{"id":82940,"date":"2015-12-22T12:00:06","date_gmt":"2015-12-22T20:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=82940"},"modified":"2015-12-22T12:01:46","modified_gmt":"2015-12-22T20:01:46","slug":"the-trumpening-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=82940","title":{"rendered":"The Trumpening"},"content":{"rendered":"

Comments<\/a>:<\/p>\n

* My thoughts on the Frum piece, as they occurred:<\/p>\n

– tribalism (fissures) within the parties mirror the more lurid colour-coding of America race-wise, under Obama, doesn\u2019t it?
\n– immigration\u2026 as now constituted looks a lot like slavery; elites in favour (bonded, cheap labour). But palpable terrorist threat throws this \u2018history repeats\u2019 model into the air, doesn\u2019t it? In capturing fears of poor whites (slaves\u2019 first victims) and in appearing to be the only strong man in the room\/race over Islamic imports, Trump scores twice, doesn\u2019t he? (Did Frum pen this before San Bernardino?)
\n– Frum\u2019s last option is a chimera: once GOP tacks to centre, the centre will move\u2026further to the left. GOP has been consistently and successfully tarred as the heartless party; moving Democrat-wards will only see more ransom being extracted from them.
\n– bad timing: desperation on this scale may be a reverse indicator. Just when GOP and Dems converge (former capitulates) on idea of govt doing more\/very little less, well, along comes $18trillion of public debt to effectively neuter activist government! That stark reality was veiled by zero rates for Obama\u2019s reign; but the truth (the costs, and the eternal fact of scarcity of resources) will become plain as rates rise. Arguably GOP just has to stay \u2018on message\u2019 \u2013 government the problem not the solution \u2013 and the election success will follow. Of course, they have to find a way to spin this better. (Why don\u2019t they talk more about \u2018the children\u2019, who\u2019ll face the \u2018centrist\u2019 bill, in the \u2018fairness\u2019 debate? \u2018Atlas Shrugged\u2019 is still the best selling \u2018business\u2019 book of all time \u2013 someone on the GOP should discuss.)
\n– Trump: aside from two boosts above (related to immigration), isn\u2019t The Donald just another example of the lust for a strong man after a failed recovery from a catastrophic depression? There are bloodier examples on this (European) side of the pond. And the most egregious was \u2018Trump-like\u2019 in his \u2018whatever it takes\u2019 attitude to \u2018solutions\u2019; high theory got you into a concentration camp as often as not.
\n– \u201cAmericans love the crush of competition, the hard-fought struggle, the long-slogging race\u201d; I think the legacy of the Obama putsch is: \u2018not so much\u2019. He has moved America Europe-wards. How is that for Democrats\u2019 respect of \u2018the centre\u2019?!<\/p>\n

I think events will shape the election. As a businessman \u2013 at least surrounded by more clever people willing to question whether the Emperor has any clothes \u2013 Trump looks ahead more naturally; my money would be on events (another San Bernardino; another Hillary scandal; economic downturn) coming to him. I mistrust the polls that have him 5+ points behind Hillary. The arguably equally \u2018outside\u2019 (the political spectrum anyway) Goldwater was blitzed in 64 by a Kennedy sympathy vote and because events were on Johnson\u2019s side (Vietnam not yet a running sore; economy still on sugar rush of \u2018benign\u2019 state expansion). Trump faces no similar headwinds. If he can keep his comb-over in place in cross-winds, he has a chance.<\/p>\n

* It\u2019s odd how intensely the media hypes the Hispanic vote when their turnout rate is less than half. Small shifts in either the black or white vote can reshuffle the electoral map yet you wouldn\u2019t know that by listening to the news.<\/p>\n

The way the media sounds sometimes it\u2019s as if non-Hispanic voters shouldn\u2019t even bother going to the polls.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Comments: * My thoughts on the Frum piece, as they occurred: – tribalism (fissures) within the parties mirror the more lurid colour-coding of America race-wise, under Obama, doesn\u2019t it? – immigration\u2026 as now constituted looks a lot like slavery; elites … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21791,29752,161,29580],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-america","category-donald-trump","category-immigration","category-latino"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=82940"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82942,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82940\/revisions\/82942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=82940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=82940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=82940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}