The Donald Trump Moment
This is when I’m supposed to bring up the Lincoln-Douglas debates. Why can’t we go back to L-D? Here’s the reason: Life was veeerrry slow then, and people had a stupendous attention span. So they flocked to an event in which the first candidate spoke for 60 minutes; second candidate spoke for 90; first candidate got the last 30. Outdoors, in front of a huge crowd with no microphones. Today, we’d have to have a Lincoln-Douglas Twitterfest.
.. Face it, this is the Donald Trump moment. Even if he doesn’t win the presidency, he’s defined the campaign. And this is not a man anybody could take seriously if the conversation was in measured tones.
.. Yeah, I know we’re supposed to be getting a new Trump. Could happen, but I doubt it’ll last if he feels he’s losing the crowd’s attention. And it’s hard to imagine him sticking to someone else’s script.
.. My own view is that with the nomination sewn up, Hillary should run as a reasonable centrist and resist the pull of the Sanders-loving left, no matter how intense the gravitational field feels out on the campaign trail. Adopting the themes of political reconciliation could even pull in a few million quiet people on the center-right. But of course I would think these things.
.. The key is that offering up new ideas doesn’t require becoming a spittle-flecked simulacrum of her challenger. In fact, the best way to raise up the bottom half — if that’s the real goal — is actually pretty sane stuff.Putting kids’ interests first when it comes to education, proposing tax reform that would stimulate job growth — these kinds of steps would give a huge lift to vulnerable communities and could also bring conservatives and liberals together. On the other hand, offering a boatload of free gimcrackery and vitriol against wealthy people plays well on campuses, but it doesn’t help poor people at all.