Jews tend to fear populism because Jews have rarely been popular.
When you read about “elites”, think Jews.
Remember how Republican elites and wealthy donors in 2000 were happy to get behind George W Bush—and W wasn’t known for his intellect.
It’s never been much of an issue with elites before. So why now?
It’s really about policy. The desire to stop Trump and Carson is really about preventing the political desires of large numbers of Republican voters from being realized. It’s what elites really fear.
Take immigration, for example. Trump’s stance on this, which has found vast support among voters, is directly contrary to the cheap labor regime that has defined immigration policy for ions and which both parties support. Economic elites want cheap labor and our politicians know who butters their bread. As such, politicians pay lip service to the job loss and other economic distortions that come from this policy, while couching the policy in moralistic/ideological language and poor economic arguments. Trump threatens to unseat this policy regime and it has elites rattled.
What about trade agreements? Critics say Trump hasn’t got the knowledge base here, but he has been railing about bad trade deals for quite a long time. Our trade deficit, which has been around for decades and reflects those deals, makes a net negative contribution to our economic growth, while contributing to unemployment and lower wages. Many are listening.
In the past, such policy complaints were drowned out by the dominant rhetoric of establishment candidates, but things are different today. The Post-ABC poll mentioned above also showed about 60 percent of Republican voters support the three candidates with no political experience, with Trump getting the bulk of it. This is a vote of no confidence in Republican elites.
Trump was close to being right when he said in an Nov. 22 AP article “They can’t understand, you know, how come an outsider can be doing so well within the party.” Elites understand it all right, they just don’t know what to do about it.
While the Koch brothers wring their hands on the sidelines, and operatives fantasize about a Romney draft, large numbers of Republicans are in revolt.
The question now before us is how far the revolt will go. Will voters go all the way and put a guy like Trump in the drivers’ seat or will their resolve dissipate once elites finally unleash all that pent up money to finance low-road attacks on Trump and Carson?
