The GOP establishment is besides themselves trying to figure out what is happening. Although the political scientist types like Nate Silver and John Sides tell us this can't happen, every week that Trump continues to dominate the polls utterly-leading in every state and even on every issue-the thinkable becomes a little more thinkable.
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/09/john-sides-explains-trump.html
His poll numbers look at lot more like Romney's in 2012 than Rick Perry and Herman Cain's.
But does the establishment not see that they have reaped what they've sown? For years they've been playing these kind of dog whistle politics until Trump violated the rules of how the game is played.
It's been noted that Trump has seen his numbers skyrocket despite breaking all kinds of the usual conservative Republican pieties and litmus tests.
1. On abortion he used to be prochoice at one time and even with his talk of having a conversion he still accepts all the reasonable exceptions that even most prolife people do. Even worse he defended Planned Parenthood and they thanked him.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/08/11/donald-trump-is-planned-parenthood-s-favorite-republican.html
2. While all the other Republicans are promising to 'rip up' the new Iraq agreement 'on day one'-Trump shows some much better sense and at least gets it that there is a time path dependent aspect to something like this-you can't just pretend you ca go back.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/09/04/morning-plum-trump-has-a-better-answer-on-iran-than-his-gop-rivals-do-seriously/
3. He criticizes Jeb and the other GOPers for their plans to privatize Social Security and Medicare.
4. He hasn't taken Grover Norquist's pledge and even talks about raising teh capital gains tax rate for the rich.
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/09/rush-limbaugh-and-politico-on-trump-and.html
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/09/rush-limbaugh-and-politico-on-trump-and.html
There is no reason to be puzzled if you make the crucial distinction of what is unacceptable to the base and what is unacceptable to the establishment.
1. For the establishment 3 and 4 especially are enough to make you excommunicated as a conservative.
2. The base doesn't care that much about 4 and they actually agree with 3.
The Southern Strategy was never about opposition to the New Deal. Certainly it wasn't that Nixon's Silent Majority-Trump of course has brought back that phrase-didn't want any SS and Medicare checks.
What it really was about was a realignment of lifetime Democratic voters from the South and also white ethnics-Catholics. Italians, Irish, Poles, etc.-who had supported the Democratic party since the age of Tammany Hall.
TH has a reputation of being hotbeds of corruption but they had also done many great things for the ethnic European immigrants and actually served as a precursor of the New Deal.
http://www.amazon.com/Machine-Made-Creation-American-Politics/dp/1631490036/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1441469924&sr=8-1&keywords=tammany+hall
The reason for this change was-yep, race. Not just race but also some other big cultural ans social changes. The Nixon coalition-who was also the George Wallace coalition-was comprised of New Deal whites who were put off by the riots or the rise of social unrest, etc. Law and order was supposed to be tamping down on all the unrest, etc.
So it was never a repudiation of the New Deal. However, ending the ND is exactly what the Republican party actually stands for so they had to speak to their fears and prejudices to get them to vote against their own economic interests.
However, to hear many of the business and libertarian GOP types they seem to have forgotten this and so they're perplexed that the base likes the much louder dog whistle of Trump.
By the way this is why I disagree with comments like this:
"Watching Trump's tour de force press conference just now where he announced his pledge to support the eventual GOP nominee, I got the first tickling of my conscience: At what point do I have to transition from laughing at what a disaster he is for Republicans to worrying about what a disaster he would be for America?"
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trump-press-conference-pledge
Does he think a President Trump would be a bigger disaster than President Jeb because I don't. I gave four reasons for that above.
In any case the GOP really doesn't want Trump because he's not an economic conservative at all-in fact he's anathema. So a President Trump would probably not get much more help from the GOP Congress with any Trumpain agenda than Bernie Sanders would get from Congressional democrats
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/09/john-sides-explains-trump.html
His poll numbers look at lot more like Romney's in 2012 than Rick Perry and Herman Cain's.
But does the establishment not see that they have reaped what they've sown? For years they've been playing these kind of dog whistle politics until Trump violated the rules of how the game is played.
It's been noted that Trump has seen his numbers skyrocket despite breaking all kinds of the usual conservative Republican pieties and litmus tests.
1. On abortion he used to be prochoice at one time and even with his talk of having a conversion he still accepts all the reasonable exceptions that even most prolife people do. Even worse he defended Planned Parenthood and they thanked him.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/08/11/donald-trump-is-planned-parenthood-s-favorite-republican.html
2. While all the other Republicans are promising to 'rip up' the new Iraq agreement 'on day one'-Trump shows some much better sense and at least gets it that there is a time path dependent aspect to something like this-you can't just pretend you ca go back.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/09/04/morning-plum-trump-has-a-better-answer-on-iran-than-his-gop-rivals-do-seriously/
3. He criticizes Jeb and the other GOPers for their plans to privatize Social Security and Medicare.
4. He hasn't taken Grover Norquist's pledge and even talks about raising teh capital gains tax rate for the rich.
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/09/rush-limbaugh-and-politico-on-trump-and.html
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/09/rush-limbaugh-and-politico-on-trump-and.html
There is no reason to be puzzled if you make the crucial distinction of what is unacceptable to the base and what is unacceptable to the establishment.
1. For the establishment 3 and 4 especially are enough to make you excommunicated as a conservative.
2. The base doesn't care that much about 4 and they actually agree with 3.
The Southern Strategy was never about opposition to the New Deal. Certainly it wasn't that Nixon's Silent Majority-Trump of course has brought back that phrase-didn't want any SS and Medicare checks.
What it really was about was a realignment of lifetime Democratic voters from the South and also white ethnics-Catholics. Italians, Irish, Poles, etc.-who had supported the Democratic party since the age of Tammany Hall.
TH has a reputation of being hotbeds of corruption but they had also done many great things for the ethnic European immigrants and actually served as a precursor of the New Deal.
http://www.amazon.com/Machine-Made-Creation-American-Politics/dp/1631490036/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1441469924&sr=8-1&keywords=tammany+hall
The reason for this change was-yep, race. Not just race but also some other big cultural ans social changes. The Nixon coalition-who was also the George Wallace coalition-was comprised of New Deal whites who were put off by the riots or the rise of social unrest, etc. Law and order was supposed to be tamping down on all the unrest, etc.
So it was never a repudiation of the New Deal. However, ending the ND is exactly what the Republican party actually stands for so they had to speak to their fears and prejudices to get them to vote against their own economic interests.
However, to hear many of the business and libertarian GOP types they seem to have forgotten this and so they're perplexed that the base likes the much louder dog whistle of Trump.
By the way this is why I disagree with comments like this:
"Watching Trump's tour de force press conference just now where he announced his pledge to support the eventual GOP nominee, I got the first tickling of my conscience: At what point do I have to transition from laughing at what a disaster he is for Republicans to worrying about what a disaster he would be for America?"
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trump-press-conference-pledge
Does he think a President Trump would be a bigger disaster than President Jeb because I don't. I gave four reasons for that above.
In any case the GOP really doesn't want Trump because he's not an economic conservative at all-in fact he's anathema. So a President Trump would probably not get much more help from the GOP Congress with any Trumpain agenda than Bernie Sanders would get from Congressional democrats
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