Bunga Bunga Billionaire Nation
Watch that Howard Stern interview, and it’s easy to see Trump as an American version of Silvio Berlusconi, the “bunga-bunga” billionaire elected to office in Italy, in part because all his traditional party opponents were seen as weak and ineffectual.
.. Trump’s success at connecting with the economic and cultural anxieties of blue-collar whites largely explains why he hasn’t been damaged more by his disputes with groups that usually function as the gatekeepers for conservative support, from the Fox News Channel to National Review. Voters at Trump rallies are often quick to acknowledge he isn’t a typical Republican, or a classic conservative. Yet they don’t see his deviations from party orthodoxy as disqualifying because they view him as championing them against forces they view as threatening
.. This attraction to strength seems to be connected to an inchoate sense that the world is falling apart. The voters we spoke to were concerned about a lot of potential threats — terrorist, economic, and cultural — and hoped that a strong president would protect them from dangers within as well as from abroad. Voters said they no longer felt free to be themselves in their own country — policed in their speech, unable to pray publicly or even say “God bless you” when someone sneezes. “Everything’s so p.c.,” said Priscilla Mills, a 33-year-old hospital coordinator from Manchester. “And then the second you do say something, you’re a racist.” Trump, who had 21 percent of the vote in our small sample, has capitalized the most on the political-correctness grievance, which is likely to surface in the general election no matter who becomes the nominee.
.. the GOP-primary voter is more motivated by mood than by policy.
.. The people can’t really put their finger on what’s wrong, but they sense — correctly, in my view — that something is very seriously wrong. Trump gives them a sense that the problem is the Other (Wall Street, immigrants, et alia), and that by force of will, he will set things aright.
.. This is the kind of thing that politics cannot fix, this degraded parenting culture. Years ago, a friend of mine who worked as an elementary school teacher in a school filled with impoverished kids used to go to these kids’ houses after school to meet with their parents (or rather, almost always, the parent; there were no dads in these houses). He said over and over, it was the same thing: the TV was on all the time, blaring loud, and the mother was completely checked out. It was chaos externally, and (therefore) chaos inside these kids. My friend finally became so overwhelmed by the enormity of the problem, and the unwillingness of the parents to lift a finger to change the course of their children’s lives, that he quit teaching and went into another line of work. He saw no hope there.
.. The American people are right to sense that things are falling apart, but they misunderstand the ultimate sources of the disorder. This country needs new and better political leadership; that is undeniably true. But at best, it would only solve part of the problem, and not even the most important part.