Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Social Commentary

Peak Trump?

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He looks like he could get shut out in Wisconsin on Tuesday, and it’s getting harder to see a road to a majority of delegates for him. Meanwhile, Jonah asks if some are approaching their Colonel Nicholson moment:

For months, GOP pooh-bahs, cable personalities (including some friends and colleagues of mine at Fox News), talk-radio hosts, and politicians stood by and watched — or cheered — as Trump built his populist cult of personality almost unopposed. Now that Trump has a personal relationship, as it were, with his followers, he can do no wrong.

Trump famously joked that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose his support. That remains to be seen, but he can play rhetorical footsie with the KKK, reveal that he thinks judges “sign bills,” subscribe to vile “truther” explanations of 9/11 and the Iraq War, embrace the health-care mandate, traffic in reprehensible sectarian tribalism, and vow to weaken the First Amendment so he can exact vengeance on journalists who don’t kowtow to his Brobdingnagian ego — yet not shake loose his fans.

That “success” has bred more success, as politicians jump on board the train. New Jersey governor Chris Christie set a torch to his integrity by endorsing a man who stands against nearly everything Christie once claimed to believe. Christie has confirmed all the darker aspects of his reputation as a cynical, self-interested, spiteful bully.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/432160/donald-trump-supporters-reckoningMany decent and sincere Republicans, in and out of the Republican leadership, have been operating on the assumption that Trump will fade and that the gravest threat is a third-party run by the dean of Trump University. There was a time when that concern was defensible. But once it became clear that he was favored to win the nomination outright, Republicans should have realized that a third-party run was more like a best-case scenario.

Better the GOP do battle with a know-nothing bigot (and lose the presidency) than become the party of know-nothing bigots (and still lose the presidency).

That’s why I embrace the Twitter hashtag #NeverTrump, initiated by conservative talk-show host Erick Erickson. For too long, Trump has benefited from the assumption that the non-Trump faction of the party will be “reasonable” and support the nominee. Such thinking paves the road to power for demagogues.

Yes.

[Update a while later]

What is wrong with Ted Cruz?

I don’t see it, either. To me, the only issue is whether he can win, but as I’ve been saying for many months, people underestimate him at their peril.

[Update later morning]

Thinking and writing about Trump:

If in fact Trump doesn’t win, that’s okay with him too. I know that many people would disagree with that statement of mine, because Trump loves to win and hates to lose. I agree with them on that—he loves to win and hates to lose—but I think in this case it depends how you define “win” and “lose.” If Trump loses the nomination he can tell himself that he has won because so many of his supporters will cleave to him and it will probably mean that the eventual GOP nominee will lose. So, if he can’t get the nomination, he will have wrecked the hopes and prospects of those (the GOP) who have kept him from it, and revenge is very much a kind of victory, too. If on the other hand Trump gets the nomination and loses the election, something similar would be operating: Trump will have gotten revenge on the GOP, and he will have built an extremely loyal following and demonstrated his enormous power over the media and his followers. Of course, none of this takes into account the very real possibility that Trump is actually okay with a Clinton victory or even has had it as his intent the whole time (I don’t think the latter, because I think his ego wouldn’t allow it, but I do concede that it’s certainly possible).

If he was actively trying to destroy the Republican Party, and small-government conservatism, what would he be doing differently?

14 thoughts on “Peak Trump?”

  2. Better the GOP do battle with a know-nothing bigot (and lose the presidency) than become the party of know-nothing bigots (and still lose the presidency).

    Rand, I think I’ve seen you claim in the past you’re not a Republican. Why such hostility to the idea of a reformation of the party?

    For too long, Trump has benefited from the assumption that the non-Trump faction of the party will be “reasonable” and support the nominee. Such thinking paves the road to power for demagogues.

    Wow. More than a little reality-disconnect there. What were non-McCain and non-Romney factions required to do? What roads were paved? Whatever they were, they’ve been used to bring us to where we are today.

    1. I don’t object to the reformation of the party. I want to see it reformed in the direction of limited government. To the limited degree that he has any political principles at all, Trump is a big-government authoritarian.

  3. “subscribe to vile “truther” explanations of 9/11 and the Iraq War, embrace the health-care mandate”

    It is about time that someone would step up and “call out” Mr. Trump, along with a large slice of the Republican and perhaps the Democratic Party electorate for voting for someone like that.

    Jim? Oh, Jim!

  4. So, it’s no longer PC to call immigration opponents “nativists,” but Know Nothings is still an acceptable term?

    Noted. 🙂

      2. Only if your audience is ignorant of American history.

        A genuine follower of the Founding Fathers would respect the Constitution, which denies the Federal government the authority to exercise “unenumerated” powers such as immigration control, reserving such powers to the states and individual. An educated audience would know that.

        An educated audience would also know that the Know Nothing party was founded in the 1840’s, by which time the Founding Fathers were kind of dead, and nativist legislation did not gain any traction until the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in the 1880’s.

        They would also be aware of the Declaration of Independence, which declares that “all men are created equal” (not just those who happen to be native-born citizens by accident of birth) and are endowed with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness by their creator (not by Congress or the Immigration and Naturalization Service).

        Like a true modern “liberal,” you look to Man, rather than God, to decide who is worthy of those rights.

        It’s no wonder that Donald Trump said “I love poorly educated people.” It is much easier to mislead the poorly educated about the Founding Fathers were and what they believed.

        1. …endowed with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness by their creator (not by Congress or the Immigration and Naturalization Service)

          Let’s be clear. These rights exist for every human on the planet. However, mentioning the INS suggests you think they hamper these rights? Not at all. Controlling borders does not inhibit these rights because they are not absolute.

          If my happiness requires that I fly by waving my arms rapidly, my right is not void because that particular thing doesn’t work.

          I can’t fly by doing that and I can’t expect to violate a border just because I’d be happy to do that. A country isn’t a country if it doesn’t control its borders.

  5. If he was actively trying to destroy the Republican Party, and small-government conservatism, what would he be doing differently?

    The GOPe has done that entirely on their own. They needed no help from Trump.

    Trump is the middle finger being erected by millions of frustrated and furious voters.

  6. The problem with Cruz is that I’m not sure the Chief Justice would swear him in. One of the problem with the ballot challenges filed against Cruz is finding anybody who has standing. Article II lays out the requirements of office but nowhere does the Constitution put anyone in charge of enforcing those requirements. It apparently just assumes that no ineligible candidates will run.

    Somehow people have forgotten everything they were taught in civics class, but the question has been raised and answered a thousand times.

    Here’s an answer from 1900.

    If you and your wife, who are native born citizens of the United States should visit Europe as tourists, and during your tour a male child should be born to you, he would NOT be eligible to the presidency of the United States, because he would not be “a natural born” citizen. He would, however, be a citizen of the United States, because made so by the law. This is the law (approved February 10, 1855): “That persons heretofore born, or hereafter to be born, out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States, whose fathers were or shall be at the time of their birth citizens of the United States, shall be deemed and considered and are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States.” If the son born abroad should remain abroad, and never reside in the United States, his children would not be citizens of the United States.

    And here’s how the Brooklyn Herald answered the question in 1888.

    It may be asked by those who have not examined the subject if the children born abroad of American citizens are not themselves citizens by right of birth, and therefore within the meaning of “natural born?” We answer most positively that they are not citizens by right of birth, but are made citizens by the law.The existing law was passed April 14, 1892, and is entitled “An Act to establish a uniform rule of naturalization,” and this provided that “the children of persons duly naturalized under any of the laws of the United States, being under the age of 21 years, shall, if dwelling in the United States, be considered as citizens: and the children of persons who now are or have been citizens of the United States, shall, though born out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States, be considered as citizens of the United States.” If the latter are natural born citizens, then allow children who are under age when their parents are naturalized, are also natural born citizens. Both are made citizens because their parents are citizens, but they are made by law in virtue of their birth, and are not natural born.

    If anything further was necessary to confirm this view, it may be found in the fact that a child born in Europe of an American citizen who has never resided here is excluded by the very section which confers the title already quoted. All other children born abroad of American parents are citizens of the United States by virtue of the Naturalization law. It may not be out of place to add that an attempt was made in Congress to give to the Constitution the meaning insisted upon by some of our contemporaries or else the language was used by inadvertence. In the Act of March 26, 1790, it was provided that “the children of citizens of the United States that may be born beyond the sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens;” but this was coupled with the provision that “the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States,” showing that the phrase “considered as natural born citizens” meant merely “to be treated as such because of this law.”

    Great exception was taken to the language as misleading, and on January 25, 1795, this was repealed in express terms and a new act adopted, which read, “Shall be considered as citizens of the United States,” thus making the proviso forbidding the privilege to the children of citizens who had not resided here consistent with it. For if a child of an American citizen born abroad is without any legislation a natural born citizen, then no provision of statute could deprive him of that birth-right as long as he is innocent of crime.

    Enough has been brought forward to safely guide the reflective reader. We may regret that Mr. Evarts did not suggest some points or references but he has, doubtless, been over the ground to his own satisfaction. The Herald assumes to be oracular without affording any grounds for the faith. Do adhere to our former answers to the question. — that the child of an American citizen, born abroad, without regard to the station of his father, is not eligible to the Presidency of the United States, because he is not “a natural born citizen”, but merely a citizen made so by the law. We close by stating that Paschal, and all other high authorities, are clear that only a citizen born in the allegiance of the United States, i.e., either on its soil, or on the high seas under its flag, is a natural born citizen.

    I’m sure lots of newspapers carried similar articles back then, as compared to now when it’s just yawning silence on the question.

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