David Frum in The Atlantic (January/February 2016) perceptively observes that the emotion of college students when they mounted the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations pales in import beside the feelings being released by Trump’s candidacy. Among Republican voters and many independents who have rallied to Trump, there is “a rebellion against the power of organized money.” Those who were Tea Party rebels are angry that the GOP establishment treated them like mindless foot-soldiers, while others who cheer on Trump are reacting against the arrogance of wealth. A social war, notes Frum, has erupted in the Republican Party, and it may split that party apart. “The dividing line that used to be the most crucial of them all, class, has become a division within the parties, not between them.” Moreover, those who are coming over to Trump “aren’t necessarily superconservative. They don’t often think in ideological terms at all. But they do feel strongly that life in this country used to be better for people like themselves, and they want the old country back.”
It might be almost too obvious to note that the Trump supporters, who may be on the verge of destroying the Republican Party as we know (and speaking personally, detest) it, bear a striking resemblance to the National Front in France. Both are identified with the populist Right and have been incessantly denounced as fascist or Nazi-like by the media-political establishment. Both groups are shuffling the political cards by incorporating working-class programs into an anti-immigration parties that, as Frum remarks about the Trump’s followers “want their country back.” Finally, each party can claim about 40% of the electorate but may have problems capturing any more. The rest of their countries‘ voters stand with the Left or with a socially left-leaning globalist corporate establishment.
COMMENTS:
* Just taking myself as an example (and I certainly don’t fit the stereotype of the typical Trump supporter since I possess three degrees after high school), I started out the year predicting Trump wouldn’t run, and, even after he announced, I was skeptical. But once he attacked McCain’s status as a “war hero,” I was all ears. I quickly changed my opinion about Trump. I believe others, once they start paying attention, will experience the same conversion. At least, I hope so. I find encouragement in the fact that his polling numbers have steadily increased as he got more exposure and the fact that TV ratings for the Republican debates have shattered previous records.
* It seems very likely that the US will be in recession by election time, so it would be very rash to assume that Trump could not win as GOP candidate against Clinton. All the history of presidential elections tells us that. So anyone who wants to stop him from becoming president had better stop him from becoming the nominee.
* We should not confuse Marine Le Pen with Donald Trump, they are totally different products of totally different political systems. In Europe fascism is something very specific, with a clear historical course over decades and it it distinguished mainly by its anti-parliamentarianism. The National Front in France is definitely the evolution of French fascism, even if you believe that Marine Le Pen has a sincere intention to evolve it into a democratic party of the right. This would not necessarily be impossible, it was done in Italy by Gianfanco Fini to Mussolini’s own party, though the end product did not prove very durable.
In the United States on the other hand European style fascism never took hold. Donald Trump is no more a fascist than I am a dinosaur. In American politics “fascist” is just an insult you throw at someone when you run out of rational political arguments.
* I increasingly think that the Republican Party needs to go the way of the 1850s Whig Party and if Trump’s candidacy accelerates the evolution of an ethno-nationalist white party in the U.S., then it will have served a purpose, even if Hillary Clinton (ugh!) takes the oath of office on January 20, 2017.
* I’m for Trump. I’ve an Ivy League Ph.D. and have professional experience in many of the areas where Trump’s policy positions are clearest. He is the only candidate espousing rational solutions to some of the country’s most serious problems. I don’t like his rhetorical style but someone needs to break the party structure that is destroying this country; a structure that rewards incumbents who ignore the righteous concerns of the country’s ciutizens while battening on the financial support of billionaires and foreign powers seeking aggrandizement at the expense of the common people. If one of the current stoopid party midgets ends up facing off against Hilary or another dimocrat come next November I’ll stay home or vote dimocrat for the first time in my life. I’d prefer that the dimocrats get full responsibility for the disaster that follows.
* Trump has already done a great service to the American people. If he is nominated and debates Hillary his service will be magnified. Opposed by our ENTIRE political class, Trump is revealing the truth that the game is not red team vs blue team but instead a classic conflict between the working and ruling class.
* Recent Rasmussen poll had Trump and Hillary within a point.
1. Ras has a history of over-estimating Republican support.
2. Recent study showed face-to-face and telephone polls underestimating Trump’s support (because people are sheep and the media doesn’t approve of him).
3. Trump’s support will increase going forward as others drop out, while Hillary is probably much closer to topping out.
Study in 2 showed Trump got 9 points more support among college-educated respondents in online polls; college-educated are the biggest sheep of all.
* Trump is the only candidate who is serious about enforcing immigration law. Trump is the only candidate who opposes the trade agreements that have hollowed out America’s manufacturing industry and given us a massive permanent trade deficit. He is the only Republican not eager to restart the Cold War with Russia. As for Hillary, the one who pushed Obama to help take out Qaddafi, thus making Libya safe for ISIS, and who like all Democrats is eager to give illegal aliens amnesty, and who is as hawkish towards Russia as any Republican, she is totally unacceptable.
So I will hold my nose and vote for Trump.
* Now, the GOP establishment and mainstream Conservatives have right to be upset with Trump’s tactics and proposals, but surely they should recognize that Trump has given the ‘American Right’ a great opportunity for some real soul-searching.
Even if they don’t endorse Trump, they can ask key questions such as:
1. How come the Establishment favorites like Jeb are such duds?
2. How come so many Conservatives are connecting with Trump like they’ve done with no one else for a long time?
3. How come the media attack on Trump has had little effect on him?
4. In what ways has the GOP failed that has led to the Trump phenom?
5. etc.
Instead, the GOP establishment and mainstream Conservative types are doubling down, swinging their batons, and giving us the same horseshit that no longer sells.
If anything, the so-called ‘mainstream conservatives’ are not mainstream at all. ‘Mainstream’ implies something that represents the majority. Well, we are told that Jeb Bush is ‘mainstream’ whereas Trump is a fringe candidate, but Trump seems to be doing better with your average Conservative than Jeb is.
It’s like the term ‘mainline’ Protestantism. It suggests the main bulk of Protestant believers, but in fact, ‘mainline’ means nothing today as their churches have totally dried up. There is no blood, soul, and passion in the movement. In contrast, Evangelicalism is still alive cuz the faith still remains.
Now, Trump is no religious figure, but there is real passion among his supporters that simply doesn’t exist among supporters of the likes of Rubio, Fiorina, Jeb, and etc. Trump may be a swindler, but his fans and supporters are genuine conservatives and patriots. They really believe in America just like Evangelicals really believe in Jesus as the Son of God.
In contrast, Mainline Protestants regard themselves as too sophisticated, educated, and aloof to literally believe in God and Jesus. They just value the abstract ‘essence’ of that stuff so that it can be used to serve secular causes… like ‘gay marriage’.
Likewise, the so-called ‘mainstream conservatives’ of the Establishment no longer believe in core conservatism, patriotism, Americanism, and etc. They are ‘secular patriots’ than ‘spiritual patriots’. Their idea of America is an abstraction. It is not about American history, people, culture, and power. It is about America as some abstract proposition cooked up by Emma Lazarus Sulkowicz and the Neocons.
Their reaction to red-blooded patriotism is like mainline protestant reaction to Evangelical faith in God as the real Lord than some abstract idea.
Given that populist red-blooded conservatives have been rather unintelligent and un-educated, they’ve been easily manipulated by the elites. They were thrown some red meat on occasion at least in symbolism: pledge of alliance, bogus controversies about prayer in school, etc. Mostly, their passions were stoked only during election time only to win some votes for politicians who were really in the pocket of globalist elites.
And over the yrs, US has become less white, less conservative, less spiritual, less moral, and etc. despite all the promises of GOP elites(even when GOP held the presidency and both houses). Also, populist conservatives were led to believe that if they support the rich folks, the rich folks would reciprocate and fight leftist Big Government and support American patriotism. But that was all bogus. American populist conservatives are waking up to the fact that the super-rich(whom they’d supported) are pushing the very agendas that are doing the most harm to the vast majority of middle class, lower middle class, and working class white Americans.
But we don’t see any soul-searching from the likes of George Will. My beef with Will is not that he dislikes Trump. There are many good reasons not to like Trump, to distrust him, to even despise him.
But at the very least, Trump has provided us with an opportunity to discuss serious matters about the future of American Conservatism. He has blown the cover that there is indeed a HUGE discrepancy between the Establishment and the duped conservative masses who are now fed up and sick to death of guys like Lindsey Graham and John McCain who schmooze with the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama.
If Trump is the destroyer of the GOP, it’s only because he lifted up the hood and exposed the shoddy machinery. GOP has been like a sleazy used car salesman for some time. It’s been trying to fool America, especially populist white voters, that the engine is still powerful and ready to win the race and serve American interests.
But then, Trump comes along and opens up the hood, and it’s obvious that the so-called pistons are made up of noodles like Jeb, Rubio, Carly, Lindsey, and the rest. Trump does the Tucker thing in the Coppola movie, and the establishment just can’t handle it.
Still, we have now seen the GOP under the hood, and we can’t buy it anymore unless it gets a real new engine. And this is what the likes of Will are bitching about. They don’t want a new engine. They wanted to sell us a souped-up version of the same bogus engine hidden under the shiny hood. And instead of blaming themselves for the crummy engine, the Establishment types are blaming Trump for having lifted up the hood to reveal the truth.
Now, the Grease Lightning that Trump is selling could be a bogus junk car too. But we should credit Trump for exposing the GOP for what it is.
In a way, the fate of GOP is what happens when something becomes overly institutionalized. In some ways, such development is understandable. After all, people with the stuff of greatness can be mavericks and visionaries. They can do great things but also bad things.
So, instead of having men of powerful personalities and leadership qualities, the system prefers those who go long and get along. After a spell under such a system, both the GOP and Democratic Party have filled up with pushovers, fakers, phonies, and slicksters. They are hand-shakers than world-shakers; they are puppets who take orders from AIPAC, Soros, Koch Brothers, and Adelson.
And over time, such a system only produces one colorless and bloodless second-rater after another because anyone with any true vision or personality is purged and exiled.
So, Citizen Trump’s moment is truly remarkable in this sense.
At any rate, the GOP may now be fatally broken like Tsar’s power during WWI.
It’s gotten to the point where all the main talking points no longer hold any water or have any sway over us. It all sounds like empty rhetoric by professional hacks who just mouth the same cliches because they don’t know and can’t think of anything else.
It’s like the scene in DOCTOR ZHIVAGO where the deserters just about had enough of the war and have become deaf to the rhetoric.
* This article briefly touches on Trump’s liberal past. I was reading about Trump’s 1999-2000 involvement with the Reform Party and was surprised he called Pat Buchanan the usual anti-white slurs. Trump’s views were probably well in line with the MSM narrative for much of his life. My theory is that he has had a gradual racial awakening since Obama’s election. He switched to a Republican in 2009 right after Obama’s election. A couple years later in 2011, he engaged in some mild race baiting over Obama’s birth and flirted with a run for President. His increasing conviction is why he is running for real now and did not do so in 2012, though a weaker field without Obama and Romney is another big reason. I think Trump’s liberal past has been a good thing. If he had spent the 90s and 00s as a Republican, it is highly likely he’d be a neocon cuckservative. In any case, for Trump to have such a shift in his views during his 60s is impressive. Regardless of what happens next year, hopefully the bond Trump has formed with his supporters will encourage him to remain highly active in politics. The public may have saved him from social and economic ruin in June, and Trump is providing a vehicle for ordinary Americans to fight back against their tormentors in government and media for the first time in decades.
* Trump is a phenom because he is perceived as the not-establishment guy. That’s why everything the establishment does against him makes him stronger.
All my life, the GOP establishment has campaigned to the hard right and then governed to the squish-middle-left.
And that is why conservatives despise the establishment. I don’t know anyone who is under any illusions about Trump. But conservatives hate the establishment bad enough to take the risk. How could it really be any worse than what fake conservative Paul Ryan just pulled off in the budget deal? And just as Obama spent the first six-plus years of his tenure blaming Bush, Ryan is now blaming Boehner.
* Trump is belligerent? Against the cucks, traitors and scum who have been destroying this country for over half a century. I’d prefer a firing squad but if all I can get is belligerence I’ll take it.
* It may turn well be that Trump’s supporters have all the hard to get engineering degrees, while the other guys’ supporters have the degrees in basket weaving and gender studies.
* All the polls in advance of the 2015 General Election in Britain predicted a Labour win; Labour lost very badly in one of their worst-ever results. The inaccuracy of the polls was ascribed to the reluctance, in the current PC climate, of so-called ‘shy Tories’ to admit that they intended to vote for a (nominally) right-wing party. UKIP, whose supporters here are generally fans of Trump, gained 4m votes, an unprecedented share; though our first-past-the-post system denied them a proportionate representation in parliament.
It will be interesting, from a European perspective, to see how the Donald fares. He is already providing great entertainment value. He’s like a bull in a china shop. The horrified proprietors can do nothing but stand by, watching their meretricious stock getting trashed.
* Except for the populist, patriotic strains in her rhetoric, I can find no common ground between Marine and interwar fascism. The National Front does not advocate a one party state (unlike its opposition which in effect has already created one), has never called for abolishing a parliamentary government, and does not advocate the kind of corporate state that was characteristic of Latin fascist programs, in France as well as in Italy and Spain. The continuity that Mr. Vasilis is claiming to see is not there, save as a convenient fiction generated and perpetuated by the French and international leftist media. I’m not even sure that the now frequently encountered term “extreme rightist party” used to describe the Front in the WSJ and NYT has any relation to reality.
* It’s time to rid ourselves of the notion that the foreigner’s view of the US President is in any way meaningful – or that their likes and dislikes should be considered by us when choosing.
The truth is that those outside the US like or dislike an American President primarily based on one thing: their belief that he is willing to subordinate US interests in favor of the interests of their country.
That’s really what it boils down to. So in a very real sense, the less “the world” likes our President, the better he probably is… for us.
* Trump is right about Muslim immigration. Maybe we should figure out this Muslim thing before we move ahead on immigration.
Muslims have their own way of thinking, their own culture – that culture is antithetical to Christian Western culture. Christian Western culture is open to freedom, it is optimistic, and it welcomes change.
In Christian culture, we look to ourselves for a better tomorrow – not to God. This is not true of the Muslim culture. The byword of Muslim culture is “God willing” – where as a Christian says “I’m willing.”
Perhaps to a fault, Christian culture has evolved to extend freedom to everyone. Clearly this is not true of Muslim culture. Their treatment of women is inhuman. In the Christian West, the nuclear family, father mother and children, is the unit of human stability and progress. In Muslim culture the clan arranges marriages between relatives. Sorry but that is old world.
Fundamentally, the Muslim culture does not like other cultures. It does not mix well or integrate with other cultures – it is not open to other peoples ways – it does not want to evolve.
Most unfortunately for Muslims and Christian America, the Jew have deviously and devilishly in-snared us into killing each other – pitting Muslim against Muslim – with us destroying Muslim countries.
There is righteous bad blood between we Americans and Muslims. By far the Muslims have been hurt the most – it is ungodly what has happened..
Is it not time for a grand life saving exchange – we militarily leave their lands and they stay within their land and culture, trading goods with the world – evolving their culture in their own way?
* I started off the year betting Trump wouldn’t even run and thinking he was a joke. Even when he announced he was running, I felt the same way. Then he started talking, I listened, and I changed my mind. Compared to the others in the field in both parties, a vote for Trump is a no-brainer for me at this point. I read a columnist recently invoking the “Bradley effect,” which described the experience of the seemingly popular black mayor of LA who lost twice running for California despite last minute polls showing him winning. Some observers concluded that people lied to pollsters about how they were going to vote for fear of being thought “racists” for voting against the black candidate. That’s my feeling about what is happening now. I think the polls are underestimating Trump’s support across the country.
