The Wrongologist

We see a torrent of Trumpism, and viewed from the sidelines, it is a presidential candidacy based on emotion, while shockingly lacking in policy. It is difficult to see him succeeding, unless Republicans believe that being a vain, obnoxious and unapologetic old uncle is all that it takes to run the world’s largest superpower.

If that’s what they think, they have found their man.

The Donald has co-opted Tea Party rage. But, there’s nothing to grab onto, except the rage itself. He and his supporters hate immigrants. They hate Mr. Obama’s withdrawal from our blundering wars in the ME. They hate the vastly expanded access to healthcare coverage, and apparently, they hate being rescued from a Republican Depression. They do love them some American Exceptionalism, though.

As Bloomberg’s Melinda Henneberger comments about a recent Trump rally in New Hampshire:

Very little of what the conservatives in the hall were going wild over could be characterized as conservative, and most of it wasn’t political at all.

What Trump wants us to believe is; “I’ve got this.” His strategy is to have us believe he is a strongman brimming with rage. His “tell it like it is” approach has a true populist appeal, but his slogan “Make America Great Again” is as vague as it can be. Here are a few NH quotes: (brackets by the Wrongologist)

We will make great trade deals.

We will have Social Security without cuts.

We will come up with health care plans that will be phenomenal, phenomenal, [and] that will be less expensive.

Describing a future-perfect conversation between President Trump and the Ford Motor Co. officials, he’ll change their minds about building cars in Mexico. He says:

This is too easy, too easy! This is a couple of phone calls.

Some Trump supporters will vote for him, some will not, but all like his honesty, his lack of PC, his ability to run without outside money, his success, his independence from America’s political elite.

Krugman says the conservative explanation of the GOP’s onset of Trumpism is that their base voters are victims of celebrity. What they really want is a true conservative, but they’re being hoodwinked by someone who is entertaining on TV.

Krugman thinks the liberal version is that Trump is appealing to resentment that ultimately rests on economic failure: working-class whites have been left behind by growing income inequality, while they mistakenly blame immigrants taking their jobs. But he thinks Trump’s supporters look a lot more like the Tea Party, who are:

For the most part not working-class…They’re relatively affluent, and not especially lacking in college degrees.

Republicans seem to be in a mood to require heavy doses of impatience, resentment and outrage from any successful 2016 presidential candidate. Trump realized that sooner than his competitors, and neatly fills the bill. He is disorienting the Establishment Right. His supporters don’t give his political platform much thought, which works, since thoughtlessness is at the base of most of Trump’s policy cure-alls. He is cleaving the Republican Party into one camp that gawks helplessly at its past and a new camp that is inserting a shiv in the Establishment Right’s tired old body.

For progressives, what’s not to love? Trump said on Meet The Press: (brackets by the Wrongologist)

And if I’m president, we’re going to have a great country…And then we will really have [it] better than Reagan, better than anybody. We will make America great again. That’s what it’s all about.

Ok, Chuck Todd, you can’t ask: “How?”

Trump is the expression of today’s conservatism: loud, abrasive, and vacuous. Forget data, forget policy. Why search for evidence when you can rely on belief and tradition?

There are two options: Republicans either oust Trump and his Trumpeteers, perhaps forcing them to form a third party. Or, Republicans can accept that Trump is in their mainstream, and run a populist platform, laced with doses of anger and vague policies. If he is the Republican nominee for President, Republicans will then witness the Trumpocalypse, and be picking up the pieces for years.

Those are the choices. Either way, contemporary conservatism will be in ruins.

What’s not to love?