building process. But he isn’t necessarily anyone’s first choice. Voters who are just slightly to Rubio’s left may prefer Jeb Bush, while those just slightly to his right may prefer Scott Walker. It could work out for Rubio, but he also runs the risk of being this election’s version of Tim Pawlenty, a candidate whose resources dry up because he fails to differentiate himself from the pack early enough.

I’ve seen a lot written about how these primaries are unlike anything we’ve seen before. What’s undeniably different is that Republicans have an unprecedentedly broad and deep group of candidates. That means it might take longer to winnow down the field to one or two establishment-backed choices.

It isn’t so unusual, however, to see a candidate like Trump polling at 20 percent. That happened for several Republican candidates in 2012, including Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain. While their support mostly faded before the first states voted,² there have been other occasions when factional candidates such as Pat Buchanan, Pat Robertson or Ron Paul held on to their support through Iowa and New Hampshire.

The problem for these candidates is that support never grew much beyond 20 or 30 percent of the vote, so they were lapped by others. The same is likely to happen this year, eventually. Suppose that Rubio bows out of the race, for instance. Where is his 6 percent of the vote likely to go? Probably to Bush or Walker before it goes to Trump. Relatively few voters say Trump is their second choice,³ and many Republicans dislike him. The same goes for Christie’s 3 percent or Kasich’s 4 percent. That will add up for someone. (Candidates who fall within the establishment “ring” of our circus diagram have 53 percent of the vote in polls already.)

I don’t mean to suggest that favorability ratings are foolproof. Like the first-choice numbers, they can fluctuate. Before Trump officially declared for the presidency last month, his favorability ratings among Republicans were execrable. They improved after he announced his candidacy but have since slipped back to mediocre (well below the standard of candidates who have won their party’s nomination in the past).

But if you’re going to imply that a candidate is popular based on their receiving 20 percent of the vote, you ought to consider what the other 80 percent thinks about him. Most Republicans who don’t plan to vote for Trump are skeptical of him instead.

Trump hasn’t received any big endorsements yet, but check out how the other 2016 candidates are doing in the Endorsement Primary.

Footnotes

1. I know it’s slightly unorthodox to mix state and national polls, but since favorability ratings can vary a lot from poll to poll, I think it’s worth it to combine them in this case to get a larger sample. I included all national, Iowa or New Hampshire polls after Trump’s McCain comments that tested favorability ratings among Republican voters. ^
2. Although Gingrich had a brief resurgence later in the race. ^
3. Five of the seven polls I mentioned before — the exceptions are the Marist College polls in Iowa and New Hampshire — asked Republicans for their second-choice preference. Trump was listed as the second choice by just 9 percent of voters in these polls, on average. ^

[Levan Ramishvili]

Trumped Up Polls

Or, why the media needs to learn to stop worrying and love analytics.

Patrick Ruffini

People think that the problem with media polling in the Republican primary is that we’re deciding who participates in debates based on surveys with 200 to 300 respondents that carry an extremely high margin of error. That’s not totally right. It’s that the people being surveyed by media polls bear only a glancing resemblance to the people who will vote in next year’s Republican primaries and caucuses, making it more likely that the polls as a whole are systematically off.

Let’s take a look at today’s NBC/Marist survey of Iowa voters. Like nearly all public surveys, it’s a random digital dial (RDD) survey that gives everyone in the population with a phone the same chance of being included. Questions are asked of respondents to qualify them for inclusion in the survey or to ask them the Republican primary question (are they a registered voter? and which political party do they identify with or lean towards?).

NBC/Marist interviewed 919 registered voters in Iowa. Of these, 342 —37% of respondents — were asked the question about the Republican nomination after being qualified “potential caucus-goers” by expressing a general preference for the Republican Party.

The problem is that the universe of likely caucus attendees is far lower than the 37% of registered voters screened into the caucus universe by the survey. In January 2012, there were 2,112,655 registered voters in Iowa. A total of 121,501 people showed up for the Republican precinct caucuses on the evening of January 3, 2012. That’s 5.75% of registered voters in the state at the time, a far cry from 37%.

This is not a problem if the 5.75% look like the broader 37% who generally identify with the Republican Party. But all the available evidence suggests that they don’t, especially in caucus states. Participation levels shape voter preferences. The people who will show up for hours on a chilly Iowa night have different preferences from the larger universe of people who will vote in a Republican primary, who in turn look different than those who will vote Republican in the fall but sit out the primary. Media polling right now doesn’t get more specific than the loosest, most casual definition of a Republican.

This year, the effect of including low-propensity voters in primary polls may be especially great because of a certain mega-celebrity who starts with near total name recognition: Donald Trump.

Without knowing anything about the polling, we might hypothesize that Trump might do better amongst the “low information voters” who might lean Republican but generally don’t follow politics or participate in primaries — but are nonetheless being included in the polls being used to determine eligibility for the August 6th debate.

And there is evidence for this in the polls released so far that show Trump surging to a lead in the Republican primary. In this week’s ABC News/Washington Post poll, Trump received his highest levels of support from people at the margins of the Republican primary process.

In the poll, Trump’s supporters leaned to the left of the typical Republican, belying the idea that his rise reflects a disturbing new far-right tilt in the GOP. In the ABC/Washington Post survey, Trump receives 27 percent support from moderate to liberal voters, 24 percent from somewhat conservative voters, and 17 percent support from very conservative voters. Amongst the moderate to liberal group, Trump wins by 14 points. Amongst very conservative voters, he loses by 8.

Trump has more support amongst Independents than he does amongst Republicans (25 percent vs. 22 percent).

And Trump receives fully four times as much support amongst those with no college degree (32 percent) as he does amongst college graduates (8 percent).

In other words, Trump outperforms the most amongst the groups least likely to vote in a Republican primary.

This doesn’t mean these are bad polls. They could very easily be a highly accurate snapshot of the population they sought to survey. The trouble is that this population doesn’t match up with the likely electorate (something that is easily gotten wrong in lower-turnout primaries). As my colleague Kristen Soltis Anderson points out, Republican-leaning independents make up nearly half of the subsample in today’s CNN poll, but traditionally make up a quarter or less of the GOP electorate in early voting states. In many states, these independents are barred from voting in party primaries at all.

We would not need to infer anything about Trump’s support from casual Republicans if the media would do what most political pollsters do and use voter files to build their survey samples. A voter file carries with it a respondent’s full voting history, and the ability to generate a individualized probability that any respondent will turn out to vote in the next election. With a voter file tied to data from their surveys, media pollsters would be able to quickly answer whether Trump’s support came from people who are actually likely to vote in Republican primaries or not.

Just as the media is currently including too many casual voters in its primary surveys, there’s a risk that polls conducted with data from voter files could include too few. The ability to use data to dial in on any group of voters sometimes leads pollsters to underestimate the impact of unlikely voters. The answer is not to calibrate surveys so that we’re only talking to the 15% or so of Iowa voters who will vote in either party’s caucus, but to talk to a somewhat larger group and weight respondents in the survey according to our best guess that the individual will turn out. A respondent with a perfect history of showing up on caucus night should be weighted higher than a Republican leaner who only votes in general elections. A “listed sample” survey technique must also take into account people who aren’t on the list at all (because they haven’t registered yet) or movers and newly registered voters.

The end result in this process still looks like a survey, but one that borrows heavily from the world of statistical modeling and analytics that was more accurate than conventional polling in predicting the outcome of both the 2012 and 2014 elections. If the media wants to see the world the way the campaigns do, and truly understand how they make decisions, they will use the same techniques serious campaigns use to inform their strategy.

Polls at this stage of the process are not hugely important or predictive. It’s telling that candidates who don’t need to worry about making the cutoff for the Fox News debate aren’t spending resources trying to boost their numbers either nationally or in early states. There’s little point, because polls now don’t equal victory next winter and spring.

But for those who are on the cusp of making the debate, the polls are make or break, and could determine who has a chance to advance or not. Whatever you think about the 10-candidate limit (I personally think there’s some merit to imposing a chilling effect on new entrants), the criteria for choosing the 10 candidates should be rooted in reality. Sound polling, analytics, and data should be used to gauge opinions amongst the people who are actually likely to vote, not casual passers-by.

Right now, we can’t be certain this is the case.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Trump Open toIdea of Continuing Taxpayer Funding of Planned Parenthood

During an interview with CNN Tuesday morning, Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump stated that he was open to the idea of continuing to fund Planned Parenthood with federal tax dollars.

“The problem that I have with Planned Parenthood is the abortion situation. It is like an abortion factory, frankly,” Trump said. “And you can’t have it. And you just shouldn’t be funding it. That should not be funded by the government, and I feel strongly about that.”

When pressed on non-abortion services Planned Parenthood allegedly provides, Trump said, “What I would do when the time came, I’d look at the individual things they do, and maybe some of the individual things they do are good. I know a lot of the things are bad. But certainly the abortion aspect of it should not be funded by government, absolutely.”

Trump continued, “I would look at the good aspects of [Planned Parenthood], and I would also look, because I’m sure they do some things properly and good and that are good for women, and I would look at that, and I would look at other aspects also. But we have to take care of women.”

In other words Trump is open to a status quo many conservatives find unacceptable and immoral; also a typical federal government shell game to skirt around the law. If you give Planned Parenthood money for these so-called “other things,” the abortion provider can shift money from those “other things” to abortion.

Any money given to Planned Parenthood funds abortion. Period.

Trump also made clear that he was in favor of the rape, incest, and life of the mother exceptions for abortion.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Yes, Trump Lost the Debate

By Rich Lowry — August 11, 2015

Per this Suffolk University survey in Iowa that is not an online poll like many of the other post-debate surveys. Trump didn’​t suffer a catastrophe (he still leads in the state), but the debate hurt him:

The Suffolk survey has warning signs for Trump. By 2-1, 55%-23%, those surveyed say watching Trump in the debate made them feel less comfortable rather than more comfortable with him as a candidate for president. A 54% majority also reject Trump’s complaints that he was treated unfairly by the Fox News anchors who served as moderators; 41% agree with him.

And a third of Iowa Republicans say Trump – enmeshed in a post-debate contretemps over his comments about Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly – “doesn’t show appropriate respect for women.” A larger number, 46%, side with the real-estate mogul and reality-TV star, saying criticism of his comments about women “are just examples of political correctness.”

Then there’s this: Trump scores a big lead among those who didn’t watch the debate, at 21%, double the standing of retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who finishes second at 10%. But among those who watched the debate, Trump does less well, tied with Walker at 14%.

Trump is at 17 percent, Walker at 12 percent, Rubio at 10 percent, Carson at 9 percent, Ted Cruz at 7 percent, Fiorina at 7 percent, Bush at 5 percent, Kasich at 3 percent, Huckabee at 2 percent, Paul at 2 percent, and Christie at 2 percent.

Meanwhile, Trump still leads in New Hampshire, but is lower than he had been in prior surveys:

Boston Herald Radio @HeraldRadio

BREAKING: NEW @FPUniversity /@bostonherald NH POLL @realDonaldTrump 18% @JebBush 13% @JohnKasich 12% @CarlyFiorina 9%

7:14 PM - 11 Aug 2015 · Melrose, MA, United States

And Rasmussen has Trump losing altitude nationally:

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds Trump with 17% support among Likely Republican Primary Voters, down from 26% in late July before the first GOP debate. Senator Marco Rubio and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush are in second place with 10% support each, in a near tie with Fiorina and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker who both earn nine percent (9%) of the likely primary vote.

Next with eight percent (8%) come retired neurologist Dr. Ben Carson and Senator Ted Cruz at seven percent (7%). (To see survey question wording, click here.)

[Levan Ramishvili]

What to Make of Trump's Candidacy?

Sean Trende

If you’re trying to figure out what exactly to make of Donald Trump’s candidacy, you’re not alone. I think all pundits are scratching their heads a bit trying to game out the trajectory of his bid for the Republican nomination. After a series of seemingly campaign-ending gaffes, Trump has only seen his poll numbers rise, to the point where he’s now leading in the national polls by double digits.

To be honest, I’m not certain what to make of his candidacy myself. My sense is that he’s still unlikely to be the Republican nominee, but I don’t write him off entirely. I certainly don’t have a firm sense of when he will fade (if he does). After all, he’s already survived a number of statements that would have felled many campaigns.

For now, I think it is probably best to avoid firm conclusions about what will become of the Trump boomlet. I do, however, think there are four things that analysts should avoid until we get closer to the actual voting:

1) Don’t Write Him Off

I, along with many election analysts, am a big fan of the political science text “The Party Decides: Presidential Nominations Before and After Reform.” Without getting into the weeds, the book posits that party insiders ultimately decide who the nominees are, and that the voters largely serve to vet these decisions.

But I also don’t think we should treat the book as a holy text (nor would the authors). For one thing, we don’t have a ton of primary races to go off of, since primaries weren’t designed to select nominees directly until the 1970s. The model didn’t perform all that well in 2008, when it probably would not have picked John McCain or Barack Obama as the nominees. We also have to take into account the spread of the Internet and the rise of super PACs, which could allow fringe candidates to survive for an extended period of time. In addition, the current field is a badly fractured one filled with talented candidates, so an “outsider” candidate can win an awful lot of races with 20 percent of the vote.

Perhaps more importantly, however, the Republican electorate is simply in a foul mood, vis-à-vis its leadership. Part of this owes to the fact that these leaders grossly overpromised what they could accomplish, even with Obama as president, in order to win the House and the Senate. Another part of this owes to the fact that when Republicans did hold all three branches of government, they probably moved the domestic policy needle leftward, leaving rank-and-file members to doubt their leaders’ commitments to conservatism. And yet another part of this owes to the fact that “experts” have had a pretty rough run in general since the late 1990s, failing to avert catastrophe after catastrophe while seeing their personal fortunes continue to rise.

Regardless, the constant rejoinder to the suggestion that Republicans will nominate someone extreme has typically been that the party that nominated two Bushes, Bob Dole, McCain and Mitt Romney isn’t likely to do something rash. I think that is, generally speaking, a fair assessment.

At the same time, though, we should realize that sometimes things really do change. Right now, an awfully large segment of the Republican electorate thinks that its leadership is ineffective at best and unconcerned with conservative policymaking at worst, that the country is heading toward a disaster, and that Washington is more concerned with enriching itself than with working for the benefit of the country. This is fertile soil for a candidacy like Trump’s to take off. While I don’t think Trump will be the nominee, neither is it impossible for him to be.

2) Don’t Treat Him as the Frontrunner

While it is wrong to dismiss any analyst who takes Trump seriously, it is likewise wrong – indeed it is probably more wrong – to look at polling today and conclude that Trump is the favorite for the nomination. Being the frontrunner is about more than just the polls – factors cited in “The Party Decides,”like fundraising and party support, do matter – and we have plenty of examples of late summer/fall boomlets in primaries that ultimately fall apart. In fact, they’ve been the rule of late:

In August of 2003, the leader in the Democratic primary was Joe Lieberman, with 18 percent. He was followed by Dick Gephardt and Howard Dean, at 15 percent each, and finally John Kerry at 12 percent. By late fall, Dean led in the polls. But his polling lead collapsed in the homestretch; he failed to win any races outside of his home state and the non-binding D.C. primary. Gephardt and Lieberman likewise went nowhere; Sen. John Edwards, who was at 5 percent over the summer, emerged as the leading alternative to Kerry.

In the summer of 2007, Sen. Hillary Clinton had opened up a double-digit lead over her competition, which grew to almost 25 points in September. On the Republican side, McCain was approaching single digits in the polls, while former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani had opened up a nine-point lead over former Sen. Fred Thompson. Romney had a healthy lead in Iowa, while eventual leader Mike Huckabee was mired at 3.5 percent.

Finally, in the summer of 2011, Texas Gov. Rick Perry was beginning a Trump-like ascent in the polls, rising from a mere 5 percent in June to a peak of 32 percent in mid-September. Many analysts considered him the likely nominee. Oops. At the same time Rep. Michele Bachmann was receiving a little more than 25 percentin Iowa polling.

Of course, Romney became the eventual nominee, but not before enduring boomlets from Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich (twice), and Rick Santorum. As late as December 2011, Gingrich even held a 13-point lead over Romney.

The point is, this is historically a “shopping period” for primary voters. They try out different flavors, explore their strengths and weaknesses, and . . . abandon them at the drop of a hat. While I don’t think the “invisible primary” of endorsements and fundraising is the be-all, end-all, I do think it’s a better indicator of which candidates have longevity.

Now, Trump supporters’ counter that he has endured multiple attacks and gaffes, and his numbers have only continued to improve. Many pundits thought his campaign was over (again) in the wake of his debate performance and his comment about Megyn Kelly’s, um, motivations for questioning.

We’ll have to wait to get some good before-and-after polling to determine what effect, if any, this latest dustup has on his standing, but personally I doubt if Trump’s numbers will collapse overnight. The tendency with other “summer candidacies” is to see a peak, followed by a lengthy, gradual decline. Given that his supporters have tended to support him exactly because he says what is on his mind, it shouldn’t be all that surprising that he’s displays such resilience in the face of his outrageous statements. Over the long run, however, Trump has some glaring weaknesses other than his mouth. It is hard to believe that the Republican Party will support a candidate who donated money to Hillary Clinton and supported single-payer health care; I suspect as these facts penetrate the consciousness of Republican primary voters, their minds will change.

Regardless, Trump may lead in the polls, but it is a mistake, for now, to treat him as a true frontrunner. Right now he’s benefiting from an angry base, a massive amount of free media, and from a fractured field. If this is where things still stand in December or January, we will have to reassess, but for now, he just isn’t the favorite (I don’t think anyone is right now).

3) Don’t Draw Conclusions About His Impact on the General Election

I think it’s a mistake to fret about (or celebrate) the harm Trump’s doing to the Republican brand. That might come, but for now, the evidence is pretty thin. The general election polls have, generally speaking,tightened. Recent general election polling in New Hampshire, Minnesota, Colorado, Iowa and Virginia have all shown close races. If anything, the presence of Trump has brought millions of viewers to the Republican debates, giving a ton of free media to all the candidates, while making those candidates look moderate in temperament by comparison.

Will this last forever? Again, it isn’t clear. But for now, the storyline is that Donald Trump is saying outrageous things, and the GOP candidates are generally appalled by them. For now, the other Republicans aren’t shifting their stances to pick off his voters, if for no other reason than Trump’s support isn’t grounded in any strong demographic or ideological base. If Trump starts winning primaries, and looks to be the nominee, it will be a different story. But for the time being, the actual evidence that he is hurting Republicans simply isn’t there.

4) Don’t Forget: You Need a Majority of Delegates to Be the Nominee

As I’ve written previously, one of the interesting things about a 17-person field is that we could end up with multiple candidates winning the early contests, going forward into Super Tuesday, and entering the home stretch of primaries with the delegates split among them.

Which brings us to what I think is the most interesting thing about Trump. Let’s say Republicans approach the convention with no candidate near a majority of delegates, and with Trump holding, say, 20 percent of the counts. If you prefer, give him a plurality.

At that point, the Republican nomination will be matter of negotiation. Whatever else you want to say about Trump, he’s an effective negotiator. That, I suspect, is why he hasn’t ruled out a third party bid. Why would he? It’s his trump card, so to speak, in those sorts of discussions. This is where Trump is probably at his most interesting: If the field stays crowded, and if the delegates are badly fractured for the convention.

So what do you do with Trump? The main thing is simply to remember where we are in the process. For most voters, it is still very early in the season. Many haven’t been tuned in, aren’t really making up their minds, and are free to make comments about candidates they support without giving other alternatives a close look. From now until December or so, I’d counsel simply kicking back, and enjoying the show.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Trump: A Mismatch for the GOP

Conservatives are more focused than ever on substance and consistency.

KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL

Of the 10 Republicans in Thursday’s debate, none was harder to explain than Donald Trump. It’s not that he isn’t a serious candidate. It’s that he was on the wrong stage, with the wrong people, at the wrong time.

Republicans have been working for the past decade to reconstruct a movement that collapsed in the mid-2000s as a result of laziness and loss of principle. It has been a wrenching process, full of tea-party uprisings and bitter primaries, uninspired presidential candidacies and blown elections, policy setbacks and government shutdowns. Still, the number of triumphs has been growing. The Republicans’ hold over governorships and takeover of the Senate, their new faces and new ideas, and their brimming presidential field all are signs that the Republican electorate has grown more thoughtful about the political process—and more demanding of smart, principled conservatives.

And then along comes The Donald. In some ways, you can see the appeal. Mr. Trump is good at selling things, and even better at selling himself. He knows what inspires voters, thus his rallying theme, “Make America Great Again.” He knows what frustrates them, thus his focus on immigration, which has become a broad byword for everything voters hate about Washington.

What Mr. Trump lacks is pretty much everything else that conservatives have come to insist on in their candidates—everything that created today’s Scott Walkers and Marco Rubios and Ted Cruzes. Mr. Trump is the anti-new-GOP.

He’s not conservative. Remember all those recent primaries in which Republican voters fired sitting legislators for being too wimpy on taxes or health care or spending? Mr. Trump makes the losers look good. He’s on record in favor of single-payer health care, and on Thursday night praised it again in other countries. He’s said he likes gun control; higher taxes and eminent domain. He has said he’s pro-choice, against a flat tax, and opposed to free trade. He has personally given money to help elect pretty much every politician Republicans view as a threat to the Western world: Hillary Clinton, John Kerry,Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer. Imagine the pitchforks in New Hampshire if Chris Christie had this track record.

He’s not principled. Mr. Trump has disavowed most of his liberal positions. But grass-roots conservatives have increasingly lost tolerance for Republicans who switch positions on a whim, or try to have it two ways. Already in this early phase of the presidential race, voters have rapped Mr. Walker for changing views on immigration;Jeb Bush for waffling on Iraq; and Mr. Rubio for altering his position on military spending.

Mr. Trump explained his own entirely new political persona this week and on Thursday by rolling out the classic “I’ve evolved” line, and referencing Ronald Reagan. True, many great conservatives started on the left. Then again, most took their time moving rightward. Mr. Trump has evolved at the speed of lightning. As recently as 2012 he backed the sort of comprehensive immigration reform he now derides and praised Hillary Clinton as “a terrific woman.” Only a few years before that, he talked up the 2008 auto bailouts and hoped an “impressive” Nancy Pelosi would “impeach”George W. Bush.

He’s also not policy knowledgeable. Evolution involves an end point; it’s an intellectual struggle that concludes with considered policy positions. What are Mr. Trump’s? The conservative electorate has put growing value on fresh, substantive ideas and plans for getting them enacted. They appreciated Mr. Walker’s collective-bargaining overhaul, John Kasich’s tax reform, and Mr. Christie’s pension fixes.

Mr. Trump remains a cipher. He has been queried endlessly on how, precisely, he’d make America great again—what exactly is his tax plan, or his education reform, or his health-care fix? Yet he has smoothly dodged specifics, as he did during the debate on everything from health care to the economy. Contrast that with Mr. Rubio’s detailed tax plan, Bobby Jindal’s energy proposals, or Mr. Christie’s entitlement reforms.

Then there is the oddity that so many are buying Mr. Trump’s I’m-a-self-made-man-who-will-change-Washington shtick, when conservatives have come to care so much about genuineness. Mr. Trump has done well in business, and that’s praiseworthy.

Yet he inherited a fortune from his tycoon father, and he built his empire by practicing the sort of corporate elbow-rubbing and lobbying and reliance on government favors that conservatives revile as crony capitalism. On Thursday night, Mr. Trump outright bragged his money put politicians at his beck and call. He’s no Ben Carson,who broke free from inner-city Detroit to become a neurosurgeon. Mr. Trump is an insider, a deal-maker; he was born into it.

None of this is to say that Mr. Trump didn’t have a right to be on stage debating. Just not this particular stage, at this time, in this party. He isn’t the culmination of the new conservative movement; he’s its wrecking ball.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Trump, the Insult Comic Dog

The limits of snark.

 

JAMES TARANTO

Aug. 7, 2015 1:29 p.m. ET

Donald Trump’s support is broader than you may think. Last night your humble columnist appeared as “special guest commentator” at the Women’s National Republican Club’s debate-watch party. Rather than provide our commentary, which we do every day in this space, we decided to lead an audience discussion, which we began with an informal and entirely unscientific predebate preference poll. Our method was to call for a show of hands for each candidate and eyeball the results.

Trump was the clear winner, with Scott Walker a close second. Third place was a rough three-way tie between Jeb Bush, Chris Christie and John Kasich. The last two—respectively the No. 9 and 10 seeds in the Fox poll contest—made the audience an outlier, presumably because they’re from the Northeast and, we’re guessing, somewhat less socially conservative than the GOP base. (Not a single hand went up for No. 4 seed Mike Huckabee.)

We asked Trump supporters to explain why they like him. One woman raised her hand and said it was because “I support free speech.” Her point was not that Trump is an advocate of free speech but that he is a practitioner of it: He speaks bluntly and abjures political correctness.

Once the debate started, Trump himself made the same argument, in an early exchange with Megyn Kelly. Let’s go to the transcript:

Kelly: Mr. Trump, one of the things people love about you is you speak your mind and you don’t use a politician’s filter. However, that is not without its downsides, in particular, when it comes to women. You’ve called women you don’t like “fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals.” Your Twitter account—

Trump: Only Rosie O’Donnell.

Kelly: No, it wasn’t. Your Twitter account—

Trump [responding to applause]: Thank you.

Kelly: For the record, it was well beyond Rosie O’Donnell.

Trump: Yes, I’m sure it was.

Kelly: Your Twitter account has several disparaging comments about women’s looks. You once told a contestant on “Celebrity Apprentice” it would be a pretty picture to see her on her knees. Does that sound to you like the temperament of a man we should elect as president, and how will you answer the charge from Hillary Clinton, who was likely to be the Democratic nominee, that you are part of the war on women?

Trump: I think the big problem this country has is being politically correct. I’ve been challenged by so many people, and I don’t frankly have time for total political correctness. And to be honest with you, this country doesn’t have time either. This country is in big trouble. We don’t win anymore. We lose to China. We lose to Mexico both in trade and at the border. We lose to everybody.

And frankly, what I say, and oftentimes it’s fun, it’s kidding. We have a good time. What I say is what I say. And honestly Megyn, if you don’t like it, I’m sorry. I’ve been very nice to you, although I could probably maybe not be, based on the way you have treated me. But I wouldn’t do that.

But you know what, we—we need strength, we need energy, we need quickness and we need brain in this country to turn it around. That, I can tell you right now.

This exchange demonstrated another downside of Trump’s unfiltered style. By complaining to Kelly about “the way you have treated me,” he betrayed weakness. And in case there was any doubt that Kelly got under his skin, he continued his bellyaching in the spin room after the debate, as the Washington Examiner reports:

“I thought it was an unfair question,” Trump said. “They didn’t ask those questions of everybody else. . . . Those weren’t even questions. They were statements.”

And more: “The questions to me were not nice,” Trump continued. “I didn’t think they were appropriate. And I thought Megyn behaved very badly, personally.”

It’s undoubtedly true that the comments about which Kelly asked Trump were politically incorrect. But that is not the only reason why one might be put off by them. They were also rude. Kelly’s objection was that they were unpresidential, and Trump didn’t have an answer to that.

His defense was that the comments were humorous. We can’t judge that, not having heard them in their original context, but we’ll give Trump this: He is funny. We don’t think we’ve ever laughed as much at a political candidate—and to be fair, we were laughing with him as well as at him. He lived up to his billing, in a recent Tablet article, as “our last great Vaudevillian.”

Trump is a master of insult comedy, So of course he is rude—that’s what makes him fun to watch. If Don Rickles had run for president in, say, 1980, that year’s primary debates surely would have yielded many lines more memorable than “I’m paying for this microphone, Mr. Green.” But does anyone think President Rickles would have been better for the country than President Reagan?

This columnist has no objection to insult comedy per se, and indeed we have been known to employ it. We also yield to no one in our loathing of political correctness. But insult comedy—or, as it’s more commonly known these days, snark—is frequently an instrument of political correctness. We’d go so far as to say that during the Obama years, it has become the left’s primary rhetorical idiom.

As we reviewed our reader emails this morning, we kept an eye out for examples. We weren’t disappointed:

The Washington Post reports that a reporter asked White House press secretary Josh Earnest yesterday if Obama planned to tune in to the debate. “I’d be surprised if the president spent a lot of his evening devoted to watching the debate,” Earnest replied, seemingly in earnest:

Earnest declined during his daily briefing to give a percent chance of whether Obama would tune in, saying only that the president would catch the highlights afterward if he misses the live, two-hour broadcast.

“Or the lowlights, as you might describe them,” Earnest said sarcastically.

Breitbart reports that Jim Carmey, a “campaign surrogate” for Wisconsin 2016 Senate candidate Russ Feingold, explained Feingold’s defeat six years earlier as follows: “2010 was just so different, with Obama just having come in and a lot of the tea party people just kind of coming out of the woodwork—coming out of the trailer parks, essentially.” That’s reminiscent of Jim Carville’s 1995 jape at Paula Jones’s expense: “If you drag a hundred-dollar bill through a trailer park, you never know what you’ll find.”

And Emily Yoffe, Slate’s “Dear Prudence” advice columnist, responds to a reader whose grandmother reacted badly to the news that the reader’s brother is gay: “The world will be a better place when such grandmas shuffle off this mortal coil.” The wit here lies in the prettified, high-minded formulation of an ugly, low thought: that Yoffe wishes her reader’s grandmother would just die already.

Jon Stewart built a fabulous career by using snark to further liberal politics. It’s fitting that his final episode of “The Daily Show” aired on the same night as Trump’s debate debut—and that, as Politicoreports, “Trump’s corporate website was hacked” over the weekend by cyber-vandals who “wanted to thank comedian Jon Stewart for his work.”

Even leftists who lack wit aspire to be Stewart. Look at Salon, whose content is all insult, albeit with very little (intentional) comedy. Sample headline: “The GOP Freakshow Is Upon Us: Why Tonight’s Fox News Debates Could Make ‘Lord of the Flies’ Look Like a Picnic.”

The tone is set at the top. In a 2012 debate with Mitt Romney, President Obama channeled David Spade: “Gov. Romney, I’m glad that you recognize that Al Qaida is a threat, because a few months ago when you were asked what’s the biggest geopolitical threat facing America, you said Russia, not Al Qaida; you said Russia, in the 1980s, they’re now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because, you know, the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.”

Well, you had to be there.

Just the other day, Obama asserted that “Iranian hard-liners” were “making common cause with the Republican caucus.” The White House transcript reports that his audience greeted this calumny with “laughter and applause.”

All this helps explain why Trump appeals to some conservatives and Republicans. Having endured this kind of abuse for years, why shouldn’t they be attracted to a candidate who seems willing and able to fight back in kind?

But that is a dangerous temptation. For one thing, Obama did not get elected in 2008 by out-snarking the competition but by projecting a thoughtful, temperate mien. Dropping the mask—“you’re likable enough, Hillary”—might have cost him the New Hampshire primary.

Obama’s performance as president should be enough to warn anyone—especially conservatives and Republicans—off from the temptation to put an insult comic in the White House. To be sure, unlike Obama, nobody has ever mistaken Trump for a thoughtful man. That is hardly an argument in the latter’s favor.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Donald Trump Defends Planned Parenthood

"They do good things that aren't having to do with abortion."

While many Republican presidential candidates continue to bash Planned Parenthood for controversial videos revealing its work on aborted fetal tissue research, frontrunner Donald Trump has decided zig where his rivals have zagged.

In an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity on Tuesday night, Trump mounted a defense of the women's health provider, noting "they do good things that aren't having to do with abortion."

"Let's say there is two Planned Parenthoods in a way," Trump said. "You have it as an abortion clinic. Now that's actually a fairly small part of what they do, but it's a brutal part and I'm totally against it and I wouldn't do that." 

Earlier Tuesday, Trump backed off his demand that Republicans shut down the government rather than give federal funding to Planned Parenthood. Republican leaders in and out of Congress support shutting down Planned Parenthood entirely and shifting funds to community women's health providers.

Trump reiterated on Fox that he opposes abortion, but thinks Planned Parenthood's other services ought to be given a second look.

"There are many ways to do that, because I'm totally against the abortion aspect, but I've had many women, I've had many Republican conservative women come up and say Planned Parenthood serves a good function other than the one aspect," he said. "We have to help women."

[Levan Ramishvili]

Donald Trump’s Amnesty

By The Editors — August 10, 2015

That Donald Trump has said something incoherent is not remarkable. But even for a campaign that has largely substituted adjectives for ideas, Trump’s recent incoherent comments on immigration were remarkable, coming as they do from a candidate who has made immigration the keystone of his platform. His intellectual failure is instructive, and the other candidates should learn from it.

Trump’s original proposal was to build a wall and force the government of Mexico to pay for it. The latter half of that proposition is too silly to merit much criticism and may be dismissed as bluster. The first half is a little more complicated: The actual geography of the U.S.–Mexico border ensures that there will not be a wall, though a series of barriers is desirable. But that is only a small part of the solution: Walls can be ascended or tunneled under, and must be patrolled; recent research suggests that more than half of new illegals do not sneak cross any border but simply enter legally and overstay their visas; no effective national system is in place to enforce our immigration laws at the critical place: the work site. “Build a wall” is at most a part of the broader solution.

Asked about his immigration ideas on CNN, Trump was a mess, beginning with the old “jobs Americans won’t do” canard favored by open-borders proponents (a canard because it always leaves out the relevant qualifier: “at current wages”), then suggesting that we should deport the millions of illegals who are already here only to turn around and bring them back (“I want to move them out, and we’re going to move them back in, and let them be legal”). This process would include those brought here as young children, who will be deported and recycled based on the criterion of whether they are — Trump’s word — “terrific.” What might constitute a federal terrificness standard remains unclear. “We’re going to do something,” Trump said. “I’ve been giving it so much thought. You know you have a, on a humanitarian basis, you have a lot of deep thought going into this, believe me. I actually have a big heart.”

This issue, like so many others, requires less heart-power and more brain-power.

RELATED: We Need Facts, Not Weasel Words, on Immigration

Deporting some 11 million illegals who have for many years evaded deportation only to reimport them under an expedited legal immigration system, the contours of which currently are undefined, and then granting them some sort of permanent legal status is simply another variation on amnesty, and a complicated, expensive, and thick-headed version of amnesty at that. Like the proposed reform program of 2007, which would have purportedly required illegals to be present in their country of origin when applying for legal status, this isn’t just amnesty — it’s also amnesty-laundering.

“Do something,” Trump says, and the perceived immediate need to do something — something — about immigration is what drives politicians toward amnesty and “comprehensive” reform schemes. And there is a need to do something immediately, but it is not what Trump or most other political candidates seem to think.

RELATED: Without Detention There Is No Immigration Enforcement

There is, in fact, no pressing immediate need to either deport the 11 million illegals, including those brought here as young children, or to normalize their status. Many of them have been here for decades, and while this situation is deeply undesirable, it is no more undesirable today than it was five years ago. Deciding what to do about the illegal population already resident in the United States is important, but it is of secondary importance.

The first item on any intelligent immigration-reform agenda is: Secure the borders of the United States and start enforcing our immigration laws.

The first item on any intelligent immigration-reform agenda is: Secure the borders of the United States and start enforcing our immigration laws. Not only is that the first item on the agenda, until it is done it should be the only item on the agenda, since in the absence of secure borders and robust immigration controls any conceivable proposal to resolve the status of the illegals already here would simply provide another incentive for additional illegal immigration. That is not workable as a practical matter or as a political matter.

Republicans have made the politics of this more difficult than they need to be. A plurality of Americans supports reducing our current levels of immigration, legal and illegal; only a tiny minority wants higher levels of immigration; enforcement is very popular, including among the Hispanic voters that Republicans believe themselves to be courting with indulgent attitudes toward illegals. National security, economics, prudence, and the poll numbers are all united on the right side of the issue, but Republicans aren’t.

Here is the coherent immigration platform that Republicans, including many conservatives, cannot quite seem to articulate: 1. Build and supplement border barriers where appropriate, and see to it that they are patrolled; 2. Develop an effective system for tracking those who overstay their visas, deport over-stayers, and impose heavy sanctions on them, up to and including a lifetime ban on future travel to the United States; 3. Mandate the national use of E-Verify or another system for checking employment eligibility, and then take the necessary additional step of making sure that records are current and complete so as to avoid the use of hijacked Social Security numbers; 4. Reform employment laws to impose much heavier penalties on those who employ illegals, and to make those cases easier to prosecute; 5. Decline to renew the legal status granted under President Obama’s executive amnesty; and then, when that’s done, on the matter of the illegals who are already here, do . . . more or less what we’ve been doing, at least for a while, deporting those illegals who come into custody as we do under current protocols.

If we can control our borders and inland ports of entry and substantially reduce the economic incentives for illegal immigration — marching a few meatpacking executives off to prison, if it comes to that — then it is very likely that we will find our illegal-immigrant problem somewhat mitigated. Mitt Romney was mocked for suggesting that “self-deportation” could play an important role in dealing with illegal immigrants, but experience suggests that it is effective: When recessions have reduced the economic incentives to immigration, we’ve seen fewer illegals cross the border and resident illegals cross it going the other way.

Once real enforcement is in place, we will have a much better idea of what our illegal-immigrant situation looks like in the context of secure borders and meaningful universal workplace screening. It is almost certain that the problem will look very different in that context than under current conditions, probably in some ways that will be unexpected. For that reason and for the others described above, no new national policy resolving the status of resident illegals should even be contemplated until real border security has been achieved.

Republicans should press for enforcement as a standalone proposal, not as part of a wider immigration compromise. Once that enforcement is in place, then we can open the discussion about broader subsequent reforms. That discussion should be oriented toward serving — radical as this may sound — the interest of the United States and the American people, economic and otherwise. Those interests are not well-served by steady flows of poor and unskilled workers or by the maintenance of an unassimilated underclass.

We don’t expect Donald Trump to grasp these subtleties. But there are 16 other candidates in the race, and one of them ought to try getting this right. 

[Levan Ramishvili]

Trump the Teenage Bully

He’s no P. T. Barnum, he’s Neidermeyer from Animal House.

By John Fund — August 9, 2015

As much as I’ve slammed The Donald for his inconsistent and incoherent policy views, I’ve always praised Trump’s intelligence: “He is the P. T. Barnum of American politics, a brilliant self-promoter who knows exactly what he’s doing and who changes his opinions constantly to match what he thinks audiences want to hear, much as Barnum used to switch out circus acts between towns on his tour.” A liberal defender of Trump, former CNN host Piers Morgan, agrees: “He’s a smart, cunning, alert showman who knows what it takes to win.”

In the wake of last Thursday’s debate and his infamous “blood feud” with Fox News moderator Megyn Kelly, I have to say I was wrong. His swift, heady rise in the polls has brought out the inner Donald Trump, someone who could have stepped out of Animal House.

When Roger Stone, one of the master practitioners of the Dark Side of the Political Force, resigns as Donald Trump’s strategist after 30 years of loyal service, you know something is up. Stone, who still calls Trump a friend, is circumspect about his reasons for leaving. Publicly, he tweeted: “@realDonaldTrump didn’t fire me — I fired Trump. Diasgree [sic] with diversion to food fight with @megynkelly away core issue messages.”

But Stone told friends on Saturday that Trump is “losing his grip on reality” and that “he has these yes-men around him,” according to Politico. “And now he’s living in a parallel world.”

Others close to The Donald agree. Kate Bohner, who, with Trump, co-authored Trump: The Art of the Comeback, told CNN “This is a Trump I haven’t seen before.” She went on to say: “I don’t want to hear about blood coming out of people’s eyes and certainly not what it morphed into on [CNN anchor Don] Lemon’s show.” In explaining how different Trump is now from the person with whom she worked, Bohner said: “Sometimes he seizes on one detail and won’t let it go. If I were his campaign adviser, I would have said, okay, you said it on the debate, stop, no more talking about this. Let’s just leave it in the green room and certainly no tweeting it at 3:49 a.m.”

Trump is like a rampaging high-school student with no adult chaperone around who can take away his Twitter keys.

But Trump is like a rampaging high-school student with no adult chaperone around who can take away his Twitter keys. His campaign staff has complained that he refuses to read briefing books and said that he took pride in not preparing for last Thursday’s debate. A Trump business associate told me that his long-time secretary once confessed that she couldn’t possibly bring him a piece of bad news. “I’ve kept my job this long by knowing I must never bring him bad news,” she reportedly said. That’s a clue to extreme narcissism.

So let’s recap. Someone who is so thin-skinned that he can’t move on from a slight. Someone who refuses to accept reality and then act accordingly. Someone who has a form of attention-deficit disorder, in which he constantly craves attention. Someone who is constantly boasting about past glories, like an ROTC officer describing his last weekend-warrior experience. Someone who can’t control his language and constantly belittles and bullies everyone he doesn’t like by flinging insults such as “loser,” “stupid,”  “worthless,” “fat,” and “slob.”

P. T. Barnum never made it big acting like that. He knew when to turn down the temperature — and he left business to become a successful legislator and mayor. Still, as a clever crony capitalist who claims to buy politicians, Trump knows when to focus and not be immature. The closest model for him I can think of is Douglas C. Neidermeyer, the bullying ROTC student leader in the 1978 classic college film Animal House. 

We might learn a lesson from how the Delta Tau Chi fraternity dealt with Neidermeyer in Animal House. They never granted him the aura of authority he claimed, they constantly ridiculed his pomposity, and they provided him with opportunities to self-destruct. No matter how isolated in his own reality Donald Trump is, the outside world will eventually bring him down to earth.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Trump’s Foreign Policy: America as Global Vulture

Forget the hair and the ranting. We need to examine what Trump’s actually saying.

By Tom Rogan — August 7, 2015

Offering the politically disenchanted a doorway to a utopian Neverland, Donald Trump can rant, joke, and flip-flop to his heart’s content. All he needs to do is speak with more confidence than his opponents.

But even if they like his personality, Mr. Trump’s supporters should examine his policy positions more closely — in particular, his foreign-policy positions. Because they might not like what a Trump presidency would mean. Were a President Trump to do what candidate Trump says he would do, two things would almost certainly occur.

First, America would enter a global tariff war with China, Mexico, and any other nation that failed to bow to Trump’s majesty. This would collapse American export markets, kill hundreds of thousands of jobs, and lead to far higher costs for the basic goods American families buy every day.

Second, we’d be in a theater-level war in the Middle East. That’s not an exaggeration.

Donald Trump wants to seize control of oil fields in the Middle East and North Africa. While he has recently focused on his desire to “bomb the hell” out of ISIS-controlled oil fields (a comment that does not constitute strategy), his oil agenda has deeper motivations than security. In 2011, Trump explained to CNN that the U.S. should have seized control of Iraqi oil fields as “spoils of war.” He was confused by his interviewer’s skepticism. But that same year, Trump expanded on his underlying oil-centric theory of foreign policy. Speaking about the Libyan revolution, Trump stated that the U.S. should have supported the anti-Qaddafi rebels only in return for “something special.” In Trump-world, this special gift would have entailed “50 percent of their oil.”

Now don’t misunderstand me: It’s eminently possible to cogently argue that the U.S. made a strategic error by intervening in Libya. Still, whether applied to Iraq or Libya, Trump’s foreign-policy motivation is rotten. It is centered on raw imperial mercantilism, a notion that is antithetical to any moral notion of American foreign policy and American exceptionalism. A President Trump would turn America into a global vulture. China and Russia would be benevolent guarantors of international order compared with Trump’s America.

And the Middle East wouldn’t meekly acquiesce. In a matter of weeks after the first oil fields were seized, the U.S. would almost surely face a pan-Arab military mobilization against us. Even a cross-sectarian alliance between America’s Arab allies and Iran would be on the cards. U.S. military units in the region — and Trump asserts that U.S. ground forces would guard our newly seized oil prizes — would quickly be surrounded. To protect our personnel, we would need a massive mobilization of combined-arms forces — at least on the scale of the First Gulf War.

Donald Trump’s oil plan would lead America on a yellow brick road to chaos.

And that’s just the start. Perceiving our seizures as the ultimate proof of jihadist propaganda — that America seeks corrupt domination — both Sunni and Shia terrorist groups would receive a windfall of new recruits, funds, and popular support. The U.S. would be forced to close embassies around the world — some voluntarily, for reasons of security, and others because of expulsion. America’s regional allies would be treated as collaborators, and nations like Jordan and Saudi Arabia might fall into the hands of terrorists. And beyond the Middle East, the U.S. economy would face global sanctions as other allies moved in disgust to separate themselves from President Trump’s action.

Put another way, Donald Trump’s oil plan would lead America on a yellow brick road to chaos. And even aside from the human casualties we would take in following this agenda, Trump’s mercantilism would also fail. After all, fighting a war on that scale wouldn’t be cheap.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that Mr. Trump’s policy positions are unavailable on his campaign website.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Donald Trump Is an Affront to Anyone Devoted to William F. Buckley’s Legacy

By George Will — August 12, 2015

In every town large enough to have two traffic lights there is a bar at the back of which sits the local Donald Trump, nursing his fifth beer and innumerable delusions. Because the actual Donald Trump is wealthy, he can turn himself into an unprecedentedly and incorrigibly vulgar presidential candidate. It is his right to use his riches as he pleases. His squalid performance and its coarsening of civic life are costs of freedom that an open society must be prepared to pay.

When, however, Trump decided that his next acquisition would be not another casino but the Republican presidential nomination, he tactically and quickly underwent many conversions of convenience (concerning abortion, health care, funding Democrats, etc.). His makeover demonstrates that he is a counterfeit Republican and no conservative.

He is an affront to anyone devoted to the project William F. Buckley began six decades ago with the founding in 1955 of National Review — making conservatism intellectually respectable and politically palatable. Buckley’s legacy is being betrayed by invertebrate conservatives now saying that although Trump “goes too far,” he has “tapped into something,” and therefore . . .

RELATED: The Trump Virus and Its Symptoms

Therefore what? This stance — if a semi-grovel can be dignified as a stance — is a recipe for deserved disaster. Remember, Henry Wallace and Strom Thurmond “tapped into” things.

In 1948, Wallace, FDR’s former vice president, ran as a third-party candidate opposing Harry Truman’s re-election. His campaign became a vehicle for, among others, Communists and fellow travelers opposed to Truman’s anti-Soviet foreign policy. Truman persevered, leaders of organized labor cleansed their movement of Soviet sympathizers, and Truman was re-elected.

He won also in spite of South Carolina’s Democratic governor Thurmond siphoning off Democratic votes (and 39 electoral votes) as a Dixiecrat protesting civil-rights commitments in the Democratic party’s platform. Truman won because he kept his party and himself from seeming incoherent and boneless.

RELATED: Trump, All Bluster and Babbitt

Conservatives who flinch from forthrightly marginalizing Trump mistakenly fear alienating a substantial Republican cohort. But the assumption that today’s Trumpites are Republicans is unsubstantiated and implausible. Many are no doubt lightly attached to the political process, preferring entertainment to affiliation. They relish in their candidate’s vituperation and share his aversion to facts. From what GOP faction might Trumpites come? The establishment? Social conservatives? Unlikely.

A party has a duty to exclude interlopers, including cynical opportunists deranged by egotism.

They certainly are not tea partyers, those earnest, issue-oriented, book-club organizing activists who are passionate about policy. Trump’s aversion to reality was displayed during the Cleveland debate when Chris Wallace asked him for “evidence” to support his claim that Mexico’s government is sending rapists and drug dealers to America. Trump, as usual, offered apoplexy as an argument.

A political party has a right to (in language Trump likes) secure its borders. Indeed, a party has a duty to exclude interlopers, including cynical opportunists deranged by egotism. This is why closed primaries, although not obligatory, are defensible: Let party members make the choices that define the party and dispense its most precious possession, a presidential nomination. So, the Republican National Committee should immediately stipulate that subsequent Republican debates will be open to any and all — but only — candidates who pledge to support the party’s nominee.

This year’s Republican field is the most impressive since 1980, and perhaps the most talent-rich since the party first had a presidential nominee, in 1856. But 16 candidates are experiencing diminishment by association with the 17th.

Soon the campaign will turn to granular politics, the on-the-ground retail work required by the 1.4 percent of the nation’s population that lives in Iowa and New Hampshire. Try to imagine Trump in an Iowa living room, with a macaroon in one hand and cup of hot chocolate balanced on a knee, observing Midwestern civilities while talking about something other than himself.

RELATED: Rudeness Is Not a Conservative Principle

Television, which has made Trump (he is one of three candidates, with Mike Huckabee and John Kasich, who have had television shows), will unmake him, turning his shtick into a transcontinental bore. But not before many voters will have noticed weird vibrations pulsing from the GOP. 

So, conservatives today should deal with Trump with the firmness Buckley dealt with the John Birch Society in 1962. The society was an extension of a loony businessman who said Dwight Eisenhower was “a dedicated, conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy.” In a 5,000-word National Review “excoriation” (Buckley’s word), he excommunicated the society from the conservative movement.

Buckley received an approving letter from a subscriber who said, “You have once again given a voice to the conscience of conservatism.” The letter was signed, “Ronald Reagan, Pacific Palisades, Cal.”

[Levan Ramishvili]

How Long Will Trump’s Cathartic Candidacy for Fed-Up Conservatives Last?

By Victor Davis Hanson — August 13, 2015

The coarser and cruder Donald Trump becomes, and the more ill-informed on the issues he sounds, the more he coasts in the polls. Apparently, a few of his targets must be regarded as unsympathetically as their defamer.

Trump is rightly mocked for cynically spreading quid pro quo money around. But he quickly counters that his critics — from Hillary Clinton to his Republican rivals — have all asked him for such cash or for favors.

Trump preps little. He has no real agenda. And he makes stuff up as he goes along. For such a New York brawler, he has thin skin, smearing his critics, often in creepy fashion. How can a former Democrat, once a pro-choice, pro-amnesty liberal and a supporter of single-payer health care, remain the godhead of the conservative base for weeks on end?

The answer is that Trump is a catharsis for 15 percent to 20 percent of the Republican electorate. They apparently like the broken china shop and appreciate the raging bull who runs amok in it. Politicians and the media are seen as corrupt and hypocritical, and the nihilistic Trump is a surrogate way of letting them take some heat for a change.

RELATED: Donald Trump Is an Affront to Anyone Devoted to William F. Buckley’s Legacy

Some of Trump’s companies may have declared bankruptcy. But if that is so bad, why is the U.S. government running up $18 trillion in national debt? If Trump ran his businesses the way government manages the Social Security Trust Fund, would we criticize him for running a Ponzi scheme?

Politicians and the media are seen as corrupt and hypocritical, and the nihilistic Trump is a surrogate way of letting them take some heat for a change.

We have learned that the supposedly sacrosanct IRS is as conniving as any Third World junta. Is the coarse Donald Trump any more dishonest than the smooth former IRS official Lois Lerner?

Trump is uncouth and reckless in his language. But former attorney general Eric Holder disparaged Americans as “cowards.” Barack Obama all but called his Republican critics kindred souls to Iranian hardliners. Did Trump make fun of the Special Olympics the way the president once did when referring to his own poor bowling form?

Vice President Joe Biden once used racist language to characterize then-candidate Obama. “You got the first mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” Biden said. Trump is crass and in your face, but his supporters see his venom as no worse than that of foul-mouthed senator Harry Reid, who gets a pass from the media.

RELATED: The Trump Virus and Its Symptoms

The grandees of Planned Parenthood talk of their abstract compassion. But in secret videos, they boast of trafficking in human body parts, which is as macabre as anything out of Dickensian London. Do Trump’s wheeler-dealer businesses peddle fetal arms and legs on the side?

Trump’s jujitsu style begs the question of whether many of the objects of his ire are any less reckless than he.

The government and media talk compassionately of amnesty and sanctuary cities. But the repugnant Trump reflects the anger of millions who are tired of hearing only of dreamers, with rare mention that undocumented immigrants commit murder at a rate much higher than the national average, or that more than a quarter of all federal inmates are non-citizens, most of them here illegally.

Did the tragic fate of Kate Steinle — murdered in San Francisco by a frequently deported, frequently paroled undocumented immigrant — prove Trump crazy? Was it an aberration or the logical wage of sanctuary cities?

Trump is a nasty catharsis through which some fed-up conservatives are venting their furor over the plight of the country and politically correct hypocrisy.

Mexico published a didactic comic book to advise its own citizens how to illegally cross the border. It rakes in more than $20 billion in annual remittances, saves money on social spending, and uses America as a safety valve for its own failures. It is certainly crude of Trump to stereotype Mexico as an enemy of the U.S. But does Mexico not sometimes connive against its northern neighbor?

Without detail, Trump derides President Obama’s Iran pact in buffoonish terms, as if Trump is judging a bad deal on his reality TV show The Apprentice.

But is he wrong? If the Iranian theocracy sincerely plans to stop uranium enrichment, dismantle centrifuges, ensure anytime/anywhere inspections, and stop exporting terrorism, why, then, are Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and most moderate Middle Eastern nations against the deal, and China and Russia for it?

Trump is a nasty catharsis through which some fed-up conservatives are venting their furor over the plight of the country and politically correct hypocrisy. The mystery among the political and media class is how quickly these disgruntled conservatives will be cleansed and get Trump out of their systems, and whether it will happen before he does other Republican candidates real damage.

For now, it will take a bit more of the unfiltered Trump’s preposterousness and anti-PC bluster before his teed-off fans are finally pacified.

Scorning or ridiculing Trump’s hypocrisies, narcissism, or outlandishness won’t silence him, much less win over his supporters. That will happen only when voters find a more savvy, more informed, more polite — but equally blunt and unafraid — version of Trump, perhaps a candidate like either Carly Fiorina, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, or Scott Walker, all of whom are more likely to channel unapologetic conservative anger rather than crudely amplify it.

Trump will fade when his brand of medicine becomes even worse than the disease. Apparently we are not quite there yet.

[Levan Ramishvili]

The Nihilistic Populism of Donald TrumpDonald Trump’s brand of populism is about appealing to the social and personal aspirations of ordinary people. Trump is living large, which is how many Americans would like to live.Walter Russel Mead

Is The Donald a populist candidate? Our friend Glenn Reynolds argued in Sunday’s USAToday that the rise of Donald Trump is best understood as a populist event—“an indictment of the GOP establishment and, for that matter, of the American political establishment in general” and “a sign that large numbers of voters don’t feel represented by more mainstream politicians.”

Over at the Washington Post, Daniel Drezner, another friend, disputes Reynolds’ interpretation of Trump, arguing that though “there’s definitely something to this”, “on closer inspection this isn’t really a straightforward populist story, for two reasons.” The first is that “the policy preferences that Trump is pushing aren’t all that popular.” The second is that Trump, rather than emphasizing his solidarity with ordinary people, makes a point of flaunting his tremendous wealth and privilege at every possible opportunity in outrageous ways.But Reynolds is right and Trump is very much a classic populist—in the following sense. Populism isn’t always about taking majority positions or cultivating economic solidarity with non-elites. In some populist movements, specific policy positions that don’t always or even often have majority support gain energy by hooking up with generalized dissatisfaction with elites and the status quo. Late 19th- and early 20th-century populism, from a policy standpoint, put a lot of stress on agrarian issues and crackpot economic ideas that, though there weren’t any opinion polls at the time, don’t seem to have had majority support. So while, as Drezner points out, hard-line immigration enforcement may not be particularly high on the agendas of a majority of voters, Trump can use the issue to signal his contempt for the establishment—and voters pay more attention to the tune than to the lyrics.As for Drezner’s argument that Trump’s wealth and Ivy League credentials weaken his populistbona fides: Rich and successful men, from Catiline to Andrew Jackson to Ross Perot, have presented themselves as populists from time immemorial. The Donald’s high-flying, bombastic style, with its tasteless and vulgar flaunting of exactly the kind of wealth that populism resents, looks superficially like it ought to drive hoi polloi away. That’s not how it works. Populism is often a political tool for members of the elite who, for one reason or another, can’t make it to the top through conventional methods and have to play an outside game to realize their ambitions; elitists and men of the people have both played the populist card over the centuries.Some populists, like William Jennings Bryan, make a point of staying close to the people they sprang from. Some politicians build mass support by ostentatious simplicity; think of Gandhi in India. That is roughly the path that Scott Walker is taking, loincloth and Hindu mysticism aside. Some politicians appeal to popular constituencies by advocating for their economic interests, at least apparently. This was the path of Huey “Every Man A King” Long in Louisiana. It was also the strategy President Harry Truman took in 1948 when he warned working Americans against Republican plans to destroy the trade union movement and the New Deal welfare state.

But Trump offers a different kind of “representation.” By flouting PC norms, reducing opponents and journalists to sputtering outrage as he trashes the conventions of political discourse, and dismissing his critics with airy put-downs, he is living the life that—at least some of the time—a lot of people wish they had either the courage or the resources to live. In this sense he’s not unlike Italy’s bad boy Silvio Berlusconi, who accumulated tremendous popular support by flaunting his refusal to abide by conventional rules of behavior.

For voters who’ve come to believe that both parties are owned and operated by the kind of people who pay Hillary Clinton hundreds of thousands of dollars to make platitudinous speeches, who believe that the system is rigged and will never be reformed, that the candidates offering “real solutions to real problems” are fooling either themselves or, more probably, you, Trump at least offers the satisfaction of making the other rat bastards and pompous PC elites squirm. He laughs at them and makes them look small; he defies their hatred and revels in their pursed-lip disapproval. By incurring the hatred of the chattering classes, he seems to some voters to be signaling both that he hates the empty showmanship of the capital as much as they do and that, by making himself the enemy of the self-determined arbiters of the rules of the political game, he is throwing himself on the support of the American people.

Trump is a sham, of course, but for many Americans in 2015 the whole political process is a sham. Trump, however, is an entertaining sham, and some voters think that if the establishment is going to screw you no matter what you do, you might as well vote for the funny one.

So it doesn’t matter that Trump’s positions (insofar as he has taken any) are unpopular, or that he is so obviously and outrageously a member of the economic elite that has so many Americans riled up this year—indeed, it may help him. Donald Trump is living large, which is how many Americans wish they could live.

In part, also, Trump’s popularity is the result of harmless good fun; our two-year presidential electoral cycle is a ridiculous spectacle and the reporters and pundits who discuss the horse race in such diligent detail are chasing will o’ the wisps and wasting time. Many of the people who answer the polls that get analyzed to death in long, thumb sucker pieces aren’t thinking seriously about how they will vote more than a year from now. You can also tell a pollster that you plan to vote for Trump simply, as George Wallace used to put it back in 1968, to “send them a message.” Trump offers average Americans the chance to pull the Establishment’s chain, and then watch the wonks and the pundits jerk and squeal. This is a lot of fun for the tens of millions of people out there who think the whole political class consists of high-minded incompetents and unprincipled parasites.

Nihilistic populism, that is, can also be a powerful phenomenon.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Donald Trump’s Public Service

by Peter Wehner

The big story going into tonight’s primetime debate in Cleveland is Donald Trump. Right now he’s the frontrunner. Whether that lasts or not remains to be seen, but for now, he’s riding high. And he’s doing so in part because some people on the right are rallying to his side — speaking favorably of him, defending him, holding him up as a model.

In that sense, Mr. Trump is performing a useful service. For years, there have been figures on the right who have presented themselves as people of deep philosophical convictions. They portray themselves as champions of limited government, willing to take unpopular stands in the effort to advance their ideology, utterly fearless in their pursuit of conservatism. They were true believers — the heirs of Reagan — willing to call out the RINOs (Republican In Name Only).

Then came along Donald Trump, a true RINO — Trump was a registered Democrat for most of the last decade and has given money to Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid, Ted Kennedy and John Kerry — who has demonstrated the intellectual confusion that characterizes some on the right. I say that because as I and others have repeatedly pointed out, Mr. Trump has held left-wing views over the years on (among other things) health care, taxes, abortion, drugs, and immigration. He is no one’s idea of a limited government conservative, to the point of attacking those who want to reform entitlements programs (the sine qua non of rolling back the modern state).

But for those on the right who believe conservatism is synonymous with grievances, resentment, and rage — who don’t appear to want conservatism associated with a political philosophy or a governing agenda, but with attitude (the cruder the better) — Trump is the man of the hour. He’s insulting, erratic and conspiracy-minded. (He was the nation’s most prominent birther and believes “massive vaccinations” cause autism.) Most of all, for his well-wishers on the right like the radio talk show host Laura Ingraham, Trump is an “outsider” and “anti-establishment.” He knows how to “school” the establishment and has their “number.” What matters isn’t conservatism; what matters is someone who is as obsessively anti-establishment as they are — even if that someone has held liberal views that would be disqualifying in every other instance. (The irony and interesting psychological aspect of this is that those who claim to most hate the establishment are themselves pillars of it.)

Donald Trump won’t be the Republican nominee. But his candidacy will succeed to this extent: It will have exposed how little some on the right care about conservative ideas and how much they are devoted to political burlesque. They have every right to put on their show. But they don’t have the right to disfigure conservatism in the process.

[Levan Ramishvili]

The Trumpification of the GOP Is About to End

by Noah Rothman 

For political pundits, the carnival they watched last night was an enlightening affair. Trump aside, they say, the Republican Party’s presidential aspirants performed admirably. The marginally tuned-in voter who watched the debate last night saw something quite different. This was a raucous event, a reality show with little redeeming value beyond its most entertaining aspects. That’s not necessarily a fair assessment, but it is an honest reflection of what they have come to expect from the Dadaist performance art that is Donald Trump’s campaign of self-promotion masquerading as a presidential bid. The pundits are, however, pundits for a reason; they understand the mechanics of an election cycle in a way that the casual observer does not. On the left and the right, political professionals and opinion leaders know what they saw: the beginning of the end of Trump’s bid for the Republican nomination. It is true that his staying power in the race has shocked everyone, but the debates mark the beginning of a different phase of this campaign. It’s coming, perhaps later rather than sooner, but the celebrity candidate’s deflation is a virtual certainty. As such, the tempo of the Democratic effort to ensure that Trump comes to be viewed as the face of the GOP will accelerate in the coming weeks. They know that time is not on their side. 

The political classes have expended untold joules of energy in the effort to understand the Trump supporter. Quizzically cocking their heads to the side, they sought to dissect and classify this little-understood species. They observe that he is justifiably frustrated with Washington. They note that she is apprehensive about the state of the economy, her personal finances, and her children’s futures. They correctly contend that the politicians in whom they invested their trust jilted them. The Trump supporter is rendered virtuous insofar as his expression of outrage, however inchoate and self-defeating, is righteous.

There comes a time, however, when the case for the aggrieved Trump supporter ceases to be compelling, and the well of sympathy runs dry. If anyone was confused about Trump’s motives before last night, they have no excuse to remain so today. He is in this for himself. It was a fact demonstrated by his refusal to rule out a third-party bid or his insistence that he would only support the Republican Party’s presidential nominee if he were that nominee. He demonstrated no policy knowledge – indeed, he was proudly ignorant of the affairs of statecraft. Trump was rude, boorish, and indignant that his crudeness was subject to questioning by the moderators. His embrace of unalloyed liberalism just a few years ago fully exposed the celebrity candidate’s opportunism.

Yes, the majority of Trump’s support comes not from an admiration for his policy positions but his style. His supporters think he upsets the apple cart, and they so deeply resent that apple cart. But these individuals are now clinging to an ideal that has been thoroughly dispelled. Trump backers in the grassroots, and those in conservative media outlets who would enable their self-delusion are embracing a series of category errors. They mistake rudeness for self-assuredness. They confuse incivility for resolve. They see pugnacity and presume efficacy.

At a certain point, coddling Trump supporters and trying to understand their grievances becomes a futile enterprise. When a loved one is making a terrible mistake that will eventually do them great harm, the priority is not to preserve their fragile self-image. The priority is to save them from themselves, regardless of how bitterly they will resent your efforts. For some Trump backers, no amount of contradictory information will dissuade them from their self-destructive course. For most, however, the carnival barker was exposed last night for what he was. What’s more, the members of his own party exposed him.

Those who observe politics for a living understand that a critical mass of support comes not merely from the grassroots, but from influential members of the party infrastructure. There is a reason why, since 1980, pre-primary endorsements from prominent members of a political party have been a better indicator of which candidate will emerge from a competitive campaign to win the presidential nomination. Donald Trump will receive no party support, and only in part because he does not support the party. Trump has provided Republicans with the marvelous opportunity for a prolonged Sister Souljah moment, and most of the GOP’s leading candidates have taken it.

But what might have hurt Trump most was his aggression toward the Fox moderators, both on and off the stage. Near four a.m. on the East Coast, Trump took to Twitter to litigate his grievance against Fox. He called host and moderator Megyn Kelly “overrated” and retweeted a fan who referred to her as a “bimbo.” When pollster Frank Luntz’s panel of Republican voters failed to revere him in the fashion to which he has become accustomed, Trump called him a “clown” and a “joke.” Trump’s ego has compelled him to go to war with the very base of influential conservatives who sustain his support: those in the conservative movement’s entertainment sector.

Those Trump supporters who are immune to evidence that suggests their avatar of angst-fueled rebellion is not who he seems to be were always a minority within the GOP, but that minority is almost certainly about to contract. A Gravis Marketing poll of debate watchers conducted last night indicated that only Rand Paul performed worse than Trump. Whereas 34 percent of respondents said Paul lost the debate, another 30 percent said the same of Trump. No other candidate registered in the double digits. By contrast, a stalwart but modest 19 percent said that the reality star won the contest. While 36 percent said they thought better of Trump after the debate, another 45 percent said they thought less of him – again, a subpar performance outmatched only by Paul.

Repudiated by influential Republicans, by Fox News viewers, and, by virtue of his attack on the moderators, by Fox hosts, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to cast Trump as the face of the GOP. That makes the liberal project to ensure that he is seen as the face of the Republican Party all that more urgent.

“Mr. Trump is the face of the GOP: angry, white and male,” former Bill Clinton advisor and Democratic operative Paul Begala averred in mid-July. “He is the voice of the GOP. Hell, he’s even the hair of the GOP.” This was always a thesis in search of evidence, but at least it was based in polling. To continue to make this claim after the fallout from last night’s debate has settled smacks of wishful thinking.

The flailing effort to ensure that Trump remains the enduring symbol of a Republican Party that he only recently adopted and that he has repeatedly threatened to betray was exemplified in Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank’s most recent piece.

Milbank noted that debate moderator Megyn Kelly asked Trump to account for the fact that he had, in the past, insulted women by calling them “fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals,” among other things. “The audience laughed,” Milbank noted. When Trump attempted to parry by claiming his barbs were only aimed at Rosie O’Donnell, “More laughter.” “I think the big problem this country has is being politically correct,” Trump retorted. “The debate crowd applauded,” Milbank insisted.

The columnist went on to note that the public thinks that the Trump candidacy is hurting the party’s brand. He cited a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll that does support this contention. But that claim is not supported in that same poll’s findings that discovered that generic Republican candidates continue to best Democrats in a ballot test. If Trump is rubbing off on the GOP, it hasn’t hurt the party’s electoral prospects. Yet.

Milbank added that the rest of the slate of candidates on the debate stage sounded remarkably like Republicans and not centrist Democrats, somehow betraying the GOP’s post-2012 “autopsy” report recommendations. “Trump himself may have diagnosed the party’s problem best: ‘We don’t have time for tone,’” He concluded.

If Democrats want to make Donald Trump the face of the party he and his supporters vocally resent, they better do it quick. They’re running out of time, and they know it.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Trump War on Fox and Kelly is the Start of His War on the GOP

by Jonathan S. Tobin

After the firestorm that Donald Trump ignited in the aftermath of Thursday night’s debate, a lot of pundits are questioning whether this is the moment that many Republicans have been waiting for all summer. After surviving gaffes that would have destroyed anyone else, Trump’s decision to attack Fox News’ Megyn Kelly with a vicious and misogynist slurmight be the thing that starts letting the air out of the real-estate-mogul-turned-reality-star’s balloon. But it may be that those who are focusing on the impact of this disgraceful episode on the next poll numbers to come out are missing the real story here. Even if Trump’s results stay relatively strong, he was almost certainly never going to be the person the Republicans nominated for president. But what this contretemps, which led to the first instance of a conservative group shunning Trump, may really be is his first step away from the GOP and toward the independent run that may always have been in the back of his mind.

For Erick Erickson, the leader of the RedState group, to take such a strong stand against Trump by telling him to stay away from its presidential forum in Atlanta on Friday was particularly significant. Erickson has been a vocal force on the right spreading resentment of the Republican establishment, and those who follow RedState might be thought of as a natural audience for Trump’s populist message. But to his credit, Erickson drew a line in the sand that correctly noted that conservatives must stand up for “decency.”

He’s obviously right about that. Trump’s whiny and vulgar reaction to being asked tough questions at the debate was indefensible. His slimy inference about Kelly’s willingness to confront him being a result of menstruation is about as low as American political discourse has gotten in recent memory. Pressing Trump about his loyalty to his new party, asking him for evidence for some of his wild claims about Mexico and to account for his long record of vile utterances was exactly what responsible journalists ought to do to someone who entered the debate as the frontrunner in the polls. One hopes the journalists on the other networks who moderate the Democratic Party debates will be half as tough on Hillary Clinton. For Trump and his fans to attack Fox News for doing so illustrates not only his lack of understanding for the way democracy works but also displays the brittle egomania that is at the heart of his public persona.

Let’s state the obvious when we note, as so many others have done in the last few days, that behaving like a gentleman is not a matter of “political correctness.” Being a conservative is about more than anger and lashing out. There’s something to be said for the notion that the crises at home and abroad that have been mismanaged by President Obama are so pressing that we need a leader who won’t mince words. But there’s a difference between blunt talk and crude smears or unsubstantiated charges. Erickson was right to observe that if conservatives are presented with a leader that can’t behave decently, then they are going to need a new leader.

It could be that the impulse to lash out at Fox and the popular Kelly is simply Donald being Donald. He has never controlled his temper or moderated his behavior in such a way as to stay within the lines of public decency throughout his long career as a celebrity. Why should we expect him to start doing so now just because he’s running for president? It may well be that after getting away with and even seeming to profit from denigrating the heroism of a genuine hero like John McCain, his belief that the normal rules of conduct just don’t apply to him has been bolstered.

But there may be more at play here than just Trump exhibiting his standard bullying tactics against anyone who refuses to fawn on him.

Trump’s earlier warnings to the Republican National Committee that he would consider an independent run if he “wasn’t treated decently” raised the question of how he would define decently. He supplied the answer when he refused to pledge support for the winner of the GOP nomination at the debate. Clearly, any outcome other than his triumph will be viewed as grounds for leaving the reservation. His megalomania is such that he probably can’t accept losing in a fair fight or even the concept of engaging in a fair fight for the nomination. That means that it was probably always a given that the moment he started to slip or to realize that he couldn’t win would be the start of his drift away from the Republicans.

Doing so after the first debate when he is still leading in the polls is shocking. But Trump’s war on Fox News and its most popular personality is a sign that he is already starting to lean in that direction. If his poll numbers start to dip and it’s hard to believe they won’t at some point in the next few weeks, that will be the next test of Trump’s intentions. But it is even more likely that another such debacle — and the moderators at the next debate hosted by CNN will probably not be any softer on him than the Fox team — he will begin to realize that he can’t prevail as a Republican. He may even decide to go the independent route before taking a beating in primaries and caucuses rather than after absorbing such losses.

No political party was ever likely to be able to contain a Trump anyway, since nothing less than a personality cult masquerading as a party was going to be enough to accommodate his egoism or accept his bad behavior. The question facing the RNC or the other candidates about whether to condemn or to just ignore him will eventually be resolved by his flight. A third party run by Trump could hand the presidency to the Democrats on a silver platter. But Republicans can’t worry about that now as they correctly realize that their first obligation is to protect their brand against it being hijacked by a vulgar buffoon. Indeed, they may be comforted by the knowledge that more such performances by Trump will likely limit the amount of damage he can do in a general election.

Treating women — and anyone else for that matter — with respect is the least we can expect of someone who wants to be president but that is clearly too much to ask from Trump and he ought to pay a  heavy price for his conduct. But rather than this just being a personal feud, this crude Trump war on Fox and Kelly is a clear sign that sooner or later he will be jumping the Republican ship anyway.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Media Grades Trump on a Curve

by Noah Rothman

Among certain sequestered circles, a particular species of chicken-egg debate is now vogue. Did the media create Donald Trump, or is it Trump who has inspired the present media frenzy? The celebrity GOP presidential candidate owes his ascension in the polls to a variety of factors, and most of them are not rooted in his coverage in either the mainstream or conservative press. The retrospectives on Trump’s rise and eventual fall should be left to the historians, particularly when there is no evidence, yet, that indicates his candidacy is even close to being over. Rather, it’s more constructive to ask why Trump became the central focus of the 2016 race, and there are more facets to that project than political reporters condescendingly examining and classifying the Trump backer as though he were some strange new breed. If support for Trump is a legitimate expression of the righteous outrage of an aggrieved GOP voter base, then he should be treated like a viable candidate. But the mainstream press has done precisely the opposite. The media treats the celebrity candidate’s campaign like a curiosity, and he is afforded privileges no other candidate would be allowed. 

On Sunday morning, the talk shows were again dominated by 2016 politics with Republican and Democratic candidates submitting themselves to grueling inquiries from the press. Donald Trump, too, endured a grilling on CNN’s State of the Union, ABC’s This Week, and NBC’s Meet the Press. Unlike most prominent political figures, however, Trump was allowed to conduct his interviews over the phone.

It’s extraordinarily rare that a presidential candidate is allowed to refuse even a remote broadcast when being interviewed for a major network. Allowing a candidate the privilege of phoning their interview in, and giving them the opportunity to access notes and the Internet during that dialogue, is an advantage that others in Trump’s position are not provided. In the absence of extraordinary conditions that prevent the subject from joining the host in studio or appearing in front of a remote broadcast camera, networks have previously had a habit of declining to extend that kind of deference to any one campaign. Indeed, Fox News Sunday refused to allow Trump to appear on their broadcast if he would only do so by telephone. The Manhattan-based media maven has no excuses for refusing to appear in person for his interviews save for his determination to preserve a level of comfort to which he has become accustomed. And yet, most of the press willingly accepts Trump’s preconditions; circumstances they would reject for any other candidate.

It would be one thing if this kind of docility from the watchdog press was an anomaly, but Trump is a virtual ubiquitous presence on network and cable news. He is a regular guest on every cable news morning show. If you missed it, don’t fret; he is just as likely to be heard prior to drive time as he is in prime time. And almost always on the phone, or in a prerecorded interview in the gilded lobby of one of his high-rise properties. For the political entertainment business, and cable news is the entertainment business, the controversy and ratings he draws are simply too good to pass up. If that means favoring Trump with circumstances that no other candidate would be offered, so be it.

It isn’t merely his manner of supplication from the press that is more than a little untoward. When the real estate mogul performs his tired and intentionally provocative act for his cable news interlocutors, he is treated like a performer rather than a politician.

In an appearance with CNN host Don Lemon on Friday night, Trump mounted a withering verbal assault on Fox News host Megyn Kelly which included the veiled accusation that her tough line of questioning at last Thursdays’ debate was the result of the fact that the moderator was contending with her menstrual cycle. The shocking comment led to the candidate’s banishment from the influential RedState gathering over the weekend, but it didn’t yield one follow-up question from Lemon. But for the outrage over Trump’s remark on social media, the comment might have gone entirely unnoticed. Does anyone believe Lemon, finely attuned as he is to even barely perceptible displays of bias, failed to catch the sexist slur?

It isn’t merely Trump’s penchant for offensive comments that his hosts on cable news outlets allow him to issue unchecked. The candidate’s appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Monday, a program that prides itself on its seriousness, exposed the extent to which cable hosts are willing to abdicate their responsibility to their viewing audiences.

After he again hurled slights in the direction of Fox News, Megyn Kelly, and RedState’s Erick Erickson, MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski admirably attempted to steer the interview in a direction that might shed some light on Trump’s murky policy preferences. When asked how Trump would help women get access to capital in the form of small business loans or salary hikes, Trump said he would be “the best for women” and proceeded to attack Jeb Bush for lagging in the polls and praise his own ability to generate ratings. When Brzezinski asked the question again, Trump outright refused to answer. “As far as questions like that, Mika, I’m not going to do it on this show,” he said. “I don’t want to discuss it on this show.” A self-respecting news program might have ended the song and dance there. Instead, the spectacle continued for another six agonizing minutes.

Next up, former diplomat and president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass, pressed Trump to provide further details concerning his thoughts on foreign affairs. “What is your approach to ISIS in both Iraq and Syria,” he asked. Trump replied that “we need to take them out strongly,” and that would include the use of “boots on the ground” to “take the oil.” You heard correctly. “I’d put a ring around it and I’d take the oil for our country,” he added. “I’d just take the oil.”

This is not the first time Trump has contended that the United States should invade and, presumably, annex the resource-rich areas of Iraq and Syria currently in ISIS’s control.National Review’s Jim Geraghty displayed undue courtesy to Trump by dissecting this policy preference – one that predates the rise of ISIS — and noted the various ways in which his proposal is both reckless and unproductive. Any other candidate on either the Democratic or Republican side of the aisle who floated this proposal would not get a wry smile from the president of the Council on Foreign Relations or MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough. The record would scratch, jaws would drop, and the remainder of the interview would be devoted to dissecting this fanciful notion. But not Trump. He gets a pass.

“Why do you think you continue to stay at the top of the polls despite the fact the establishment press and the Republican establishment in Washington predict your demise every two or three days?” Scarborough closed admiringly. It has been said and said again that Trump’s appeal is due in large part to economic anxiety, a crisis of confidence in American institutions, and the failure of Republican leaders in Congress to meet the expectations they set for themselves. If, however, the “establishment” press consists of network and cable news, it’s impossible to rule out as a contributing factor the favors his candidacy is granted by the political media.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Can You Criticize Trump Without Insulting His Fans?

by Jonathan S. Tobin 

Give Donald Trump credit. By picking a fight with Fox News’ Megyn Kelly after last week’s Republican presidential debate, he skillfully changed the subject from his own terrible performance to one about a supposed biased forum in which he could play the victim. On the stage in Cleveland, he did nothing to give viewers the impression that he had the temperament or the knowledge of the issues to successfully compete in a general election let alone serve as commander-in-chief. But in employing his trademark bullying tactics as well as by making a vulgar comment about Kelly (that he later disingenuously claimed was innocent), Trump showed us that he is a master manipulator of the media. But the question to be asked about all of this is not so much whether his lead in the polls will last, but whether it’s ever going to be possible to speak or write honestly about Trump without such criticism being interpreted as a defense of the establishment or an unfair attack on voters who are fed up with business as usual in Washington? The answer is that as long as Trump is controlling the conversation, the answer may, unfortunately, be no.

The key point to understand about the debate is that you don’t complain about the moderators unless you think you lost. Instead of noticing that he had no good answers to some very legitimate questions, Trump’s fans rallied to his defense even if meant they had to swallow absurd party line that Kelly and the other Fox moderators were biased RINOs or liberal saboteurs. Such charges against that network and these particular journalists requires a conspiratorial mindset that seems all too familiar on the right these days. Had Kelly, Brett Baier, and Chris Wallace grilled Hillary Clinton on her weak points the way they did with Trump, the same people hurling abuse at Kelly would cheer her. Of course, Clinton won’t go anywhere near Fox for that very reason.

But Trump knows that the best defense is a good offense, and, rather than absorb his embarrassment, he lashed out as he has always done against anyone who dared question him. The post-debate scrum was perfect for Trump since it tapped into the anger that leads many of his supporters to support him in the first place. Part of the reason people seem to like Trump is that he does play for keeps in the sense that his only reaction to opposition is always to eviscerate it no matter the source or the issue.

For many on the right, their frustration about the inability of Republicans to stop President Obama from implementing his policies has become as great as their anger at the administration. Trying to explain that absent a 60-seat majority in the Senate, the GOP can’t even pass anything through both Houses is the sort of technical argument for which they have no patience. Trying to tell them that the Founders they claim to revere actually approved of the kind of gridlock that results from divided government is equally futile. Working within the political system is not only the constitutional path to follow; it’s the only way conservatives have to hinder the liberal project. Yet what some in the base want most is a sign that their leaders are as angry as they. And that’s where Trump, with his truculent braggadocio, comes in.

Anger seems to be the lingua franca of American politics these days. Tea Partiers rage against the ability of Obama to implement his health care law and to unilaterally change the immigration laws without Congress being able to stop him. Liberals are expressing it by backing Bernie Sanders rather than meekly going along with the coronation of Hillary Clinton. Go further to the left, and you have protest movements like Black Lives Matter and, before that, Occupy Wall Street. Listen closely to all of them and you hear that same undercurrent of dissatisfaction and impatience not just with the failure of politicians but also with politics itself.

Into that void has stepped, an intemperate man who seems suited for the times. Unencumbered by any political experience, a record or even any well thought out positions, he simply jabs away at all comers. Unlike everyone else he’s so rich and famous that nothing can constrain his fury or even force him to apologize for saying things that other people would be destroyed for uttering. Having watched so many others broken for saying impolitic things, watching someone who can do as they like is liberating. That not only explains Trump’s popularity but also why his supporters don’t back away when he says something foolish, wrong or just plain offensive. Some seem to have bought into the notion that anger gives him permission to behave indecently, as was the case with his comments to and about Kelly.

But the problem for Republicans isn’t so much the threat that Trump might actually win the nomination or even what I still think is a very good chance that he will eventually run as an independent because he isn’t capable of accepting defeat. It’s that, in the course of the debate about Trump’s suitability for the presidency, many of his supporters have come to perceive any criticism of their hero as an affront to themselves. As long as they are lashing out at what they perceive to be the establishment (a term that has become so amorphous that it now appears to include even those people and institutions like Fox that afflict the very liberal establishment conservatives oppose), they don’t seem to care about Trump’s obvious shortcomings. Worse than that, their anger causes them to embrace Trump’s incivility as a virtue even though they know, contrary to the candidate’s claims, neither ISIS nor a porous border justify behavior that is a function of his unrestrained ego rather than principle.

So let’s make something clear. Voters have every reason to be dissatisfied with the current situation. In particular, conservatives are not wrong to recall the way George W. Bush and the Republican Congressional majorities of his time spent like drunken sailors throughout much of the last decade. The GOP should be held accountable. But so should Trump. Like it or not, he’s in politics now and must answer the same tough and intrusive questions about what he has said and done as everyone else in his new profession. He should not be allowed to get away with bullying questioners or critics any more than the other Republicans.

If Trump fans think he is presidential material, I’m at a loss as to wonder why they would think that, but democracy is about choice and they are entitled to theirs. And when Republican voters ultimately choose someone else, as I think is likely, those conservatives who actually want to prevent the election of another Democrat will need to remember that Trump’s fate should not be confused with that of the conservative movement. Just as he needs to learn to stop taking the normal give and take of political debate personally, so, too, must his fans.

[Levan Ramishvili]

The Phenomenal Incoherence of Donald Trump

By Rich Lowry — August 14, 2015

Donald Trump is a great communicator. He’s self-assured, entertaining, pungent. He could, as they say of talented actors, read the phone book and make it interesting (if, that is, hilariously boastful readings of the phone book are your kind of thing).

There is only one area where his communication skills are lacking: The man that Trump refers to as Trump is not always adept at expressing Trump’s views.

The loudmouth mogul may be very good at saying words, but coherence and consistency sometimes elude him. Especially when he gets beyond his comfort zone of extolling his own phenomenal awesomeness and calling America’s leaders stupid and the leaders of China and Mexico — the new axis of evil — smart and cunning.

After that, it gets foggy.

Consider his signature issue of immigration, where the incendiary words and stalwart tone evidently are a smoke screen for a poorly conceived amnesty scheme.

The loudmouth mogul may be very good at saying words, but coherence and consistency sometimes elude him.

In a CNN interview, Trump outlined an amnesty via temporary deportation: “I would get people out, and I would have an expedited way of getting them back into the country so they can be legal.” How would the federal government, which can’t run the immigration system we already have, manage mass relocations of millions of people presumably to their countries of origin, only to be vetted and returned to the United States forthwith? “It’s feasible if you know how to manage. Politicians don’t know how to manage.” Oh.

As for so-called Dreamers, Trump has considered the matter very carefully: “We’re going to do something. I’ve been giving it so much thought. You know, you have, on a humanitarian basis, you have a lot of deep thought going into this, believe me. I actually have a big heart.  . . .  But the Dreamers, it’s a tough situation. We’re going to do something. And one of the things we’re going to do is expedite. When somebody is terrific, we want them back here. They have to be legally.”

There you have it — an immigration priority of the Trump administration will be legalizing “terrific” Dreamers after they’ve been deported/re-imported, on an expedited basis, of course. For this, we need a populist revolution?

It is a testament to Trump’s tenuous grasp on the most basic matters that he can take a crystal-clear conservative priority, defunding Planned Parenthood, and make it a head-scratching hash of seeming contradictions.

He told radio-show host Hugh Hewitt that he would be willing to shut down the government to defund Planned Parenthood. Then he told Chris Cuomo of CNN that he might defund only Planned Parenthood’s abortion business, not the rest of it: “I would look at the good aspects of it.”

Of course, since it is notionally only Planned Parenthood’s non-abortion services that get funded, this sounded like an endorsement of the status quo — and earned him a pat on the head by Planned Parenthood. Asked to clarify by Sean Hannity on Fox News, he said, “We have to look at the positives also for Planned Parenthood,” before allowing that “maybe unless they stop with the abortions, we don’t do the funding for the stuff that we want.”

Maybe? Finally, he released a statement saying he opposed funding Planned Parenthood as long as it performs abortions — which it should have been within his power to make clear during his other exchanges over the issue.

My colleague Jonah Goldberg famously described Mitt Romney as speaking conservatism as if it’s a second language. Trump speaks it as if he needs help from a translator. He told Hannity the other night of the glories of health savings accounts, a market-oriented reform, even though he had praised socialized systems in Canada and Scotland (why not all of Great Britain?) in the debate.

One lesson of the success of the Trump-for-president campaign is that as long as you are not making sense with great certainty and forcefulness, no one will care much that you aren’t making sense. For now, it’s part of the genius of Trump as communicator.

[Levan Ramishvili]

The 199 Most Donald Trump Things Donald Trump Has Ever Said

Would you vote for this man?

By MICHAEL KRUSE

1. “… don’t let the brevity of these passages prevent you from savoring the profundity of the advice you are about to receive.” (How to Get Rich, 2004)

2. “I am a really smart guy.” (TIME, April 14, 2011)

3. “I’m intelligent. Some people would say I’m very, very, very intelligent.” (Fortune, April 3, 2000)

4. “I know what sells and I know what people want.” (Playboy, March 1990)

5. “I have a great relationship with the blacks. I’ve always had a great relationship with the blacks.” (Albany’s Talk 1300, April 14, 2011)

6. “I just have great respect for them, and you know they like me.” (CNN, July 23, 2015)

7. “A well-educated black has a tremendous advantage over a well-educated white in terms of the job market. … [I]f I were starting off today, I would love to be a well-educated black, because I believe they do have an actual advantage.” (NBC News, September 1989)

8. “Our great African American President hasn’t exactly had a positive impact on the thugs who are so happily and openly destroying Baltimore!” (Twitter, April 28, 2015)

9. “I have black guys counting my money. … I hate it. The only guys I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes all day.” (USA Today, May 20, 1991)

10. “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” (Twitter, Nov. 6, 2012)

11. “I know the Chinese. I’ve made a lot of money with the Chinese. I understand the Chinese mind.” (Xinhua, April 2011)

12. “I did very well with Chinese people. Very well. Believe me.” (TIME, April 14, 2011)

13. “Who the fuck knows? I mean, really, who knows how much the Japs will pay for Manhattan property these days?” (TIME, January 1989)

14. “The Mexican government forces many bad people into our country. Because they’re smart. They’re smarter than our leaders.” (NBC News, July 8, 2015)

15. “Jeb Bush will not be able to negotiate against Mexico. Jeb Bush with Mexico said, ‘People, come in,’ they come in, it’s an act of love, OK?” (Birch Run, Mich., Aug. 11, 2015)

16. “Jeb Bush has to like the Mexican Illegals because of his wife.” (Retweeted and then deleted on Twitter, July 4, 2015)

17. “I’ll win the Latino vote because I’ll create jobs. I’ll create jobs and the Latinos will have jobs they didn’t have.” (NBC News, July 8, 2015)

18. “I’m leading in the Hispanic vote, and I’m going to win the Hispanic vote. I’m also leading in the regular vote.” (Birch Run, Mich., Aug. 11, 2015)

19. “I don’t have a racist bone in my body.” (“Entertainment Tonight,” July 1, 2015)

20. “I cherish women. I want to help women. I’m going to be able to do things for women that no other candidate would be able to do … ” (CNN, Aug. 9, 2015)

21. “I will be so good to women.” (CNN, Aug. 10, 2015)

22. “I will be phenomenal to the women. I mean, I want to help women.” (CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Aug. 9, 2015)

23. “Oftentimes when I was sleeping with one of the top women in the world I would say to myself, thinking about me as a boy from Queens, ‘Can you believe what I am getting?’” (Think Big: Make it Happen in Business and Life, 2008)

24. “I’ve never had any trouble in bed …” (Surviving at the Top, 1990)

25. “I have many women that work for me.” (CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Aug. 9, 2015)

26. “She’s not giving me 100 percent. She’s giving me 84 percent, and 16 percent is going towards taking care of children.” (TIME, May 23, 2011)

27. “All of the women on The Apprentice flirted with me— consciously or unconsciously. That’s to be expected.” (How to Get Rich, 2004)

28. “I have really given a lot of women great opportunity. Unfortunately, after they are a star, the fun is over for me.” (ABC’s “Primetime Live,” March 10, 1994)

29. “When a man leaves a woman, especially when it was perceived that he has left for a piece of ass—a good one!— there are 50 percent of the population who will love the woman who was left.” (Vanity Fair, September 1990)

30. “You know who’s one of the great beauties of the world, according to everybody? And I helped create her. Ivanka. My daughter, Ivanka. She’s 6 feet tall, she’s got the best body. She made a lot money as a model—a tremendous amount.” (The Howard Stern Show, 2003)

31. “Every guy in the country wants to go out with my daughter.” (New York magazine, Dec. 13, 2004)

32. “… she does have a very nice figure. I’ve said if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.” (ABC’s “The View,” March 6, 2006)

33. “I’ve known Paris Hilton from the time she’s 12. Her parents are friends of mine, and, you know, the first time I saw her, she walked into the room and I said, ‘Who the hell is that?’ … Well, at 12, I wasn’t interested. I’ve never been into that. They’re sort of always stuck around that 25 category.” (The Howard Stern Show, 2003)

34. “There’s nothing I love more than women, but they’re really a lot different than portrayed. They are far worse than men, far more aggressive … ” (The Art of the Comeback, 1997)

35. “If Hillary Clinton can’t satisfy her husband what makes her think she can satisfy America?” (Twitter, April 16, 2015)

36. Women? “You have to treat ’em like shit.” (New York magazine, Nov. 9, 1992)

37. “What I say is what I say.” (Republican presidential debate, Aug. 6, 2015)

38. “One thing I’ve learned about the press is that they’re always hungry for a good story, and the more sensational the better. … The point is that if you are a little different, or a little outrageous, or if you do things that are bold or controversial, the press is going to write about you.” (The Art of the Deal, 1987)

39. “Sometimes they write positively, and sometimes they write negatively. But from a pure business point of view, the benefits of being written about have far outweighed the drawbacks.” (The Art of the Deal, 1987)

40. “Sometimes it pays to be a little wild.” (The Art of the Deal, 1987)

41. “It’s always good to do things nice and complicated so that nobody can figure it out.” (New Yorker, May 19, 1997)

42. “If I get my name in the paper, if people pay attention, that’s what matters.” (Donald Trump: Master Apprentice, 2005)

43. “The press portrays me as a wild flamethrower. In actuality, I think I’m much different from that. I think I’m totally inaccurately portrayed.” (New Yorker, May 19, 1997)

44. “You know, it really doesn’t matter what they write as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass.” (Esquire, 1991)

45. “There are two publics as far as I’m concerned. The real public and then there’s the New York society horseshit. The real public has always liked Donald Trump. The real public feels that Donald Trump is going through Trump-bashing. When I go out now, forget about it. I’m mobbed. It’s bedlam.” (Vanity Fair, September 1990)

46. “Controversy, in short, sells.” (The Art of the Deal, 1987)

47. “The show is ‘Trump.’ And it is sold-out performances everywhere.” (Playboy, March 1990)

48. “I play to people’s fantasies. People may not always think big themselves, but they can still get very excited by those who do. That’s why a little hyperbole never hurts. People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular.” (The Art of the Deal, 1987)

49. “Most people think small, because most people are afraid of success, afraid of making decisions, afraid of winning. And that gives people like me a great advantage.” (The Art of the Deal, 1987)

50. “You want to know what total recognition is? I’ll tell you how you know you’ve got it. When the Nigerians on the street corners who don’t speak a word of English, who have no clue, who’re selling watches for some guy in New Jersey—when you walk by and those guys say, ‘Trump! Trump!’ That’s total recognition.” (New Yorker, May 19, 1997)

51. “There is something crazy, hot, a phenomenon out there  about me, but I’m not sure I can define it and I’m not sure I want to. How do you think ‘The Apprentice’ would have done if I wasn’t a part of it? There are a lot of imitators now and we’ll see how they’ll do, but I think they’ll crash and burn.” (New York Times, Sept. 8, 2004)

52. “Other rich people don’t do commercials because no one asks them. It’s just like ‘The Apprentice.’ I can’t tell you how many of my rich friends are dying, dying to have me put them on that show.” (New York Times, Aug. 11, 2004)

53. “There’s something very seductive about being a television star.” (TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald, 2005)

54. “I can’t help it that I’m a celebrity. What am I going to do, hide under a stone?” (USA Today, Feb. 27, 2004)

55. “I want a very good-looking guy to play me.” (Master Apprentice, 2005)

56. “Nothing wrong with ego.” (Playboy, March 1990)

57. “Show me someone without an ego, and I’ll show you a loser.” (Facebook, Dec. 9, 2013)

58. “One of the key problems today is that politics is such a disgrace. Good people don’t go into government. I’d want to change that.” (The Advocate, Feb. 15, 2000)

59. “Our leaders are stupid. They are stupid people. It’s just very, very sad.” (Las Vegas, April 28, 2011)

60. “I would hate to think that people blame me for the problems of the world. Yet people come to me and say, ‘Why do you allow homelessness in the cities?’ as if I control the situation. I am not somebody seeking office.” (Playboy, March 1990)

61. “It’s very possible that I could be the first presidential candidate to run and make money on it.” (Fortune, April 3, 2000)

62. “I have no intention of running for President.” (TIME, Sept. 14, 1987)

63. “I don’t want to be President. I’m 100 percent sure. I’d change my mind only if I saw this country continue to go down the tubes.” (Playboy, March 1990)

64. “Well, if I ever ran for office, I’d do better as a Democrat than as a Republican—and that’s not because I’d be more liberal, because I’m conservative. But the working guy would elect me. He likes me.” (Playboy, March 1990)

65. President Trump “would believe very strongly in extreme military strength. He wouldn’t trust anyone. He wouldn’t trust the Russians; he wouldn’t trust our allies; he’d have a huge military arsenal, perfect it, understand it.” (Playboy, March 1990)

66. Overseas, “we build a school, we build a road, they blow up the school, we build another school, we build another road they blow them up, we build again, in the meantime we can’t get a fucking school in Brooklyn.” (Las Vegas, April 28, 2011)

67. “What does it all mean when some wacko over in Syria can end the world with nuclear weapons?” (New York Times, April 8, 1984)

68. “I think if this country gets any kinder or gentler, it’s literally going to cease to exist.” (Playboy, March 1990)

69. “I see the values of this country in the way crime is tolerated, where the people are virtually afraid to say, ‘I want the death penalty.’ Well, I want it. Where has this country gone when you’re not supposed to put in a grave the son of a bitch who robbed, beat, murdered and threw a 90-year-old woman off the building?” (Playboy, March 1990)

70. “I know politicians who love women who don’t even want to be known for that, because they might lose the gay vote, OK?” (Playboy, March 1990)

71. “Politicians are all talk and no action.” (Twitter, May 27, 2015)

72. “When you need zone changes, you’re political. … You know, I’ll support the Democrats, the Republicans, whatever the hell I have to support.” (BuzzFeed, Feb. 13, 2014)

73. “I will tell you that our system is broken. I gave to many people. Before this, before two months ago, I was a businessman. I give to everybody. When they call, I give. And do you know what? When I need something from them two years later, three years later, I call them—they are there for me.” (Republican presidential debate, Aug. 6, 2015)

74. “Power corrupts.” (Playboy, March 1990)

75. “Part of the beauty of me is that I am very rich.” (ABC’s “Good Morning America,” March 17, 2011)

76. “I’m really rich.” (New York City, June 16, 2015)

77. “Look at these contracts. I get these to sign every day. I’ve signed hundreds of these. Here’s a contract for  $2.2 million. It’s a building that isn’t even opened yet. It’s eighty-three percent sold, and nobody even knows it’s there. For each contract, I need to sign twenty-two times, and if you think that’s easy  … You know, all the buyers want my signature. I had someone else who works for me signing, and at the closings the buyers got angry. I told myself, ‘You know, these people are paying a million eight, a million seven, two million nine, four million one—for those kinds of numbers, I’ll sign the fucking contract.’ I understand. Fuck it. It’s just more work.” (New Yorker, May 19, 1997)

78. “My attitude is if somebody’s willing to pay me $225,000 to make a speech, it seems stupid not to show up. You know why I’ll do it? Because I don’t think anyone’s ever been paid that much.” (New Yorker, May 19, 1997)

79. “I look very much forward to showing my financials, because they are huge.” (TIME, April 14, 2011)

80. “I have a total net worth and now with the increase it will be well over $10 billion, but here total net worth of $8 billion. Net worth—not assets, not liabilities—a net worth. … I’m not doing that to brag. Because you know what? I don’t have to brag. I don’t have to. Believe it or not.” (New York City, June 16, 2015)

81. “People say the ’80s are dead, all the luxury, the extravagance. I say, ‘What?’ Am I supposed to change my taste because it’s a new decade? That’s bullshit.” (Playboy, May 1997)

82. “If you don’t tell people about your success, they probably won’t know about it.” (How to Get Rich, 2004)

83. “I know how to sell. Selling is life. You can have the greatest singer in the world, but if nobody knows who he is, he’ll never have the opportunity to sing.” (Sports Illustrated, Feb. 13, 1984)

84. “There are singers in the world with voices as good as Frank Sinatra’s, but they’re singing in their garages because no one has ever heard of them. You need to generate interest, and you need to create excitement.” (The Art of the Deal, 1987)

85. “I’ve always felt that a lot of modern art is a con, and that the most successful painters are often better salesmen and promoters than they are artists.” (The Art of the Deal, 1987)

86. “That’s why the banks love me. They love my reputation.” (New York Times, March 28, 2004)

87. “I really value my reputation and I don’t hesitate to sue.” (Village Voice, Jan. 15, 1979)

88. “I think the brand is huge. What is it about me that gets Larry King his highest ratings?” (TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald, 2005)

89. “My brand became more famous as I became more famous, and more opportunities presented themselves.” (Amazon.com, 2007)

90. “Because I’ve been successful, make money, get headlines, and have authored bestselling books, I have a better chance to make my ideas public than do people who are less well known.” (The America We Deserve, 2000)

91. “Let’s say I was worth $10. People would say, ‘Who the [expletive] are you?’ You understand? They know my statement. Fortune. My book, The Art of the Deal, based on my fortune. If I didn’t make a fortune, who the [expletive] is going to buy The Art of the Deal? That’s why they watched ‘The Apprentice.’ Because of my great success.” (Washington Post, July 12, 2015)

92. “People think I'm a gambler. I've never gambled in my life. To me, a gambler is someone who plays slot machines. I prefer to own slot machines. It's a very good business being the house.” (The Art of the Deal, 1987)

93. “I like the casino business. I like the scale, which is huge, I like the glamour, and most of all, I like the cash flow.” (The Art of the Deal, 1987)

94. “Cash is king, and that’s one of the beauties of the casino business.” (Playboy, March 1990)

95. “How much have I made off the casinos? Off the record, a lot.” (Master Apprentice, 2005)

96. “And while I can't honestly say I need an 80-foot living room, I do get a kick out of having one.” (The Art of the Deal, 1987)

97. “Let me tell you something about the rich. They have a very low threshold for pain.” (New York magazine, Feb. 11, 1985)

98. “Fighting for the last penny is a very good philosophy to have.” (Esquire, January 2004)

99. “I aim very high, and then I just keep pushing and pushing and pushing to get what I’m after.” (The Art of the Deal, 1987)

100. “I don’t like to lose.” (New York Times, Aug. 7, 1983)

101. “I’ll do nearly anything within legal bounds to win.” (The Art of the Deal, 1987)

102. “If you don’t win you can’t get away with it. And I win, I win, I always win. In the end, I always win, whether it’s in golf, whether it’s in tennis, whether it’s in life, I just always win. And I tell people I always win, because I do.” (TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald, 2005)

103. “I’ll do what I have to do.” (Atlantic, April 2013)

104. “I do whine because I want to win, and I'm not happy about not winning, and I am a whiner, and I keep whining and whining until I win.” (CNN, Aug. 10, 2015)

105. “Hey, look, I had a cold spell from 1990 to ’91. I was beat up in business and in my personal life. But you learn that you’re either the toughest, meanest piece of shit in the world or you just crawl into a corner, put your finger in your mouth, and say, ‘I want to go home.’ You never know until you’re under pressure how you’re gonna react. Guys that I thought were tough were nothin’.” (New York magazine, Aug. 15, 1994)

106. “The mind can overcome any obstacle. I never think of the negative.” (New York Times, Aug. 7, 1983)

107. “It’s been said that I believe in the power of positive thinking. In fact, I believe in the power of negative thinking.” (The Art of the Deal, 1987)

108. “A lot of people sit down and discuss their lives, things like are they happy, but it’s not like that with me. I don’t think positively, I don’t think negatively, I just think about the goal. But it’s not like I sit down and write goals. I just do things.” (Master Apprentice, 2005)

109. “If you asked Babe Ruth how he hit home runs, he was unable to tell you. I do things by instinct.” (New York Times, Sept. 8, 2004)

110. “A lot of people build a brand and they study it very carefully and every move is calculated. My moves are not calculated. My moves are totally uncalculated.” (TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald, 2005)

111. “For many years I’ve said that if someone screws you, screw them back. When somebody hurts you, just go after them as viciously and as violently as you can.” (How to Get Rich, 2004)

112. “The way I see it, critics get to say what they want about my work, so why shouldn’t I be able to say what I want to about theirs?” (The Art of the Deal, 1987)

113. “Sometimes, part of making a deal is denigrating your competition.” (The Art of the Deal, 1987)

114. “One of the problems when you become successful is that jealousy and envy inevitably follow. There are people – I categorize them as life’s losers—who get their sense of accomplishment and achievement from trying to stop others. As far as I’m concerned, if they had any real ability they wouldn’t be fighting me, they’d be doing something constructive themselves.” (The Art of the Deal, 1987)

115. “Rosie O’Donnell’s disgusting. I mean, both inside and out. You take a look at her, she’s a slob … ” (“Entertainment Tonight,” Dec. 21, 2006)

116. “She called me a snake oil salesman, and, you know, coming from Rosie, that’s pretty low, because when you look at her, and when you see the mind, the mind is—is weak. I don’t see it. I don’t get it. I never understood. How does she even get on television?” (“Entertainment Tonight,” Dec. 21, 2006)

117. “Rosie’s a person that’s very lucky to have her girlfriend. And she better be careful or I’ll send one of my friends over to pick up her girlfriend. Why would she stay with Rosie if she had another choice?” (“Entertainment Tonight,” Dec. 21, 2006)

118. “Probably I’ll sue her. Because it would be fun. I’d like to take some money out of her fat-ass pockets.” (“Entertainment Tonight,” Dec. 21, 2006)

119. “I think she’s a terrible person. I can look at people and see what they are.” (New York Post, December 22, 2006)

120. Bette Midler is “grotesque.” (Twitter, Oct. 28, 2012)

121. Arianna Huffington is “a dog.” (Twitter, April 6, 2015)

122. “Angelina Jolie is sort of amazing because everyone thinks she’s like this great beauty. And I’m not saying she’s an unattractive woman, but she’s not a beauty, by any stretch of the imagination. I really understand beauty.” (CNN, Oct. 9, 2006)

123. “Karl Rove is a total loser.” (Twitter, Feb. 7, 2013)

124. Republican pollster Frank Luntz is a “total loser!” (Twitter, Aug. 3, 2014)

125. Russell Brand is a “major loser!” (Twitter, Oct. 16, 2014)

126. “Cher is somewhat of a loser. She’s lonely. She’s unhappy. She’s very miserable.” (Fox News, May 15, 2012)

127. George Will is a “moron.” (Twitter, April 17, 2015)

128. Chuck Todd is a “moron.” (Twitter, Aug. 9, 2013)

129. Former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel: “Obvious moron.” (Twitter, Aug. 23, 2014)

130. Megyn Kelly is a “bimbo.” (Twitter, Aug. 7, 2015)

131. Michelle Malkin is a “dummy.” (Twitter, Oct. 25, 2012)

132. Brian Williams is a “dummy.” (Twitter, March 6, 2013)

133. Graydon Carter? “Dummy.” (Twitter, Dec. 19, 2012)

134. John McCain is “not a war hero. … He is a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured, OK?” (Ames, Iowa, July 18, 2015)

135. “Truly weird Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky reminds me of a spoiled brat without a properly functioning brain.” (Twitter, Aug. 10, 2015)

136. “I just realized that if you listen to Carly Fiorina for more than ten minutes straight, you develop a massive headache. She has zero chance!” (Twitter, Aug. 9, 2015)

137. “What a stiff, what a stiff, Lindsey Graham.” (Bluffton, S.C., July 21, 2015)

138. Rick Perry “put on glasses so people think he’s smart. … People can see through the glasses.” (Bluffton, S.C., July 21, 2015)

139. Rick Santorum? “I have a big plane. He doesn’t.” (Des Moines Register, April 8, 2015)

140. The record ratings for the Republican debate earlier this month? “Who do you think they’re watching? Jeb Bush? Huh? I don’t think so.” (Birch Run, Mich., Aug. 11, 2015)

141. And George W. Bush is “no Einstein.” (Minneapolis, Jan. 7, 2000)

142. Bernie Sanders and Black Lives Matter protesters in Seattle? “I would never give up my microphone! I thought that was disgusting. That showed such weakness, the way he was taken away by two young women. The microphone!” (Birch Run, Mich., Aug. 11, 2015)

143. “My favorite part (of Pulp Fiction) is when Sam has his gun out in the diner and he tells the guy to tell his girlfriend to shut up. Tell that bitch to be cool. Say: Bitch be cool. I love those lines.” (TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald, 2005)

144. “I’m not the world’s happiest person.” (New York magazine, March 5, 1990)

145. “I think I am a nice person. People who know me like me.” (New York City, June 16, 2015)

146. “I can be a killer and a nice guy. You have to be everything. You have to be strong. You have to be sweet. You have to be ruthless. And I don’t think any of it can be learned. Either you have it or you don’t. And that is why most kids can get straight A’s in school but fail in life.” (Playboy, March 1990)

147. “I like the challenge and tell the story of the coal miner’s son. The coal miner gets black-lung disease, his son gets it, then his son. If I had been the son of a coal miner, I would have left the damn mines. But most people don’t have the imagination—or whatever—to leave their mine. They don’t have ‘it.’” (Playboy, March 1990)

148. “It is an ability to become an entrepreneur, a great athlete, a great writer. You’re either born with it or you’re not.” (Playboy, March 1990)

149. “But when somebody tries to sucker punch me, when they’re after my ass, I push back a hell of a lot harder than I was pushed in the first place. If somebody tries to push me around, he’s going to pay a price. Those people don’t come back for seconds. I don’t like being pushed around or taken advantage of. And that’s one of the problems with our country today. This country is being pushed around by everyone.” (Playboy, March 1990)

150. “Sorry losers and haters, but my I.Q. is one of the highest — and you all know it!” (Twitter, May 8, 2013)

151.  “… of course, it’s very hard for them to attack me on looks, because I’m so good looking.” (NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Aug. 9, 2015)

152. “I can never apologize for the truth.” (Fox News, July 5, 2015)

153. “Who knows what’s in the deepest part of my mind?” (BuzzFeed, Feb. 13, 2014)

154. “I enjoy testing friendships.” (Playboy, March 1990)

155. “I do love provoking people.” (BuzzFeed, Feb. 13, 2014)

156. “You can never tell until you test; the human species is interesting in that way.” (Playboy, March 1990)

157. “Everything in life to me is a psychological game, a series of challenges you either meet or don’t.” (Playboy, March 1990)

158. “My father was a builder in Brooklyn and Queens, a very smart businessperson who understood life.” (Esquire, January 2004)

159. “We had a relationship that was almost businesslike.” (The Art of the Deal, 1987)

160. “Not many sons have been able to escape their fathers.” (New York Times, Aug. 7, 1983)

161. “Look, I had friends whose fathers were very successful, and the fathers were jealous of the sons’ success and tried to hurt them, keep them down, because they wanted to be the king. My father was the exact opposite. He used to carry around articles (about me).” (New York Times, Jan. 2, 2000)

162. “I was always very much accepted by my father. He adored Donald Trump … ” (Playboy, March 1990)

163. “He was a strong, strict father, a no-nonsense kind of guy, but he didn’t hit me.” (Playboy, March 1990)

164. “He taught me to keep my guard up. The world is a pretty vicious place.” (Esquire, January 2004)

165. “People are too trusting. I’m a very untrusting guy.” (Playboy, March 1990)

166. “I believe that, unfortunately, people are out for themselves.” (Playboy, March 1990)

167. “Statistically, my children have a very bad shot. Children of successful people are generally very, very troubled, not successful. They don’t have the right shtick. You never know until they’re tested.” (Playboy, March 1990)

168. “I want five children, like in my own family, because with five, then I will know that one will be guaranteed to turn out like me.” (Vanity Fair, September 1990)

169. “ … when you’re rich, you can have as many kids as you want. Being rich makes it easier to have kids.” (TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald, 2005)

170. “The hardest thing for me about raising kids has been finding the time. I know friends who leave their business so they can spend more time with their children, and I say, ‘Gimme a break!’” (New York magazine, Dec. 13, 2004)

171. “My marriage, it seemed, was the only area of my life in which I was willing to accept something less than perfection.” (Surviving at the Top, 1990)

172. “I would never buy Ivana any decent jewels or pictures. Why give her negotiable assets?” (Vanity Fair, September 1990)

173. And Marla, wife No. 2? “I was bored when she was walking down the aisle. I kept thinking: What the hell am I doing here? I was so deep into my business stuff. I couldn’t think of anything else.” (TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald, 2005)

174. “It’s all in the hunt and once you get it, it loses some of its energy. I think competitive, successful men feel that way about women. Don’t you agree? Really, don’t you agree?” (TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald, 2005)

175. “Marla was always wanting me to spend more time with her. ‘Why can’t you be home at 5 o’clock like other husbands?’ she would ask. Sometimes, when I was in the wrong mood, I would give a very materialistic answer. ‘Look, I like working. You don’t mind traveling around in beautiful helicopters and airplanes, and you don’t mind living at the top of Trump Tower, or at Mar-a-Lago, or traveling to the best hotels, or shopping in the best stores and never having to worry about money, do you?’” (The Art of the Comeback, 1997)

176. “ … I’m married to my business. It’s been a marriage of love. So, for a woman, frankly, it’s not easy in terms of relationships. But there are a lot of assets.” (New York magazine, Dec. 13, 2004)

177. “But, I think you understand, I don’t have very much time. I just don’t have very much time. There’s nothing I can do about what I do other than stopping. And I just don’t want to stop.” (New Yorker, May 19, 1997)

178. “… you need love, you need trust, you need sex, you need lots of different things—all of which are very complex.” (Esquire, January 2004)

179. “For me, business comes easier than relationships. (Esquire, January 2004)

180. “I don’t do it for the money.” The Art of the Deal, 1987)

181. “I do it to do it.” (The Art of the Deal, 1987)

182. “I’ve done an incredible job.” (Atlantic, April 2013)

183. “I nod, and it is done.” (Esquire, January 2004)

184. “Know what? After shaking five thousand hands, I think I’ll go wash mine.” (New Yorker, May 19, 1997)

185. “I don’t dwell on the past.” (Playboy, March 1990)

186. “I don’t look forward or not look forward.” (Washington Post, July 12, 2015)

187. “I always go into the center.” (New Yorker, May 19, 1997)

188. “You gotta say, I cover the gamut. Does the kid cover the gamut? Boy, it never ends. I mean, people have no idea. Cool life. You know, it’s sort of a cool life.” (New Yorker, May 19, 1997)

189. “I’ve had a lot of victories. I fight hard for victory, and I think I enjoy it as much as I ever did. But I realize that maybe new victories won’t be the same as the first couple.” (People, July 9, 1990)

190. “… the same assets that excite me in the chase, often, once they are acquired, leave me bored. For me, you see, the important thing is the getting, not the having.” (Surviving at the Top, 1990)

191. “I truly believe that someone successful is never really happy, because dissatisfaction is what drives him.” (Playboy, March 1990)

192. “I rarely stop for lunch.” (The Art of the Deal, 1987)

193. “I don’t sleep more than four hours a night.” (Playboy, March 1990)

194. “I’m a guy who lies awake at night and thinks and plots.” (New York magazine, Nov. 9, 1992)

195. “Some people cast shadows, and other people choose to live in those shadows.” (New York Times, Sept. 11, 2005)

196. “Did you know that New York Construction News named Donald Trump the developer and owner of the year?” (Fortune, April 3, 2000)

197. “How long is your article?” (Vanity Fair, September 1990)

198. “Is it a cover?” (Vanity Fair, September 1990)

199. “What do people say about me? Do they say I’m loyal? Do they say I work hard?” (Village Voice, Jan. 15, 1979)

[Levan Ramishvili]

How to Trump Trump

by Quin Hillyer 

Jim Geraghty has an interesting response to the slightly misguided assessment by the usually wise Ben Shapiro, about how to deal with the anger of Donald Trump’s supporters. As Geraghty correctly notes, Shapiro is just wrong to say that not enough people have actually tried focusing on Trump’s real political views. Geraghty also is right to say that at some point, justifiable anger expressed in utterly irrational ways is just not able to be counteracted by rational argument.

But that doesn’t mean that nothing can be done to counteract such irrationality. I’ve had some experience with trying to deal with utterly counterproductive “F-U” or “send-a-message” political movements — in Louisiana in 1989–91. It involved a man who shall go nameless who, rather than just being obnoxious and buffoonish, actually was hateful, hate-filled, and dangerous. To be clear, I am not comparing Trump’s views to his. But those who were actually on the ground in Louisiana back then, fighting against him, know that very little of his appeal was tied to his racial views — but a great part of his appeal was based on his status as a supposed messenger to send a middle finger to the state’s political establishment (and later, as Bushism replaced Reaganism, to the national establishment as well). The same “don’t confuse me with the facts, just go to H***” attitude was prevalent then.

Those of us who organized against the hater back then found four tactics to be particularly useful and effective. First, one element of the fight must continue to be consistent, patient recitation of actual facts about the man’s background, views, and current transgressions. Just because many of the man’s supporters begin in an irrational mood doesn’t mean that none of them will ever respond to rationality once they calm down.

But that sort of fact-based rationality goes only so far. It alone won’t win the day. Which leads to tactic No. 2: Ignore the offensive candidate.

Alas, it’s almost impossible for this to work in the short term, because of course there will be plenty of media outlets that want to take advantage of the feeding frenzy, and its ratings, by keeping the frenzy going. Nonetheless, responsible outlets will take a sort of modified-limited ignore-the-dude stance, which amounts to this: Don’t go out of one’s way to include the offensive candidate in the news. When he makes legitimate news, cover him, but don’t run to him for comment at the drop of a hat; don’t assume that everybody in the reading or viewing audience wants to hang on his every word; and do work extra hard to get comments on issues of the day from political and civic leaders other than the offensive guy when those other leaders have legitimate expertise on the subject. In other words, slowly divert the oxygen from the offensive candidate’s fire, into a place where oxygen allows breathing rather than feeds a conflagration.

Tactics three and four are the most effective, though. Tactic three is ridicule — not of the candidate’s supporters, but of the candidate himself. Turn his own supporters against him by using humor to make him look like a pathetic loser. People like Trump feed off of anger directed at him, and feed off of other direct attacks. But they can’t stand being ridiculed. And when the humor carries an obvious underlying truth about their lack of character or lack of “cool,” or some other flaw, then their supporters stop seeing the candidate as a strong messenger and start seeing him as an embarrassment.

Tactic four is the most important: Find a way to convince would-be supporters of the offensive candidate that electing him will harm their own well-being, especially their economic well-being. He can’t be their champion if he would actually hurt their pocketbooks.

In Louisiana in 1991, we gained traction by convincing voters that electing the wrong man would lead to a devastating national economic boycott of Louisiana, with all of our businesses and jobs going to Texas. In Trump’s case, his stances in favor of major land seizures through eminent domain, combined with his bankruptcies where not just lenders but small-business vendors got hurt, are ripe issues for convincing people that Trump doesn’t fight for the “little guy” or for middle America, but instead rooks middle America whenever he can get away with it.

So, to recap: Repeat the facts; ignore Trump when possible; ridicule him; and demonstrate how he would hurt his supporters’ own causes or well-being.

These tactics have the added virtue of being entirely honest approaches, because every one of them can be done without fudging a single aspect of Trump’s record, personality, or essential nature.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Is Trump Really the Anti-PC Warrior His Fans Make Him Out to Be?

By Jonah Goldberg — August 15, 2015

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is Jonah Goldberg’s weekly “news”letter, the G-File. Subscribe here to get the G-File delivered to your inbox on Fridays.

TRUMP’S TRUMPERY

I’m feeling better about Trump mania. It’s obviously too soon to tell for sure, but I think we’ve reached Peak Trump.

Still, vigilance is required. And on that note, I’d like to raise a gripe about what is supposed to be Donald Trump’s greatest strength: his vaunted un-PCness. There’s a consensus out there — among friends and foes alike — that Donald Trump’s success stems from his willingness not to abide by political correctness (that and his willingness to build a wall the Mexicans will pay for). This alleged bravery has managed to convince a great many people that Donald Trump is a conservative. And not just a conservative, but the sort of conservative that one must admire and support if one is to be permitted membership in conservative ranks. Only “RINOs” and worse have problems with the man, I hear hourly.

Let me just say I have exactly zero sympathy or tolerance for this claim. To me this isn’t a matter of opinion, but one of simple fact. I have little patience for people who tell me I have to support Ted Cruz if I’m going to call myself a “real conservative.” But I at least understand that argument. I think it’s wrong. But I get it. It has an internal logic and consistency to it. I feel the same way about intellectual figures as well. William F. Buckley is a hero to me, but I don’t think you have to be a fan to be a conservative. Ditto Edmund Burke, Russell Kirk, or for that matter George Will or Charles Krauthammer. But when you try the “RINO!!!!!!!!!” argument out on Donald Trump’s behalf, I have to assume your digestive and respiratory system works backwards, because I think you’re talking out your ass. By any reasonable or objective metric I am more conservative than Donald Trump and I have a vastly more consistent record of my conservatism (ditto Kevin Williamson, Rich Lowry, George Will, Charles Krauthammer, Charlie Cooke, etc.). You of course are free to say that this is open to debate. You are also free to say that turtles crap glow-in-the-dark yoyos made of marzipan. That doesn’t make it so. And I’m not much interested in debating the proposition.

WHO’S UN-PC AGAIN?

There’s still this bit about Trump being un-PC and how he’s worth giving the nuclear codes to because he challenges the “establishment.” I was on Bill Bennett’s radio show the other morning and a caller said something to the effect of “You know why I like Donald Trump? Because he befuddles people like Jonah Goldberg . . . Political correctness has been destroying this country and blah blah blah.” (Obviously, I’m quoting from memory).

So first let me say, as I said to the caller, that I agree that political correctness is a huge problem, one I’ve written about many times (often punctuated with many un-PC jokes). Second, as I also said to him, maybe I’m not the one who is befuddled. Perchance Trump fans are the ones who are confused, while I see the man more clearly.

RELATED: The Phenomenal Incoherence of Donald Trump

Third, and this I wish I had said on air: What the kind of screwed up standard for picking a president is that? Let’s choose the candidate who most annoys Jonah Goldberg! By that standard, Mt. Rushmore would be lined up with the visages of Carrot Top, Alec Baldwin, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and Tom Friedman.

It is a lie that Donald Trump stands athwart political correctness, yelling Stop.

But here’s the important point: It is a lie that Donald Trump stands athwart political correctness, yelling Stop.

For example, you may recall that Donald Trump and I got into a Twitter fight a few months back. At one point I wrote that he was “relentlessly tweeting like a 14-year-old girl.”

How did Trump respond? If you guessed with Churchillian statesmanship, you guessed wrong. If you guessed with anti-PC fearlessness, you guessed wrong again.

Instead, he played the political-correctness card. He said my tweet was a “horrible insult to women. Resign now or later!”

I still love the “or later.”

He followed up with more demands that I lose my job because of my insult to women.

Donald J. Trump 

✔@realDonaldTrump

People have been forced to resign positions for far less than @JonahNRO’s “tweeting like a 14 year old girl”

11:58 PM - 21 Apr 2015

In words Donald Trump could never say sincerely, I know this isn’t all about me. So recall that Trump — the man whose best selling point for some people is that he’s inarticulate when discussing Mexicans — bashed Mitt Romney for being too “mean-spirited” about immigrants. In response to the backlash against his immigration remarks, he’s been slowly revising his position. He’s now for a convoluted kind of amnesty that involves rounding up illegal immigrants and then re-admitting them on an expedited basis if they are “terrific.”

All this week, he’s been defending himself against the charge he’s piggish towards women by attacking Jeb Bush for his gaffe on women’s health. Meanwhile, on the actual issue of Planned Parenthood he’s been all over the place, saying it does great work one moment, saying he’d shut it down another. All the while he says Ivanka Trump is his guide on women’s health issues and he wants everyone to know what a “big heart” he has. What could go wrong there?

RELATED: Donald Trump Is an Affront to Anyone Devoted to William F. Buckley’s Legacy

Trump’s defenders — and Trump himself — say his liberal record shouldn’t be held against him. He’s “evolved.” The while you find inconsistency on the issues if you go back and look at his record — hence the “he’s evolved” defense — you also find a remarkable consistency on his approachto the issues. He makes things up as he goes along. What informs that process? Liberal conventional wisdom (particularly prior to 2010), reality-show pandering, advice of yes-men, Ivanka Trump, and, of course, whatever direction his mouth is wandering off to at any given moment.

It’s totally worth making that kind of guy the nominee. I mean, after all, he bothers me — and that’s all that really matters.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Donald Trump’s Fantasy of Mass Deportation Is Political Poison for the GOP

By Charles Krauthammer — August 20, 2015

“This was not a subject that was on anybody’s mind until I brought it up at my announcement.”

— Donald Trump, on immigration, Republican debate, August 6

Not on anyone’s mind? For years, immigration has been the subject of near-constant, often bitter argument within the GOP. But it is true that Trump has brought the debate to a new place — first, with his announcement speech, about whether Mexican migrants are really rapists, and now with the somewhat more nuanced Trump plan.

Much of it — visa tracking, E-Verify, withholding funds from sanctuary cities — predates Trump. Even building the Great Wall is not particularly new. (I, for one, have been advocating that in this space since 2006.) Dominating the discussion, however, are his two policy innovations: (a) abolition of birthright citizenship and (b) mass deportation.

Birthright citizenship.

If you are born in the United States, you are an American citizen. So says the 14th Amendment. Barring some esoteric and radically new jurisprudence, abolition would require amending the Constitution. Which would take years and great political effort. And make the GOP anathema to Hispanic Americans for a generation.

And for what? Birthright citizenship is a symptom, not a cause. If you regain control of the border, the number of birthright babies fades to insignificance. The time and energy it would take to amend the Constitution are far more usefully deployed securing the border.

RELATED: Trump’s Critics Are Wrong About the 14th Amendment and Birthright Citizenship

Moreover, the real issue is not the birthright babies themselves, but the chain migration that follows. It turns one baby into an imported village.

Chain migration, however, is not a constitutional right. It’s a result of statutes and regulations. These can be readily changed. That should be the focus, not a quixotic constitutional battle.

Mass deportation.

Last Sunday, Trump told NBC’s Chuck Todd that all illegal immigrants must leave the country. Although once they’ve been kicked out, we will let “the good ones” back in.

On its own terms, this is crackpot. Wouldn’t you save a lot just on Mayflower moving costs if you chose the “good ones” first — before sending SWAT teams to turf families out of their homes, loading them on buses, and dumping them on the other side of the Rio Grande?

RELATED: Could a President Trump Really Impound All Immigrant Payments to Mexico?

Less frivolously, it is estimated by the conservative American Action Forum that mass deportation would take about 20 years and cost about $500 billion for all the police, judges, lawyers, and enforcement agents — and bus drivers! — needed to expel 11 million people.

This would all be merely ridiculous if it weren’t morally obscene. Forcibly evict 11 million people from their homes? It can’t happen. It shouldn’t happen. And, of course, it won’t ever happen. But because it’s the view of the Republican front-runner, every other candidate is now required to react. So instead of debating border security, guest-worker programs, and sanctuary cities — where Republicans are on firm moral and political ground — they are forced into a debate about a repulsive fantasy.

RELATED: The Immigration Trump Card

Which, for the Republican party, is also political poison. Mitt Romney lost the Hispanic vote by 44 points and he was advocating only self-deportation. Now the party is discussing forced deportation.

It is not just Hispanics who will be alienated. Romney lost the Asian vote, too. By 47 points. And many non-minorities will be offended by the idea of rounding up 11 million people, the vast majority of whom are law-abiding members of their communities.

EDITORIAL: Trump’s Immigration Plan Is a Good Start — for All GOP Candidates

Donald Trump has every right to advance his ideas. He is not to be begrudged his masterly showmanship, his relentless candor, or his polling success. I strongly oppose the idea of ostracizing anyone from the GOP or the conservative movement. On whose authority? Let the people decide.

But that is not to say that he should be exempt from normal scrutiny or from consideration of the effect of his candidacy on conservatism’s future. If you are a conservative alarmed at the country’s direction and committed to retaking the White House, you should be concerned about what Trump’s ascendancy is doing to the chances of that happening.

The Democrats’ presumptive candidate is flailing badly. Republicans have an unusually talented field with a good chance of winning back the presidency. Do they really want to be dragged into the swamps — right now, on immigration — that will make that prospect electorally impossible?

Yes, I understand. The anger, the frustration, etc., etc., that Trump is channeling. But how are these alleviated by yelling “I’m mad as hell” — and proceeding to elect Hillary Clinton?

[Levan Ramishvili]

Are Republicans For Freedom Or White Identity Politics?

Donald Trump could transform the Republican Party into a coalition focused on white identity politics. We've seen this in Europe, and it's bad.

 

By Ben Domenech

Now that we have had time to observe the Donald Trump phenomenon, there is enough evidence to make a clear assessment of what it represents. The rise of Trump is an epic expression of frustration with the American political system, and it is a natural outgrowth of frustrations with America’s changing demographics; the hollowing out of white working class values and culture, as Charles Murray has documented extensively; and what life is like when governed by the administrative state, where the president increasingly acts as a unilateral executive and elected representatives consistently ignore the people’s priorities.

At its best, these frustrations would be articulated by the Republican Party in ways that lead to more freedom and less government. At its worst, these frustrations cast aside Constitutional principles, encourage dictatorial behavior, and become the toxic political equivalent of the two Southie brothers who claimed Trump inspired them to beat up a Hispanic homeless man.

Dismiss Donald Trump if you will, but tonight in Alabama he is expected to draw 35,000 people. Try to do that with any other presidential candidate. The phenomenon is real, and the danger Trump presents for the Republican Party is real. Even without winning the GOP nomination, which is still a remote possibility at best, his statements have tapped into a widespread anger that has the potential to transform the Republican Party in significant ways. Ultimately, Trump presents a choice for the Republican Party about which path to follow: a path toward a coalition that is broad, classically liberal, and consistent with the party’s history, or a path toward a coalition that is reduced to the narrow interests of identity politics for white people.

For decades, Republicans have held to the idea that they are unified by a fusionist ideological coalition with a shared belief in limited government, while the Democratic Party was animated by identity politics for the various member groups of its coalition. This belief has been bolstered in the era of President Obama, which has seen the Democratic Party stress identity politics narratives about the war on this or that group of Americans, even as they adopted a more corporatist attitude toward Wall Street and big business (leading inevitably to their own populist problem in Sen. Bernie Sanders). What Trump represents is the potential for a significant shift in the Republican Party toward white identity politics for the American right, and toward a coalition more in keeping with the European right than with the American.

What Trump represents is the potential for a significant shift in the Republican Party toward white identity politics for the American right.

“Identity politics for white people” is not the same thing as “racism”, nor are the people who advocate for it necessarily racist, though of course the categories overlap. In fact, white identity politics was at one point the underlying trend for the majoritarian American cultural mainstream. But since the late 1960s, it has been transitioning in fits and starts into something more insular and distinct. Now, half a century later, the Trump moment very much illuminates its function as one interest group among many, as opposed to the background context for everything the nation does. The white American with the high-school education who works at the duck-feed factory in northern Indiana has as much right to advance his interest as anyone else. But that interest is now being redefined in very narrow terms, in opposition to the interests of other ethnic groups, and in a marked departure from the expansive view of the freedoms of a common humanity advanced by the Founders and Abraham Lincoln.

Trump’s appeal to these narrow interests is understandable and smart, given the tenor of the times. Among members of the American right and disaffected independents, voices of outrage railing against the collapse of the rule of law have increased steadily throughout Obama’s second term. Their opinion of the Supreme Court has fallen steadily, and they no longer trust the agents of the IRS, EPA, or DOJ to do anything other than serve the wishes of the White House.

Trump’s brand of Jacksonian populism is perfectly tailored for this sentiment. He would throw the Constitution and the rule of law to the winds in pursuit of an aggressive promise of unilateral change – and they are fine with that. What we are hearing now from the Trump-supporting right is akin to the Roman people’s call for the dissolution of the Senate: the demand to install a strong horse, the outsider who will fix all things, the powerful man who promises he will, at long last, get things done for the people. As Alex Castellanos writes at CNN:

Trump is more than a legacy of Republican inaction. He is the inevitable result of decades of progressive failure. He is where frustrated nations turn when top-down, industrial age government fails to deliver what it promised and presents chaos instead. When a government that has pledged to do everything can’t do anything, otherwise sensible people turn to the strongman. This is how the autocrat, the popular dictator, gains power. We are seduced by his success and strength.

For those who believe Barack Obama has ruled like an Emperor, Trump offers them their own replacement who has the appeal of a traitor to his class, dispensing entirely with the politeness of the politically correct elites and telling it always and forever like it is. If the president is to be an autocrat, let him be our kind of autocrat, these supporters say. It’s our turn now, and we want a golden-headed billionaire with the restraint of the bar fly and the tastes of Caligula, gliding his helicopter down to the Iowa cornfields like a boss. He’ll show Putin what for.

The Political Class’ Betrayal on Immigration

Trump has seized upon the issue of immigration, where the stubborn, arrogant refusal of the political class to implement reforms the people demand – even to the point of enforcing equitably laws already on the books, but willfully ignored by the administrative state – has inflated the balloon on this issue to the point of popping. And Trump is just the man to pop it.

Prior to this election season, the national Republican coalition had come around to the idea that while conservatives are opposed to a comprehensive reform package, they would take an incremental approach to reform: building a wall, increasing enforcement along the border, and generally moving toward a path to legalization, not citizenship, for those here illegally. At the national level, you could generally get to a place where principled border hawk conservatives like Jim DeMint and The Wall Street Journal editorial page can find unity.

Their assumption was that if a future Republican administration finally got control of the border, it would allow them the latitude to move more gradually toward an incremental amnesty or legalization. But this assumption ignored the frustration and rage across the country which has only grown in the wake of Obama’s executive actions.

Essentially, a sizable portion of the country is saying, “We want to stop illegal immigration,” and both parties are telling them: “You’re not allowed to want that.”

Essentially, a sizable portion of the country is saying, “We want to stop illegal immigration,” and both parties are telling them, in essence, “You’re not allowed to want that.” Left to fester long enough, this frustration has moved beyond the point of an ordinary, partisan political controversy and is moving toward a crisis of constitutional democracy, where the bipartisan political elite has decided that a basic function of nation-state governance is, in 21st century America, illegitimate.

The two major party establishments are more or less complicit in this political and cultural invalidation of a large swath of the electorate. Couple that with the economic disaffection this same group already bears toward the elites already leaving them behind, and something like the Trump boomlet was probably inevitable. If a large – sorry, yuge – portion of the country wants existing bipartisan immigration laws to be enforced, and one party tells them “Yes,” but means “No,” and the other party tells them, “No” but means “You’re a racist,” then it’s only a matter of time before some disruptor is going to emerge to call them out for their game.

Elite consensus indifference to public opinion has created a vacuum, and Trump’s entry into it has revealed the immigration split within the GOP to be deeper than previously understood. While Trump’s white paper bullets represent fairly mainstream border hawk conservatism, what he has said separate from that plan went far afield from such a proposal. The idea that America is going to endure the blood and moral outrage over the deportation of 11 million people, including young children of illegals born here who are constitutionally American citizens, is absurd.Even one of the most prominent immigration hawks, Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies, dismissed this mass deportation as impossible on my radio show this week. But Donald Trump has proposed this, and loudly insisted he will do it. And the faction of the country that believes not in freedom but identity politics for white people adores it.

Trump Will Not Win, But His Argument Could

Trump is very unlikely to prevail. His “deport them all now” view, while held by roughly 20 percent of the American people depending on which poll you read, has limited popularity. The normal grievance-based white identity politics platform that promises protectionism, tariffs, infrastructure, subsidies, entitlements, and always blames the presence of immigrants for the creative destruction of the global marketplace, has consistently performed best in the GOP prior to any actual Republicans voting. But should his ideas prevail and win – or if, in the most extreme scenario, Trump were to sustain his path and take the Republican nomination – it would set America’s political path on a direction along the lines of what we have seen in democracies in Europe.

Should his ideas prevail and win…it would set America’s political path on a direction along the lines of what we have seen in democracies in Europe.

Consider what it would look like for America to follow the path of France, devolving toward a new two-party system which has on the one hand a center-left / technocratic party, full of elites with shared pedigrees of experience and education, and on the other a nativist right/populist party, which represents a constant reactive force to the dominant elite.

In France, the École Nationale d’Administration produces the political elite. In America, we have a more diversified but still as dominating leadership-class production system, with the same phenomenon and same problem of uniformity of elites exists regardless of party. The populists are not being irrational in perceiving that these guys are “all the same.” But their brand of conservatism is frequently xenophobic, anti-capitalist, vaguely militarist, pro-state, and consistently anti-Semitic. If you criticize Donald Trump, it is exactly the sort of hate mail you should expect to receive.

In the 2002 French presidential election, fascist-style populist Jean-Marie Le Pen came in second in the first round of voting, meaning the French electorate had to choose between him and Jacques Chirac, a statist-right bureaucrat who never saw an individual liberty he didn’t want to slightly curtail. Voters recoiled from expressions of racism and fascistic xenophobia, and gave Chirac the largest majority of any French head of state in history. The next French presidential election is in 2017, and there is a very good chance that the 2002 scenario will repeat itself, with Jean-Marie’s daughter Marine Le Pen getting into the runoff (she has sought to increase her chances in part by forcing her father out). Between Francois Hollande and Le Pen, most decent people go for Hollande. For others, when neither major centrist party will prioritize or even acknowledge the problems faced by a people confronted by massive and troublesome issues of immigration and ethnic tension, eventually they feel they have no choice but to protest vote for Le Pen.

We are also losing a rare and precious inheritance that is our only real living link to the Revolutionary era.

France is hardly alone in this experience – across Europe the rise of these populist movements, whether from the left or the right, have spread to Britain, Spain, Italy, and other nations. The European experience suggests that the burgeoning administrative state, whether run by putative leftists or putative rightists, engenders a reaction against itself. That antithesis usually is illiberal and adopts an aesthetic of anger, because it is the sort of citizenry that the administrative state produces, and because it is in the interest of that state to have that sort of enemy. Everyone who believes in the values that the administrative state at least claims to support and defend — societal pluralism, common decency, some sort of liberalism — gravitates toward it on Election Day. This is a story repeated across Europe – and in rare places like Hungary, we see what happens when the populist-right actually wins, and it isn’t pretty.

There is a slim possibility that what’s happening in the GOP primary campaign this summer is actually healthy and salutary, as conservative intellectual Yuval Levin argues here. But it is also possible that it represents one more way America is becoming more European. A classically liberal right is actually fairly uncommon in western democracies, requiring as it does a coalition that synthesizes populist tendencies and directs such frustrations toward the cause of limited government. Only the United States and Canada have successfully maintained one over an extended period. Now the popularity of Donald Trump suggests ours may be going away. In a sense we are reverting to a general mean – but we are also losing a rare and precious inheritance that is our only real living link to the Revolutionary era and its truly revolutionary ideas about self-government.

Ben Domenech is the publisher of The Federalist. Sign up for a free trial of his daily newsletter, The Transom.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Donald Trump’s Half-Serious, Half-Fantasy Immigration Plan

Shorn of its unrealistic elements, his plan makes a decent start.

By Michael Barone — August 21, 2015

Donald Trump’s six-page platform on immigration may not be, as Ann Coulter wrote, “the greatest political document since the Magna Carta.” But given the issue’s role in elevating the candidate to the lead in Republican polls, it merits serious attention.

And at least some of the platform’s planks are serious. Trump calls for nationwide use, presumably mandatory, of E-Verify, the government system that is supposed to enable prospective employers to verify a job applicant’s immigration status.

He also calls for completion of a visa-tracking system. About half of the nation’s estimated 11.3 million illegal immigrants (Pew Research Center estimates, not significantly changed from 2009 to 2014) are people who entered on valid visas and have stayed past the expiration date.

There’s only one problem here: Gummint don’t do IT good. Example: Healthcare.gov. Example: the FBI system abandoned after millions were spent. Example: the NextGen air-traffic-control system that went on the fritz last Saturday and stranded thousands at New York and D.C. airports.

Unfortunately, Trump the businessman did not accompany these reasonable proposals with suggestions about how to get government IT working.

Trump makes sense too in calling for outlawing sanctuary cities, though his remedy (withholding all federal funds) might not be the most effective. And ending catch-and-release of illegal border crossers seems like a no-brainer.

RELATED: Donald Trump’s Fantasy of Mass Deportation Is Political Poison for the GOP

However, some of Trump’s proposals are, as Bloomberg’s Megan McArdle writes, “a farce.”

“End birthright citizenship,” he says bluntly. There’s an argument that the Supreme Court erred in its 1898 decision declaring that the 14th Amendment grants citizenship to everyone born in the United States (except children of diplomats and the like).

But that argument isn’t going to sway the Court anytime soon, and amending the 14th Amendment would require two-thirds votes of both houses of Congress and ratification by 38 state legislatures. Ain’t gonna happen.

RELATED: Yes, Pander to Trump on Immigration

Trump calls for building “a permanent border wall,” even though that’s technically unfeasible in some places (such as along the Rio Grande), and declares, “Mexico must pay for the wall.”

That sounds good in TV debates and on talk radio. And there’s a wisp of justification for his claim that Mexico has encouraged illegal immigration to the United States. Mexico does seek to protect its citizens in this country and provides them with “matrícula consular” documents.

But Trump’s argument that the U.S. can make Mexico pay by increasing border transit fees and impounding remittances from illegal workers is unrealistic. Will banks and Western Union be required to determine the legal status of depositors and customers? Will the government confiscate money deposited into U.S. bank accounts of workers’ foreign relatives?

What may be most important about Trump’s six-page platform are the things he misses — such as the fact that immigration from Mexico is sharply down from its 1982–2007 surge. Net migration from Mexico to the U.S. in 2008–12 was zero, and any subsequent rise has been minor. Nor has Central America produced an offsetting surge. China and India each account for more immigrants than Mexico in recent years.

Nor does Trump address the fact that current immigration law has more places for collateral relatives of low-skill immigrants than for immigrants for whose high skills there is market demand.

RELATED: Contra Trump, It’s Not Illegal Immigration That’s to Blame for America’s Decline

He gets bogged down instead in a complex proposal to increase salary levels for holders of H-1B visas. He’s probably right that for a few big high-tech companies, H-1Bs are a source of indentured labor that costs some Americans higher-paying jobs.

But the solution is to ditch the H-1B formula, which tends to tie down high-skill migrants to specific employers, and substitute something like the Canadian and Australian point systems, which provide more places for high-skill immigrants — and let them contribute to free-market growth any way they like.

The most unrealistic Trump proposal is his call for “a pause” — of unspecified length — in issuing green cards to workers abroad, “where employers will have to hire from the domestic pool of unemployed immigrant and native workers.”

That’s a nod to history-minded immigration critics Pat Buchanan and Ann Coulter, who argue that the 1924 immigration act provided such a “pause.” But much of that “pause” came during depression and war, when immigration would have been minimal anyway. Shutting high-skilled immigrants out today is cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face.

Some of Donald Trump’s prescriptions make sense. But too many result from misdiagnosis and would transform treatable illness into wasting disease.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Trump’s in the lead — but these polls are junk

By John Podhoretz

August 18, 2015 | 8:10pm

The political story of the summer is Donald Trump’s polling. But the political story of the year is the disastrous condition of polling in the age of the Internet and the cellphone, not just here but worldwide.

How can we reconcile the two? We can’t.

In November 2014, polls missed the Republican surge that won Mitch McConnell’s caucus nine Senate seats. In state after state, Democrats appeared to be tied or ahead in races that the Republican candidate took going away.

In March, polls said the two leading parties in the Israeli election would likely tie — and then Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud won 30 seats while Labor won 18. In May, British voters made fools of all but one UK polling firm when they handed a gigantic victory to David Cameron’s Conservative Party.

These failures followed the notorious 2012 polling calamity, when national polls had Mitt Romney in the lead in the weeks up to Election Day while state-level polls never really budged in showing Barack Obama easily securing his second term.

Polling is a social-science synecdoche, which means that to construct a poll you take a small group and use it to stand for a much larger one.

But getting a random sample is becoming almost impossible. People used to answer the phone and talk to pollsters; now a polling firm is lucky to get 8 percent of those who answer the phone to respond.

Meanwhile, the number of people who only use cellphones has grown dramatically, nearing 50 percent. And federal law makes it a crime to make an automated call to a cellphone — so someone working for Gallup must physically dial every cellphone he calls, rather than have a computer to do it — increasing the cost of polling enormously.

It also means that so-called “robo-polls” in which a disembodied voice asks you to push 1 if you support Jeb Bush are out.

So we know polling stinks. And it stands to reason, therefore, that polls that try to focus on specific sectors of the population stink even worse — for example, GOP voters rather than the nation as a whole.

Which brings us to Donald Trump. There’s no question he’s polling better than any other GOP candidate, and by a mile.

Now, the very fact that all the polls agree on this is probably enough to make it clear he has the lead at the moment. As it happens, that’s not worth very much — at the end of August 2011, Rick Perry had about the same numbers Trump does now, and in 2007 Rudy Giuliani was doing better than Trump is today.

But what if all the polls are junk? What if, in the desperate act of just trying to get a sample of any significant size, pollsters throw out elementary logic in reporting the results?

What if what they’re polling does not actually reflect the true nature of those who will vote in Republican primaries and caucuses?

Forget the rhetorical questions. These polls are junk, and they are not reflective.

To take the most recent example, CNN trumpeted a poll showing Trump with 24 percent of GOP voters nationwide. The problem is that 52 percent of those surveyed by CNN said they’re going to vote in the GOP primaries.

That’s insane. The overall electorate is about 225 million. In 2012, 20 million voted in the GOP primaries. That’s 10 percent, not 52 percent.

A few days earlier, CNN did a poll of Iowa voters showing Trump in the lead — and even more outrageously, the poll’s findings suggested that 62 percent of Iowa’s population would attend the January caucuses. Oh? In 2012, a whopping 2.5 percent of Iowa’s adult population turned out. CNN’s poll is literally off by a factor of 25.

CNN isn’t the only offender by a long stretch. An Aug. 2 NBC/Wall Street Journal poll featured 1,000 adults, of whom 252 were said to be likely Republican primary voters. That’s 25 percent of all Americans — 2 ¹/₂ times the size of the 2012 GOP electorate.

The same poll sought to break down the preferences of those 252 voters and report them out as though they were statistically reliable as relates to the Republican Party — when a 250-person nationwide sample is far too tiny to be representative.

As a DC expert said to me yesterday, “These polls are either way too big or way too small.”

We’re flying blind here, people. Nobody knows what’s really going on.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Do Trump Supporters Realize the Exponential Growth in Government His Immigration Plan Would Bring About?

By George Will — August 22, 2015

It has come to this: The GOP, formerly the party of Lincoln and ostensibly the party of liberty and limited government, is being defined by clamors for a mass roundup and deportation of millions of human beings. To will an end is to will the means for the end, so the Republican clamors are also for the requisite expansion of government’s size and coercive powers.

Most of Donald Trump’s normally loquacious rivals are swaggeringly eager to confront Vladimir Putin, but are too invertebrate — Lindsey Graham is an honorable exception — to voice robust disgust with Trump and the spirit of, the police measures necessary for, and the cruelties that would accompany, his policy. The policy is: “They’ve got to go.”

“They,” the approximately 11.3 million illegal immigrants (down from 12.2 million in 2007), have these attributes: Eighty-eight percent have been here at least five years. Of the 62 percent who have been here at least ten years, about 45 percent own their own homes. About half have children who were born here and hence are citizens. Dara Lind of Vox reports that at least 4.5 million children who are citizens have at least one parent who is an illegal immigrant.

RELATED: Donald Trump’s Half Serious, Half Crazy Immigration Plan

Trump evidently plans to deport almost 10 percent of California’s workers, and 13 percent of that state’s K–12 students. He is, however, at his most Republican when he honors family values: He proposes to deport intact families, including children who are citizens. “We have to keep the families together,” he says, “but they have to go.” Trump would deport everyone, then “have an expedited way of getting them [“the good ones”; “when somebody is terrific”] back.” Big Brother government will identify the “good” and “terrific” from among the wretched refuse of other teeming shores.

Trump proposes seizing money that illegal immigrants from Mexico try to send home. This might involve sacrificing mail privacy, but desperate times require desperate measures. He would vastly enlarge the federal government’s enforcement apparatus, but he who praises single-payer health care systems and favors vast eminent domain powers has never made a fetish of small government.

Today’s big government finds running Amtrak too large a challenge, and Trump’s roundup would be about 94 times larger than the wartime internment of 117,000 persons of Japanese descent. But Trump wants America to think big. The big costs, in decades and dollars (hundreds of billions), of Trump’s project could be reduced if, say, the targets were required to sew yellow patches on their clothing to advertise their coming expulsion. There is precedent.

Birthright citizenship, established by the 14th Amendment and opposed by Trump and his emulators, accords with America’s natural-rights doctrine. Arguably, this policy is unwise. But is this an argument Republicans should foment in the toxic atmosphere Trump has created, an argument that would injure the next Republican nominee even more than Mitt Romney injured himself? Romney, who advocated making illegal immigrants’ lives so unpleasant they would “self-deport,” might be president if he had received ten points more than his 27 percent of the Hispanic vote.

RELATED: Contra Trump, It’s Not Illegal Immigration That’s to Blame for America’s Decline

About 900,000 Hispanic citizens reach voting age each year. In 2012, less than half of eligible Hispanics voted, but Republicans have figured out how to increase Hispanic turnout.

A substantial majority of Americans — majorities in all states — and, in some polls, a narrow majority of Republicans favor a path for illegal immigrants not just to legal status but to citizenship. Less than 20 percent of Americans favor comprehensive deportation.

RELATED: Yes, Pander to Trump on Immigration

This may, however, be changing now that so many supposed Republicans embrace a candidate who, six years into Ronald Reagan’s presidency, disparaged Ronald Reagan as someone who tried to “con” the public. Looking on the bright side, perhaps Trump supporters are amiably broadminded in their embrace of a candidate who thinks we cannot presently be proud to be American citizens (he says his presidency will enable us to again be proud).

If, after November 2016, there are autopsies of Republican presidential hopes, political coroners will stress the immigration-related rhetoric of August 2015. And of October 1884.

Then, the Republican presidential nominee, former senator James G. Blaine, returning home to Maine in the campaign’s closing days, attended a New York rally on his behalf, where a prominent Protestant clergyman said Democrats were a party of “rum, Romanism and rebellion.” Catholics, many of them immigrants, noticed. Blaine lost New York, and with it the presidency, by 1,200 votes out of more than one million cast.

— George Will is a Pulitzer Prize–winning syndicated columnist. © 2015 The Washington Post

[Levan Ramishvili]

How Trump Might Help Reform ConservativesWhy the Donald's rise need not spell doom for Republican policy reform.

By Ross Douthat  

We haven’t been talking very much about intra-conservative policy debates since the G.O.P. primary campaign, and especially the Trump boom, began in earnest. Over at Bloomberg Politics, Peter Gosselin has a piece up quoting some members of my own “reform conservative” tribe expressing dismay at this, and particularly at the way that Trump is killing off serious policy arguments and turning the G.O.P. primary into an exercise in substance-free showmanship. “To one degree or another,” Gosselin writes, “virtually everyone in [the reformocon] circle of mostly 30-something conservatives interviewed in recent days expressed apprehension that the Republican contest could degenerate into the negative, policy-light brawl of four years ago, something party officials and policy advocates had sought to avoid.”

That does sound pretty bad. But let me dissent a little from this apprehension, and offer somewhat more optimistic take. First, I’m not sure it’s true that Trump’s campaign is substance free: Detailfree, maybe, but he’s clearly associated himself with a kind of nationalistic politics that bears some resemblance to the Perot phenomenon, and some resemblance to European right-populism. Trumpism as we know it basically combines broad appeals to American greatness and broad critiques of the political elite with immigration restrictionism, a critique of free trade deals, and a defense of entitlement programs. That’s a combination of ideas that conspicuously lacks support within the nation’s elite … but it’s one that has a fair amount of popular and bipartisan appeal.

It’s also a combination of ideas that appeals to precisely the socioeconomic anxieties that a lot of reform-minded conservatives think the Republican Party needs to do more to address. I’ve written before about the idea that what the G.O.P. and the country need is a kind of “anti-Bloombergism” — a centrist or center-right politics that reflects the concerns of middle American voters rather than a centrism or center-left politics focused on the favored causes of the Acela Corridor’s wealthiest machers. Well, in Trumpism you have the makings of a very literal anti-Bloombergism: A billionaire-led worldview that takes the exact opposite position from the Davos/Aspen crowd on everything from immigration to trade to climate change to entitlement reform.

Now of course as manifested by Trump this anti-Bloombergist spirit is crude, clownish, extreme, politically unrealistic, and so on down the list. And the danger here for reform-minded conservatives is similar to the one I discussed in the context of Mike Huckabee’s “Medicare today, Medicare forever” campaign: That instead of a reform conservatism that devises constructive right-of-center policies that are responsive to populist/Middle American anxieties, you end up with a kind of “anti-reform conservatism” that just basically lies to people about what’s possible, promising mass deportations to immigration critics, endless entitlement spending to seniors, and never reckoning with any kind of trade-offs or dealing in reality at all.

But there’s a real opportunity here for reformers as well. Because so long as a protean, ideologically-flexible figure like Trump is setting the populist agenda in the party, you’re less likely to have stringent ideological tests applied to other candidates and their ideas; so long as the voter anxieties he’s tapping into are front and center in the debate, you’re less likely to see other candidates ignoring those anxieties while chasing support from donors or ideological enforcers instead.

Take a specific issue, health care reform. Here the Republican Party was hamstrung in 2012 by its pure oppositionalism, its felt need to be as anti-Obamacare as possible, which left Romney running on the vaguest of “repeal and replace” conceptions and offering little or nothing to answer the valid anxieties of the uninsured. I’ve been worried that something similar could happen in 2016: That the arguments advanced by Bobby Jindal, to the effect that any reform or replacement that doesn’t turn the clock all the way back to 2008 is a betrayal of True Conservatism, would get traction as the default right-wing and “populist” position, and that other candidates would feel pressure to conform to that line in order to lock down conservative support.

But with Trump as the candidate of populism, promising some vague fantastic Obamacare replacement while mostly talking about other things, candidates like Scott Walker and Marco Rubio have a lot more room to offer realistic health care reforms, as both men have done, that would move the system rightward while also promising wider coverage than the status quo ante Obamacare. And while Jindal still leaped to attack them, he’s polling at 1 percent and nobody particularly cares.

That kind of under-the-radar policy move is not, I admit, equivalent to the kind of exciting policy debate that I’ve been urging the G.O.P. to have (in the increasingly unlikely form of a Rand-versus-Rubio primary contest, or some other fashion). But it suggests a possible future in which reform conservatives win certain policy debates without shots even really being fired; indeed, if Rubio or Walker ends up as the nominee, that’s exactly what will have happened on health care. And you can imagine something similar with other issues — taxes, higher education, poverty  — where Rubio has staked out a reformocon position, and where Walker or Jeb or someone else (Fiorina? Kasich?) might yet. (Rick Perry has also been doing some really interesting under-the-radar policy work, though he needs a serious political break to actually get into the race.) Instead of having the populist standard bearer (and his enablers) constantly demanding fealty to the flat tax or some other implausible right-wing ideal, you’ll have Trump’s media dominance creating a kind of space for policy experiments from rival candidates that they might not otherwise feel bold enough to offer.

Then further, you can also imagine Trump’s immigration stance tugging the G.O.P. away from the course its donor class wanted to put it on after 2012, in which the party would embrace comprehensive immigration reform in order to avoid embracing any other kind of policy change on economic issues. Reform conservatives have diverse views on immigration policy, but many of them/us endorse a kind of moderate-restrictionism around low-skilled immigration, a shift toward a more Canadian or Australian model … and there’s very little question that the donorist focus on comprehensive reform is part of a “change on social issues, don’t change on anything else” policy approach that’s pretty much the opposite of where reformocons think the G.O.P. ought to go. So while Trump’s immigration rhetoric is, indeed, doing damage toone possible strategic response to the Republican Party’s 2012 defeat, I’ve never thought much of that response — substantively or politically — and I’m confident that the broader cause of policy reform can survive its abandonment.

Now I’m deliberately being glass-half-full here. It’s possible to imagine Trump’s immigration rhetoric as a kind of poison that makes any kind of non-comprehensive, immigration-limiting approach seem toxic by association. It’s possible to imagine his politics-as-showbiz approach persuading many voters that the G.O.P. is just a clown show whose entire field can be tuned out. And it’s possible — very possible — to imagine his support dropping and an alternative figure like Ted Cruz rising to play more of an ideological-enforcer role against his rivals, in which case there won’t be many reform conservative victories by default.

But just as, watching the debate, I wasn’t persuaded that having Trump in the field was necessarily making the entire G.O.P. field look bad, I’m not persuaded that his rise spells doom for my favored policy reforms either. From a reformocon perspective, Trumpism is a problem and an opportunity at once — which, at the very least, is a lot more than you could have said about what the rise of a Michelle Bachmann or a Herman Cain had to offer reformers at this time four years ago.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Trump and the Charisma PremiumThe superficial but important reason why having Trump on stage might actually hurt Jeb.

By Ross Douthat

Having used my Sunday column to double down on one 2016 prediction — that Hillary’s still a mortal lock to be the Democratic nominee — let me use this post to quickly hedge a more recent bet: Namely, that the rise of Donald Trump might be a much-needed gift to Jeb Bush’s struggling “frontrunner” campaign. I offered various arguments three weeks ago for why this might be so, and most of them might yet be vindicated once we leave the preliminary phase of the campaign, Jeb starts spending ad dollars in earnest, the establishment field gets winnowed and voters get serious about the nominating process. But here’s one passage from my column that I want to revisit, because I’m not sure the first debate was kind to it:

[Trump’s] sudden prominence sets up exactly the kind of stylistic contrast that Jeb needed: He and the Donald are now the two most famous names in the race, they’re occupying opposing poles (populist/establishment, raffish/respectable) in a way that makes Jeb look like the safest harbor for anyone freaked out by Trump’s success …

What I had in mind here, in part, was the kind of stylistic contrast that Mitt Romney consistently benefited from throughout the 2012 campaign: Once Pawlenty vanished and Perry drew a blank, every time a populist candidate surged in the polls you only had to watch them on the stage with Romney to sense that he would be the safer, saner-seeming choice. But there was another crucial aspect to that contrast: Romney didn’t just seem like the most stable figure on the debate stage; he was also the most charismatic, the most alpha if you will, the man with the strongest air of confidence and command. (Whereas Pawlenty vanished so quickly mostly because he seemed to shrink from confrontation.) There was a to-a-fault aspect to this persona: Mitt could seem too much like Hollywood’s idea of a president, almost inhuman in his square-jawed Mormon rich guy handsomeness. But as an intangible factor in the primary campaign, it played to Romney’s advantage overall, by making him always seem like the man the others had to beat.

And this just doesn’t feel like it’s going to be true with Jeb. His persona is serious and substantive, yes, in a way that contrasts effectively with Trump, but his mien and affect and looks don’t clearly elevate him in the way that Romney’s did, and indeed during the first debate he seemed more tentative than confident, more retiring than commanding. This is, of course, a very provisional judgment, with many debates to come. But I came away from the first one thinking that maybe having Trump as a foil doesn’t play to Jeb’s strengths as much as I thought it might, because Trump is so over-the-top in his bravado that he naturally pushes viewers and voters to look for someone else who, in a more electable and non-cartoonish form, can at least compete with his overripe, reality-TV, billionaire charisma.

By “compete,” to be clear, I don’t mean that they necessarily need to challenge Trump directly and defeat him in some mano-a-mano showdown. I just mean that his very presence in the debates could raise the charisma bar for the other candidates, and require them to demonstrate more in the way of sheer command than, say, George H.W. Bush needed to defeat Bob Dole or Dole need to defeat Pat Buchanan and Lamar!.

If you were looking for hints of that charisma, that command on the debate stage two weeks ago, you could see a perhaps-too-youthful version of it from Marco Rubio, a perhaps-too-cranky version from John Kasich, a perhaps-too-extreme version from Ted Cruz, and a perhaps-too-bullying version from Chris Christie. And then you could clearly see a version from Carly Fiorina in the undercard debate as well. I don’t think you really saw it from Ben Carson, notwithstanding his uptick in the polls; I definitely don’t think you saw it from Scott Walker, and there the polls agree. And I don’t think you saw it, save in a flash here and there, from Jeb.

Again, these are provisional judgment about qualities whose political impact very hard (though not always impossible) to quantify. But as the Republican establishment, such as it is, tries to figure out who the best not-Trump bet will be, I suspect that the “Trump effect” will make them put a higher premium on the ability to actually command the stage and play to the cameras in the debates to come. And if so, that sets up a kind of style challenge that Romney aced four years ago, but Jeb, effectively this cycle’s would-be Mitt, may not be well equipped to meet.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Nothing But Disappointment: Trump, Immigration, and the GOP

Jay Cost

August 17, 2015 2:56 PM

Donald Trump’s campaign web page is telling. There is a biography of the candidate, an extensive news page where his clippings are available, a store where one can buy plenty of Trump-branded merchandise, and only one issue brief, on immigration. If this is not the best illustration of his candidacy to date, I cannot think of a better one.

It reveals why Trump has had so much staying power. His personal brand has always been about winning, and his campaign’s big idea is the premise that he’ll notch some victories for America. This would be nice. As Trump is wont to say, we don’t seem to win anymore.

And the immigration issue is a hanging curveball for Republican candidates, which no other candidate (save the floundering Rick Santorum) seems willing to swing at.

Put aside Trump’s sound-byte bluster about immigration, and look only at his issue paper. One will find that many of his proposals are fairly sensible. He begins with the decidedly republican idea that immigration policy should work for the benefit of the citizenry. While it contains a few kooky notions (e.g. making Mexico pay for a border fence that we can easily afford), it mostly boils down to defensible ideas on increasing enforcement, and rejiggering our visa programs to ensure that employers are hiring as many Americans as possible.

What is so striking is that no other major candidate for president, except Santorum, has emphasized anything like this, despite the fact that many of these positions are popular -- not just with Republican voters, but the nation at large. Trump’s proposals may be blustery at points, but the Rubio-Schumer bill was an oligarchic logroll that literally gave veto authority over key policy items to the unions and the Chamber of Commerce.

Trump’s position will inevitably be tagged as nativist, which is primarily his own fault. The winning political position for conservatives is to insist on proper enforcement mechanisms and a visa program that works for the whole country, and then to deal compassionately with the people who are already here illegally – some form of legal status that falls short of citizenship. To whatever extent they constitute a public policy problem, it does not justify the draconian measure of mass deportation. Instead, conservatives should focus on fixing the system that let them in.

But Trump seems incapable of such nuance. For instance, he told Chuck Todd on Meet the Press that illegal immigrants in this country “have to go,” including the DREAMers (i.e. those illegal immigrants who were brought here as children, have no criminal backgrounds, and gone to college or joined the military). This is an unequivocal loser for conservatives. The DREAMers, after all, are a small cohort who receive outsized national attention because they are a politically sympathetic group. A skillful politician would gladly compromise on the DREAMers, knowing that the real goal is to ensure that effective enforcement mechanisms take effect before any legalization.

But Trump is not a skillful politician. He is an amateur, and a vain one at that. Todd baited the hook, and Trump eagerly took a chomp. He couldn’t help himself, even though it makes him look like a nativist, not to mention a statist. How many federal police officers would be needed to track down 11 million illegal immigrants? More than I care to hire, that’s for sure.

And this is why the politics of immigration is such a mess for conservatives. There only seem to be two groups of Republican leaders interested in this issue. Lindsey Graham, John McCain, Marco Rubio, and those who endorsed Rubio-Schumer are unwilling or unable to insist upon effective enforcement before amnesty. Meanwhile, the likes of Trump and Tom Tancredo fall into obvious nativist traps set up by the left. This is especially frustrating, considering that the people who lose the most when immigration laws are outdated or unenforced are on the bottom rungs of society, i.e. those toward whom conservatives are accused of being so hateful.

The Trump surge, and its intimate relationship to immigration, should be a lesson to the other candidates in the field. Trump is not going to win the nomination, but his appeal is undeniable. It is unreasonable to think that he is going away anytime soon. He will probably continue to draw 20 percent in the polls. Even if his share among actual primary voters is smaller, it will still be substantial, given how fractured the field is.

The best strategy is to co-opt his better ideas (which presidential candidates should also do with many of the domestic proposals of Rand Paul, especially as they relate to the black community). Scott Walker has made some gestures in this direction, but so far his approach has been halting and unpersuasive. It would be nice, at the very least, to see a candidate forthrightly pitch a good immigration policy as something that would benefit the vast majority of Americans, regardless of race or ethnicity. Trump is not that candidate. Is there anybody in this field willing to take up the challenge?

[Levan Ramishvili]

National Fronts

Trump’s rise is mirrored on the European right.

By Kevin D. Williamson — August 23, 2015

From Malmö comes the news that the Sweden Democrats, scrubbed-up neo-fascists who have forsaken the Roderick Spode uniforms, have become Sweden’s most popular political party, commanding the allegiance of a quarter of Swedish voters.

The 25 percent mark is of some interest: It’s about where Donald Trump stands in the most recent Republican primary poll and where Bernie Sanders stands in Democratic primary polls. It’s a little bit ahead of the 20 percent mark, where the Danish People’s party stands, and a little bit behind Nigel Farage’s UKIP, while in France, Marine Le Pen’s National Front took 25 percent of the vote in local elections earlier this year. Somewhere between one in four and one in five seems to be, for the moment, the golden ratio of pots-and-pans-banging politics.

For the right-leaning movements, the common issue is immigration. Senator Sanders, a professing socialist from Vermont, may seem like an outlier in this gang, but his views on immigration are substantially the same as those of Trump and by no means radically different from those of Marine Le Pen, even if his speeches are edited for progressive audiences; he charges that a shadowy cabal of billionaires (the name “Koch” inevitably looms large) wants to flood the United States with cheap immigrant labor to undermine the working class: “Bring in all kinds of people, work for $2 or $3 an hour, that would be great for them,” he says, with emphasis on the eternal infernal Them. “Real immigration reform puts the needs of working people first — not wealthy globetrotting donors.” Strangely, Sanders protests that Trump is a beastly beast for holding roughly the same views. “All kinds of people,” indeed — not our kind of people.

RELATED: Trump Should Have No Place in the Party of Liberty and Limited Government

Those views are not unusual in either the American or the European context. Though there is a fair amount of volatility in the polling, between one-third and two-thirds of Americans have told Gallup for years that they wish to see immigration levels decreased. Of those who disagree, most want immigration kept at current levels, and only a relatively small number say they want to see more immigration. Contrary to the advice of the campaign consultants, there isn’t a dramatic difference in immigration attitudes between whites and Hispanics. And though voters do obviously care about immigration, only a minority — the recurring 20 to 25 percent — insists that immigration policy is a deal-breaker in an election. A minority, but not an insignificant one.

Not here, and not in Sweden. The view from Malmö is not entirely surprising: In the Rosengård district, almost the entire population is composed of either immigrants or mostly unassimilated Swedish nationals of immigrant background, a largely Muslim enclave in the shadow of the nearby mosque. Less than half of those residents are employed and, according to the local press, only 60 percent complete elementary school. There have been riots and gang wars, along with ambush attacks on police and ambulance crews. As with the case of Donald Trump in the United States, the Sweden Democrats illustrate that when responsible parties will not confront the issue of uncontrolled immigration, then irresponsible parties will.

RELATED: Donald Trump’s Half-Serious, Half-Fantasy Immigration Plan

The Sweden Democrats often are described as a neo-Nazi phenomenon, or at least a party with neo-Nazi roots. That is not quite correct. As with most European nationalist movements, you don’t have to turn over too many Sweden Democrat stones until what’s underneath shouts “Sieg, heil!” but the party’s real intellectual roots are in the polemic of Per Engdahl, the 20th-century radical who derived his “new Swedishness” agenda from the policies of Benito Mussolini, rejecting Nazism even as he was happy to make common cause with its admirers. Engdahl, like his Italian inspiration, was robustly anti-liberalism and intensely anti-capitalism. His economics, like those of Trump and Sanders, were essentially corporatist, holding that the economy should be regimented into a series of corporazioni representing various interest groups that would, under political discipline, negotiate wages, trade terms, etc., in accordance with whatever the politicians in power take to be the “national interest.”

In The Duel, his account of the confrontation between Adolf Hitler and Winston Churchill, the great historian John Lukacs explores one of modern history’s terrible ironies: that even as the national socialists were defeated in Germany, national socialism became the world’s predominant political philosophy, albeit stripped of the cruelty and hatred that animated its German expression. “We are all national socialists now,” he writes. Some models are a little more nationalist (Trump) and some are a little more socialist (Sanders), but both reject laissez-faire categorically. “Hitler was not the founder of National Socialism, not even in Germany,” Lukacs writes, “but he recognized the potential marriage of nationalism with socialism, and also the practical — and not merely rhetorical — primacy of nationalism within that marriage. . . . He also knew that old-fashioned capitalism was gone; that belonged to the 19th century.” Lukacs relates an episode in which Hitler was asked whether he would nationalize German industry. Hitler insisted there was no need: “I shall nationalize the people.” Senator Sanders has a rather wordier version of the same agenda, describing the goal of his campaign as inspiring mass political movement in which “millions of people stand up and loudly proclaim that this nation belongs to all of us.”

There is a lot going on here. Part of this is traditional xenophobia, the habit of finding aliens to blame during times of political and economic anxiety, which is doubly attractive if those aliens are ethnically distinctive: When was the last time you heard Senator Sanders screaming about our trade deficit with Germany or Pat Buchanan bemoaning the thousands of illegal immigrants from Ireland residing in the United States? Part of it is legitimate concern about immigration that is excessive and chaotic, and detestation of politicians who are so easily mau-maued by suggestions of prejudice that they either refuse to touch the issue or pursue precisely the wrong policies.

But part of it is that John Lukacs was right, though we seem to be haunted less by the ghost of Adolf Hitler than by that of Benito Mussolini, whose economic ideas and executive-centered political model were so attractive to Franklin Roosevelt and to progressives of his era. It is not the case, as some libertarians suggest, that free trade implies free immigration, that laissez-faire implies open borders; that is a mistake made by those who neglect the fact that human beings have economic value but are not economic goods.

Nonetheless, there is a large overlap between those who put immigration restriction at the center of their agenda and those who oppose free trade, and they share the assumption that economic interactions with foreigners absent government guidance toward the “national interest” is necessarily destructive. It is not that there is no such thing as the national interest: We have an intense and necessary interest in what’s going on in Pyongyang at the moment, and what happens in Syria, whether our borders are secure, whether our banking regulations put us at a global disadvantage. But there isn’t a legitimate national interest in having boffins in Washington stand between a fellow in Pittsburgh who wants to buy a pair of sneakers and a guy in Mindanao who wants to sell them to him. That so many are convinced that there is such an interest is only another piece of evidence, superfluous at this point in history, that there isn’t much of a market for markets, that people who have enjoyed the benefits of largely free and open trade for a long time now remain suspicious of the very mechanism that makes the abundance they enjoy possible.

RELATED: Donald Trump’s Fantasy of Mass Deportation is Political Poison for the GOP

What is most needed is that ability to make distinctions: between patriotism and nationalism, between citizens and trade goods, between the national interest and the interests of those opportunists who claim to discern it with a little help from a lobbyist or three. If those with the ability and the inclination to make such distinctions cede the field to those without that ability and inclination, then expect one out of four — and maybe more — to follow whatever will-o’-the-wisp promises to deliver them from the alien menace, whether in Malmö, in Hénin-Beaumont, or in Des Moines.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Trump Should Have No Place in the Party of Liberty and Limited Government

[Levan Ramishvili]

Linguistics Expert CONFIRMS: Donald Trump Talks Like A 4th Grade Boy

Jack Schafer of Politico has recently completed a fascinating linguistics analysis that proves the communicative immaturity of a very prominent presidential candidate: Donald Trump.

Schafer carefully examined the numerous subtleties and intricacies of Trump’s typical speech structures. With this information, Schafer has come to the conclusion that Donald Trump is the ideal candidate for less astute conservatives who can’t seem to figure out left from right. He presented his research in an August 13 column, claiming that Trump talks like a simpleton. Schafer and others are even speculating that his speeches are designed to win the votes of citizens with lower IQs.

According to Schafer, Trump prefers to use short, block-like words, and he combines them into short, block-like speeches instead of linking together multi-syllabic terms and complex phrases. If Trump’s speeches were marketed as a children’s toy, Schafer believes that his words would represent a minuscule box of Lincoln Logs.

When Schafer analyzed the presidential candidate’s replies at a recent Fox News debate, he came to even more humorous discovery; Trump’s linguistic style only scored at a grade-school level. In fact, he scored lower than almost all of the other GOP candidates. Trump’s score averages at a 4th-grade level, but at some of his debates, he’s only managed to reach a 3rd-grade linguistic level.

Other researchers have shown that bigoted people tend to have a decreased cognitive capacity. Many experts believe that this low capacity for understanding is the reason why a portion of the population is prejudiced; simpler ideologies are easier for them to understand.

Although Schafer still believes that Donald Trump has a reasonable intelligence level beneath his political facade, many progressives are unconvinced.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Donald Trump is Many Things. Conservative Isn’t One of Them

by Peter Wehner 

To better appreciate how philosophically erratic Donald Trump has been over the years, consider this: Less than three years ago, Donald Trump was criticizing Governor Mitt Romney’s comments about “self-deportation.” Today, Mr. Trump is advocating forced (and mass) deportation.

The Trump record on this matter is worth reviewing. A few days ago on NBC’s Meet the Press, Mr. Trump endorsed mass deportation of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in America.

“They have to go,” he said.

Then, two nights ago, Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly asked  Mr. Trump if he envisions “federal police kicking in the doors in barrios around the country dragging families out and putting them on a bus” as a means to deport everyone he intends to deport. Trumpanswered, “We have to start a process where we take back our country. Our country is going to hell. We have to start a process, Bill, where we take back our country.” And what a process that will be.

Now let’s go back to just after the 2012 election when Trump criticized Mitt Romney’s “crazy policy of self-deportation, which was maniacal. It sounded as bad as it was, and he lost all of the Latino vote … He lost the Asian vote. He lost everybody who is inspired to come into this country.”

That same year, Trump said:

For people that have been here for years that have been hard-workers, have good jobs, they’re supporting their family — it’s very, very tough to just say, ”By the way, 22 years, you have to leave. Get out.” … I have to tell you on a human basis, how do you throw somebody out that’s lived in this country for 20 years.

And just two years before that, this is what Trump had to say:

You have American interests hiring [illegal immigrants], absolutely. And many cases, they’re great workers. The biggest problem is you have great people come in from Mexico working crops and cutting lawns that I’m not sure a lot of Americans are going to take those jobs. That’s the dichotomy. That’s the problem. You have a lot of great people coming in doing a lot of work. And I’m not so sure that a lot of other people are doing that work, so it’s a very tough problem.

For those with inquiring minds, immigration is only one issue among many where Trump has shown massive inconsistencies, as Max Boot writes about here. As I’ve repeatedlypointed out – and will continue  to point out – Mr. Trump was a registered Democrat for most of the last decade. He gave large sums of money to leading progressive politicians, and he supported liberal policies on a whole range of matters, from health care to taxes to guns to abortion to drugs to much else. To this day, he is an opponent of entitlement reform and supports affirmative action.

(Mr. Trump’s effort to compare himself to Ronald Reagan is risible. Mr. Reagan was elected president in 1980. In 1964, he was a great champion for Barry Goldwater. He served as a successful, conservative governor of California for two terms. And he was one of the key figures in the creation of the modern American conservative movement. Donald Trump, on the other hand, was a registered Democrat when it was being led by John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid. Mr. Trump was a particularly big donor in elections that brought Pelosi and Reid to power. And he has shown no interest and made no contributions over the years to conservative philosophy and ideas.)

What’s fascinating to me is that for many Trump supporters, the kind of flip-flops and philosophical transgressions that would disqualify any other candidate many times over doesn’t apply to Trump. The question is: Why? What is it about Trump that causes some people on the right to suspend their critical judgments, renounce fidelity to conservative ideology and policies, and extend immunity to Trump in ways they would never to anyone else?

The answers vary person to person, of course. (It’s worth saying here that Trump’s support cuts across ideological lines. Warren Henry and Emily Ekins have written articles for The Federalist here and here examining who Trump supporters are.) But some measure of support for Trump on the right is clearly rooted in deep anger and disenchantment, resentment, and frustration.

This is a populist moment – and for them, Trump is Mr. Anti-Establishment. They see him as the confrontational outsider, unscripted and not politically correct, a person who can shake up the system. Donald Trump is The Great Disrupter. In addition, he knows how to “school” the “establishment” types and has their “number.” The enemy of my enemy is my friend. It’s time to burn down the village – in this case, Washington D.C. — to save the village. And if the man lighting the match is vulgar, inconsistent, and unprincipled, no matter. If in this cause those on the right end up defending and supporting what my Ethics and Public Policy Center colleague Yuval Levin calls “the least conservative Republican presidential aspirant in living memory” – Donald Trump — so be it.

People are entitled to their anger, and they are entitled to support Mr. Trump. But here’s what they’re not entitled to: They cannot take conservatism, reinvent its meaning, and attach it to whatever cause or character they happen to identify with. Conservatism is a philosophy; it has a history and a core set of principles. It’s been shaped by towering intellectual figures. The effort by some on the right to disfigure conservatism in order to justify their support for Mr. Trump is unfortunate. It is also incoherent. Conservatism is not synonymous with alienation and resentments, crudity, and unfiltered rage.

People can support Donald Trump, but they cannot support him on conservative grounds.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Donald Trump’s Remarkably Consistent Inconsistency

by Max Boot

I am a firm, indeed fervent, believer in liberal democracy. But I have to admit, it is as fallible as any other man-made system. After all, our system of government has elevated to the top office the likes of James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Warren Harding, Herbert Hoover, and Jimmy Carter, and to lesser offices the likes of Huey Long, James Michael Curley, Marion Barry, and Jesse “The Body” Ventura. Other democracies have done worse, selecting as their leaders the likes of Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Vladimir Putin, Nouri al-Maliki, Henri Philippe Petain, Ferdinand Marcos, Robert Mugabe, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Jacob Zuma, and Mohamed Morsi.

So perhaps I should not be unduly shocked that Donald Trump — the Silvio Berlusconi of American politics – continues to lead the Republican field, with 24 percent of the vote in a new CNN survey compared to just 13 percent for Jeb Bush, a serious candidate. (Another unserious candidate — Ben Carson — is in third place with 9 percent.) Trump’s high poll standing has not been harmed — and possibly even helped? — by his cringe-worthy insults to John McCain, Megyn Kelly, and others; comments that would have destroyed any other candidacy.

Nor has Trump’s lack of concrete proposals been any bar to his advancement. Still, the extent of his policy incoherence is stunning. The Washington Post has just published a gob-smacking list of some of the policy positions that Trump has taken over the past two months alone, which shows that on some issues he has reversed himself at least half a dozen times. One small sample:

On June 16, Bill O’Reilly asked him: “Are you telling me you are going to send American ground troops into Syria?”

Trump replied: “I’m not telling you anything.”

A few minutes later, Trump said: “I will tell you what my plan will be… You have to go in. You have to go in.”

O’Reilly: “With ground troops?”

“Well, you bomb the hell out of them, and then you encircle it, and then you go in.”

And a few minutes after that, this exchange occurred:

O’Reilly: “There’s no way you can defeat them without invading.”

Trump: “I disagree.”

Trump is a one-man debate: He is the only candidate I know of that can reverse policy positions multiple times within the span of a few minutes — and still apparently get taken seriously by a substantial section of the electorate.

That Washington Post article, damning as it is, barely scratches the surface of his confusion. This is, after all, the candidate who in March slammed Obama’s handling of Ukraine, saying: “We should definitely do sanctions, and we have to show some strengths. I mean, Putin has eaten Obama’s lunch, therefore our lunch, for a long period of time.”

And now Trump has this to say about Ukraine: “I don’t like what’s happening with Ukraine. But that’s really a problem that affects Europe a lot more than it affects us. And they should be leading some of this charge… Why are we leading the charge in Ukraine?”

In other words, even while denouncing Obama for causing America to lose its greatness, Trump is essentially endorsing Obama’s “lead from behind” foreign policy.

In fairness, Trump, who seems to say the first thing that pops into his brain, may not realize what he’s doing. This is, after all, a man who says that he gets his military advice from watching TV shows, which we all know are legendary fonts of strategic wisdom. This is also the man who seems to think that the Iraq War started in July 2004, rather than in March 2003. (In the presidential debate, Trump said: “In July of 2004, I came out strongly against the war with Iraq, because it was going to destabilize the Middle East… And that’s exactly what happened.”)

I don’t expect Trump’s inability to articulate comprehensible policies to end his ascendancy in the polls anytime soon, but I do have enough faith in the American political process to hope and even expect that his outright buffoonery will stop him from winning the Republican nomination, much less the presidency. (Faced with a choice between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, I would vote for Clinton in a heartbeat.) But given the history that so many democracies have of making such foolish mistakes in choosing leaders, and given Trump’s own history of surviving an advanced case of foot-in-the-mouth disease, there is a small part of me that wonders whether I am being Pollyannaish in expecting that the White House will not eventually have a neon “Trump” sign on top of it.

[Levan Ramishvili]

Trump Takes GOP Down the 14th Amendment Rabbit Hole

by Jonathan S. Tobin  

Last month the debate about illegal immigration shifted sharply against those who believed indifference or even resistance to attempts to enforce the rule of law. The murder of a San Francisco woman by an illegal immigrant who had been released by authorities acting on the authority of a sanctuary city law highlighted a serious problem. Liberals, including Hillary Clinton, found themselves on the defensive with no way to explain why Democrats had backed such clearly dangerous proposals. But today Americans woke up to a new immigration debate and the 14^th Amendment that has given the left back the moral high ground and put Republicans in the soup. Donald Trump has wrongly claimed credit for putting illegal immigration back on the nation’s front burner. But it must be acknowledged that he deserves all the blame for this one. By proposing an end to birthright citizenship and wrongly claiming that the courts have never ruled on whether it applies even to the children of foreigners born in the United States, he has led the GOP down a rabbit hole from which there may be no escape. Thanks to the Donald, Americans have stopped worrying about sanctuary cities or even how best to secure the border and instead are the astonished onlookers to a sterile debate about stripping native-born Americans of their citizenship and fantasies about deporting 11 million illegals.

The element of Trump’s plan to deal with illegal immigration that has gotten the most attention is his proposal to strip the children of illegal immigrants born in the United States of their citizenship. Doing so involves overturning an interpretation of the law that goes back virtually to the beginning of the republic. Moreover, contrary to the assertions of Trump and his backers, the Supreme Court has ruled on the issue when it decided in 1898 that the 14^th Amendment gave citizenship to all those born in this country even if their parents were foreigners.

Nevertheless, Trump’s idea has now spawned a growing debate principally on the right about whether that concept is firmly rooted in constitutional law. Some saw it can be ended by presidential fiat in the manner of President Obama’s extralegal executive orders. Others believe the Supreme Court can, if given a case on which a ruling might be based, overturn the precedent. Still others, more sensibly, point out that the best way to end birthright citizenship would be to pass a new constitutional amendment.

For those who like arcane legal arguments, this is great entertainment. But what those conservatives who have eagerly tumbled down the rabbit hole with Trump on the issue are forgetting is that we are in the middle of a presidential election, not a law school bull session.

It must be acknowledged that although Trump’s proposal about citizenship has as little chance of being put into effect as the deportation of all 11 million illegals, it is nevertheless quite popular in some precincts. Trump’s popularity rests in his willingness to articulate the anger that many Americans feel about injustices or the failure of government to deal with problems. If there are 11 million illegals in the country, they want them all to be chucked out. If they have children here, who are, by law, U.S. citizens, they say, so what? Chuck them out too.

The question of what to do with illegals already here is a problem that vexes anyone that isn’t inclined, as President Obama and the Democrats are, to grant them amnesty and forget about it. Reasonable people can differ about possible solutions to the problem but there’s nothing reasonable or practical about a proposal that assumes the U.S. government is capable of capturing and deporting 11 million people plus the untold number of U.S. citizens to which they have given birth.

The notion that the American people will stomach such an exercise or pay what Politicoestimates (probably conservatively) the $166 billion it would cost to pull off such a horrifying spectacle is a pure fantasy.

What needs to be emphasized here is that wherever you stand on birthright citizenship or mass deportations, so long as it is these ideas that Republicans are discussing (as Trump did last night with Bill O’Reilly on Fox News), then they are losing the debate about immigration and very likely the next presidential election. No one is going to be elected president on a platform of depriving people born in this country of citizenship no matter who their parents might be. Nor, despite the cheers Trump gets from his fans, will the American people ever countenance the kinds of intrusive measures and the huge expansion of the federal immigration bureaucracy and police powers that would be needed to pull off a mass deportation.

Let’s be clear. This isn’t a matter of appeasing a Hispanic vote that is probably locked up for the Democrats even if the GOP nominates a pro-amnesty Hispanic. It’s about derailing a productive discussion about real-world solutions to problems into an ideological trap that will only convince moderates and independents, and probably some conservatives as well, that the Republicans are not ready for prime time.

These are the same voters who are likely to agree with Republicans when they say any immigration reform must only come after the border is secured by reasonable measures rather than by reconstructing the Great Wall of China or perhaps the epic ice wall from “Game of Thrones” on the Rio Grande that will be paid for by Mexico in Trump’s dreams. These voters were horrified by the murder of Kate Steinle and support efforts by the Republicans to pass a “Kate’s Law” that would penalize Democrat-run cities that flout federal authority to the detriment of the rule of law and the safety of citizens. They want the border to be secured and are disturbed by Obama’s efforts to circumvent the constitution to grant amnesty. But they aren’t likely to applaud Trump’s effort to ignore settled law or throw out American-born kids.

The point is, contrary to the conventional wisdom of the liberal mainstream media, a conservative stance on illegal immigration is a political winner for Republicans so long as they stick to points on which they have a clear advantage. But when they follow Trump into circular debates about birthright citizenship or fantasize about throwing all illegals out, including citizens or children raised here, they are losing the voters they need to win back the presidency.

[Levan Ramishvili]

20 times Donald Trump has changed his mind since June

Donald Trump, the Republican presidential front-runner, has done a lot of things no other GOP candidate this year would dare try: pick a fight with Fox News. Bad-mouth prisoners of war. Wear Palm Beach casual-wear to the Iowa State Fair. Tell small children he is Batman.

But this might be the most daring: Trump seems to be making up his own platform as he goes along.

Looking back over his interviews and speeches, it appears that Trump came into the race with only a vague idea -- or perhaps no idea -- how he wanted to handle some major, obvious, policy issues. So, when someone pointed out a new wrinkle that Trump hadn't thought of, he came up with a new answer. And then another.

On some issues, Trump's campaign has gone through more than half a dozen plans in two months. And counting.  For instance:

 

Donald Trump’s plan to defeat the Islamic State.

Version #1: Find a guy.

“Within our military, I will find the General Patton or I will find General MacArthur, I will find the right guy. I will find the guy that’s going to take that military, and make it really work. ” (June 16, presidential campaign kickoff speech)

Version #2: [Secret plan]

Bill O’Reilly, Fox News Channel: “Are you telling me you are going to send American ground troops into Syria?”

Trump: “I'm not telling you anything.” (June 16)

Version #3: No longer secret. Send in American ground troops.

“I will tell you what my plan will be…. You have to go in. You have to go in.”

O’Reilly: “With ground troops?”

“Well, you bomb the hell out of them and then you encircle it, and then you go in.” (June 16, shortly after Version #2).

Version #4: Maybe don’t.

O’Reilly: “There's no way you can defeat them without invading.”

Trump: “I disagree.” (June 16, minutes after #3).

Version #5: Definitely do send in ground troops. Have them seize ISIS oilfields.

“We’re going to have so much money.” (Sunday, NBC's Meet the Press).

Version #6: Send in ground troops. Seize oilfields. Sell the oil, and give the money to the families of the soldiers who died protecting the oil.

“What I would do with the money that we make, which would be tremendous, I would take care of the soldiers that were killed, the families of the soldiers that were killed, the soldiers, the wounded warriors that are -- see, I love them….” (Sunday, NBC's Meet the Press).

Version #7: Send in ground troops. Seize oilfields. Sell the oil. Give some of the money to the families of the soldiers who died protecting the oil.

Chuck Todd, NBC: “Shouldn't [oil money] be given to the Iraqis?

Trump: “Well, we can give them something.” (Sunday, seconds after #7)

 

Now, Donald Trump’s plan for the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States.

Version #1: Figure it out later.

“The first thing we have to do is strengthen our borders. And after that, we're going to have plenty of time to talk about it.” (July 23)

Version #2: Figure it out now. Deport “the bad ones.” Work out something so the good ones can stay.

“If somebody's been outstanding, we try and work something out.” (July 24)

Version #3: Deport the bad ones. Maybe let some of the good ones stay.

“We're going to do what's right.  Some are going to have to go.  And some, we're just going to see what happens.” (July 26)

Version #4: Deport everybody.

“But the good ones -- of which there are many -- I want to expedite it so they can come back in legally.” (July 27)

Version #5: Maybe don’t deport everybody.

Dana Bash, CNN: “What about the ‘Dreamers?’ What about people who came here when they were children, they didn't know what they were doing, they came with their parents who brought them here illegally?... Should they have to leave, too?

Trump: “They're with their parents? It depends.” (July 29)

Version #6: Deport everybody, the sequel.

Chuck Todd, NBC: [talking about the “Dreamers”] “You're going to kick them out?”

Trump: “They have to go.” (Sunday, on “Meet the Press.”)

 

Then there's Donald Trump’s plan for tax reform.

Version #1: Make taxes simpler.

“Simplify it. At a minimum, simplify it.” (June 18)

Version #2: Don't have a plan.

"You can't be just boom, boom, hard and fast." (August 11, in an interview on CNN).

Version #3: Maybe get rid of the income tax and have a national consumption tax, which proponents call a “Fair Tax.”

“You can have a ‘Fair Tax…’ (August 11, just after #2).

Version #4: Or maybe keep the income tax, but make it one flat rate for everybody.

“You can have a flat tax….” (August 11, just after #3).

Version #5: Or maybe don’t change the current system at all. Except add new things. Which will be really good.

“Or you can leave the system alone, which is probably the simplest at this point. Leave the system alone and take out deductions and lower taxes and do lots of really good things, leaving the system the way it is.” (August 11, just after #4)

Version #6: [Secret plan]

“I know exactly what I want to do, I just don't want to announce it yet.” (August 11, just after #2, #3, #4 and #5).

Version #6a: [Definitely secret]

Chris Cuomo, CNN: “If I was sitting across from you, making you a pitch to do anything for you and I said, ‘Look, I got a plan, but I'm not going to tell you yet.’ I think I'd get an eye roll and I'd get ushered out of the office.”

Trump: “Oh, I'm going to say it. I'm just not prepared to tell you right now on your fantastic show that is getting better ratings all the time because you have Trump on so much.” (same interview)

 

And Donald Trump’s plan for the nuclear deal with Iran.

Version #1: Renegotiate it.

“I guarantee you that if I were president, this deal wouldn't be made, a deal would be made that's 100 times better.” (August 11)

Version #2: Maybe don’t renegotiate it.

“It’s very tough to do, when you say, ‘Rip up a deal.’ Because I’m a deal person…. I would police that contract so tough that they don't have a chance.”

Chuck Todd, NBC: “So the deal lives, in a Trump administration?”

Trump: “It's very hard to say, ‘We're ripping up.’” (Sunday, Meet the Press).

 

Here's Donald Trump’s plan for “Obamacare.”

Version #1: Get rid of it. Replace it with something "much better."

“Let it be for everybody. But much better, and much less expensive for people and for the government. And we can do it." (June 16, presidential campaign announcement.)

Version #2: Get rid of it. Replace it with something "terrific," which lets people buy insurance across state lines. And still gives poor people a way to get health care, when they can’t pay for it.

“I want to take care of everybody. You know, you have a group of people that aren't able to take care of themselves."

Dana Bash, CNN: “How do you do that?” (July 29)

Version #3: Work out “some kind of a deal” with hospitals.

"We're going to have work out some kind of deal with hospitals where they can get some help, when they are sick, when they have no money and they are sick...."

Bash: “How do you do that, though?” (July 29, just after #2)

Version #4: The deal will be very, very smart.

Trump: “We are going to have to work out some kind of a very, very smart deal with hospitals around the country.” (July 29, just after #3).

 

And finally: Donald Trump’s plan for governing the United States.

Version #1: Be flexible.

“We’ve had no leadership in the country…. For doing that, you need compromise. You need back-and-forth. And it’s not about a plan. It’s about flexibility. You need flexibility.” (Aug. 14)

[Levan Ramishvili]

Trump’s War on Legal Immigration a Tipping Point for the GOP

by Noah Rothman

Republicans who concern themselves more with winning elections than staking out indefensible but emotionally satisfying rhetorical positions have long fretted that the rise of Donald Trump may indelibly taint the Republican Party brand. Thus far, surveys of general election voters indicate that that has not happened yet; the polls show that generic Republicans still perform as well or better than their generic Democratic counterparts. But that could be changing. The release of Trump’s long-anticipated policy paper on his signature issue – immigration – may mark the start of the period at which point the GOP becomes marked, perhaps irreversibly, with the stain of Trumpist nativism.

Late Saturday night, NBC’s “Meet the Press” published a report promoting a wide-ranging Sunday morning dialogue with Trump. The interview was touted to be the moment when the proudly vague bombast that Trump believes suffices for policy would be clarified. He was going to finally put some meat on those bare rhetorical bones, and Trump’s campaign released a six-page “plan” to NBC News ahead of the interview. But that “plan” reads more like a positioning statement than a set of executable policy prescriptions.

Trump’s “plan” is an assault on not merely the illegal immigrants who have violated American laws, but those who have played by the existing rules to come to the United States. The proposal amounts to a declaration of war on America’s immigrant community, an attack on the foundational nature of America’s character as a melting pot for all the peoples of the world, and the inception of a police state that is incompatible with a free republican democracy.

Trump’s “plan” to address his key belief, the need to construct a great wall across the southern border and make Mexico pay for it, is no plan at all. Rather, it is an effort to justify this retributive policy. There is not one Republican candidate who disputes the need to enhance border security provisions. Indeed, that was why so many Senate Republicans voted against the supplemental appropriations measure to address the border crisis in the summer of 2014, when Trump was promoting the latest season of his reality television show, because it was not a border security bill but a measure to address a refugee crisis.

The problem with Trump’s wall is that it is infeasible; the geography of the border simply does not allow for one unbroken wall. Nor would it be effective. Even if you could erect this barrier around, say, Florida, walls can be surmounted, tunneled under, and circumvented in other ways. Policing the border requires police; human capital that comes at taxpayer expense. Mexico will not be paying their salaries, but Trump has a plan for that, too: confiscate all remittances from illegal immigrants working in America and hike the fees on all Mexican tourism and work visas. Erecting the structures necessary to identify much less confiscate illegal wages would prove daunting. Even if it was legal and could survive court challenges, a dubious prospect, this is a policy that would require a dramatic expansion of government’s ability to intrude on the lives of American citizens – a principle to which conservatives were once constitutionally opposed.

Trump’s “plan” should give conservatives who revere and appreciate their country’s history pause. There are aspects of his proposal that are laudable: the imposition of a nationwide E-Verify program, enhancing penalties for those who overstay their visas, the mandatory detention and deportation of criminal illegal aliens, and federal disincentives for cities that serve as sanctuaries for illegal immigrants. These are not new proposals; they have been favored aspects of Republican immigration policy for years. But the broad brush with which Trump’s campaign has applied them makes them unworkable and possibly dangerous. Local law enforcement often opts to work with illegal immigrants, even gang members, in order to create relationships with people who might serve as informants. Trump’s plan would reduce or eliminate altogether local law enforcement’s discretion and would prohibit them from working with the 11 to 20 million illegal immigrants in this country. This is a recipe for more violent crime, not less.

But Trump backers would contend that there would be no illegal immigrant crime after his dramatic deportation scheme. The unknown tens of millions of illegal immigrants, some of whom have been here for decades and are part of the fabric of their communities, will be rounded up and sent to their countries of origin. Somehow. In order to do this, Trump would triple the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) forces. ICE presently has an approximately 20,000-strong force, offices in 48 nations, and a $6 billion annual budget. Now triple that, and give them a mandate to arrest and deport all non-citizens, including those referred to as Dreamers. These are children who were taken to the United States as minors through no fault of their own, and who more often than not have no experience with or knowledge of the countries of their birth. They are to be rounded up, put on a bus, and sent over the border. But only until the “terrific” ones can be identified, amnetized, and reintroduced into the country legally.

The unfeasibility of this approach is matched only by its heartlessness. It is a proposal that only the most angrily anti-immigrant voter could embrace, and it is a recipe for electoral disaster. But Trump’s approach to fixing America’s immigration problem does not end at those without a claim to legal status. He is also taking on immigrants who have every legal right to be here.

Trump’s “plan” would end birthright citizenship – effectively creating criminals of the infants who are born in the United States, and who necessarily do not have visa permission to be here, the second the cord is cut. Trump’s “plan” is exposed as nakedly nativist when he addresses American workers. He hopes to increase youth employment opportunities by terminating rather than reforming J-1 student visas – a program that allows foreign students to come to the United States and study or work in internships. The United States is already facing pressure from English-language countries around the world in the race to attract foreign students to study in American schools – a program that not only provides America with economic benefits but also enhances the vibrancy of its intellectual life. Trump’s “plan” would hike the prevailing wage for H-1B visa applicants (perhaps H-1B1 and E-3 applicants as well). Presumably, this policy would create more incentives for employers to hire natural-born Americans, but its effect would be to reduce skilled immigration from nations like India and China – two countries that recently overtook Mexico as chief sources of emigration. Finally, and perhaps most cruelly, Trump’s “plan” would make it harder for those fleeing persecution and death in their home countries to be granted refugee status.

All that’s missing from his campaign platform is a proposal to rip the plaque with Emma Lazarus’ words right off the base of the Statue of Liberty and to repatriate the lady in the harbor back to her native France at the nearest possible convenience.

Politically, those on the right who have fallen for Trump and his hardline throat clearing on the issue of immigration will love this “plan.” Its very unworkability is, for some, its most attractive quality. Those who are unacquainted with how constitutional democracies create and enforce laws, or are perhaps contemptuous of that process, will see this as a display of resolve amid spinelessness. Republican consultants who watched Rick Perry and Rand Paul wilt after they attacked Trump’s approach on the merits will be disinclined to advise their candidates to take aim at Trump’s “plan.” If the GOP’s slate of 2016 candidates fails to attack this propagandist soapbox agitation masquerading as a platform, it will mark the moment when Trump finally began to rub off on the GOP. This “plan” is a road to electoral ruin. The GOP’s viable and responsible candidates would be best advised to call this inhumane and unrealistic approach to immigration reform what it is in stark terms, even at the risk of their standing in the polls and the alienation of the conservative movement’s talker class. The GOP is at risk of losing the general before it even begins.

[Levan Ramishvili]

The Right’s ‘Hope and Change’ Moment

by Noah Rothman

For years, many self-professed conservatives mocked and derided Barack Obama’s two successful presidential campaigns as substanceless self-affirmations that exposed the vapidity of many in the voting public. It should be clear now that a few of those conservatives really only wanted an Obama of their own. 

The genius of Obama’s image-makers was to craft a candidate with malleable policy positions just vague enough to allow the voter to project onto him their individual hopes and aspirations. Obama was whatever you wanted him to be whenever you wanted him to be it. Donald Trump is the right’s Obama, insofar as his policy preferences are ill-defined, pliable, and reflective of whatever the audience immediately before him wants them to be. Not everyone eats this act up, but those who do have access to booming microphones that create the impression they represent more than a modest plurality of the Republican primary electorate. Nevertheless, that even this small number of self-identified conservatives has become swept up in the right’s “hope and change” moment is dispiriting.

Those conservatives that continue to support Trump’s presidential bid are now doing so in spite of an overwhelming preponderance of evidence that indicates he was an orthodox liberal until only recently. Those voters who consider themselves down-the-line conservatives and cannot stomach a moment’s heresy from the 2016 field’s more accomplished Republican candidates seem perfectly comfortable embracing a figure who was once to the left of Hillary Clinton on virtually every weighty policy matter. That Trump remains impervious to this criticism suggests that his fluid policy preferences are of no interest to the 20 or 30 percent of the Republican primary voters that back him. What’s more, those who contend that Trump stands boldly athwart political correctness cannot support this contention: He has embraced PC rhetoric and emulated liberal scolds on issues related to race, gender, and identity as well as any of The New Republic’s scribes. All that matters is his enormous personality and the cult around it.

A recent dispatch from a New Hampshire campaign stop via Bloomberg’s Melinda Henneberger sheds light on this tendency. “[V]ery little of what the conservatives in the hall were going wild over could be characterized as conservative,” she noted while nevertheless adding that the rapt audience remained enthralled by the candidate’s whistle-stop ramblings. Henneberger, a keen observer of politics, seemed vexed by the fact that “many heads nod” when Trump floats proposals that were, until yesterday, traditionally liberal policy positions.

When Trump vowed to compel American automotive manufacturers to dismantle manufacturing operations in Mexico and return them to the United States, his argument was that he could make this policy manifest by sheer force of will. “This is too easy, too easy!” Trump averred. “This is a couple of phone calls.” In their hearts, Trump voters know that there are economic forces at work that would render this misguided project a bit harder than simply making a phone call, but they want to believe that the avatar of their rebellion can move mountains. They want to comfort themselves with the notion that ill-defined wreckers within the Republican firmament are working against them. They want to think that displays of resolve are sufficient to create positive “change,” however they as individuals define it. Indeed, victory for the Trump backer cannot be defined as the pursuit of traditionally conservative solutions to vexing policy problems. Conservatism is of secondary interest to the Trump supporter. All that matters now is sticking it to a variety of perceived enemies; liberals, establishment Republicans, globalization, economic integration, foreign workers, et cetera. Trump is an outlet that facilitates venting.

Deep down, the Trump backer cares little for what comes out of the candidate’s mouth; his support is derived not from what he says but what he represents. The Republican media consultant and political professional Rick Wilson recently performed a compelling dissection of Trump’s stylistic approach to campaigning. He noted accurately that the reality television star’s methods are virtually indistinguishable from Barack Obama’s circa 2008.

“You hated Barack Obama’s cult-like followers, with their mindless stares of adoration, their impervious barrier between emotion and reason, and their instant fury when confronted with the facts about his record, his history, or his philosophy,” he wrote to Trump supporters. “You hated Obama’s shallow, facile rhetoric, with its hollow promises and loose, lowest-common-denominator word-vomit disconnected from any real policy.”

“But you love it from Trump,” Wilson added.

Wilson’s admonition was dismissed by those who needed to hear it most. As a member of the enemy class of Republican campaign consultants – a group partly responsible for electing more Republicans to state and federal office in the Obama era than at any point since the 1920s, mind you – he can be safely ignored until the revolution is complete, and its nemeses are purged for their deviationism. The salience of his observations is, however, confirmed by the hollow and emotional objections it yielded from Trump supporters.

Those on the right who have convinced themselves that there is some value in this void vessel into which they pour their discontent are sacrificing one of the most compelling arguments in opposition to Barack Obama’s administration: its self-evident incompetence. Trump’s backers have earned their anxieties — they are the product of the years of mismanagement over which this president has presided. Trump’s success, however, reveals that a significant number of conservatives do not merely seek remedy for their years of suffering; they want revenge. The right’s “hope and change” moment does differ from the one that Democrats are only just beginning to awaken from in one critical aspect: for those backing Trump, his appeal is as much aspirational as it is about score settling. And after almost seven years of “hope and change” there are a lot of scores to settle before we can “make America great again.”