Over and over again, in videos, speeches and interviews, the theme from Trump’s children was that their father, our champion, had been called from his happy life to serve the Republic. He didn’t want to do this. He has been called by destiny, pulled by patriotism. He is a modern day Cincinnatus laying down his golf clubs.
Never mind that Trump has wanted to run for president for 20 years.
.. Nowhere in his speech did Trump give any sense that he knew — or cared — how he would get things done through his “sheer force of will.” That’s the thing about magical thinking, you don’t need to explain it.
.. In the Mythic Trump story, he is like Moses living amongst the Egyptians before he sees the light. “Nobody knows the system better than me,” he says with an ironic wink. The idea is that he has been amongst the oppressors, in mufti, learning their secrets and now he shall deliver his righteous people from them.
.. As for the doubters? They are like some heretical fifth column. In his prepared text, Trump proclaimed, “Remember: All of the people telling you that you can’t have the country you want, are the same people telling you that I wouldn’t be standing here tonight. No longer can we rely on those elites in media, and politics, who will say anything to keep a rigged system in place.”
But then he ad-libbed: “We love defeating those people.”
And of course, the crowd — brimming with the very same elites who have lived off politics and Washington like remoras on Leviathan — went wild.
.. Just a day earlier Trump said, “When the world looks at how bad the United States is, and then we go and talk about civil liberties, I don’t think we’re a very good messenger.” Keep in mind, this was in the context of criticizing human-rights abusers like Turkey and Russia. But no matter, he told the audience he was going to — through that indomitable will of his — make America proud again. And the crowd went wild.
.. By the normal rules the speech should have been a disaster. But as we all know the normal rules no longer apply. I am fairly certain Trump will get his post-convention bump. I no longer think it is extremely unlikely Trump will lose. This was a bread-and-circus convention and, it seems, a great many people want to see how the mythic story of Trump, The People’s Champion, plays out.
.. It’s clear many of my friends on the pro-Trump right are giddy with resentment-justifying glee at the alleged comeuppance of Trump opponents. One need only listen to quite literally anything Laura Ingraham or Sean Hannity say about Trump critics to see how large a role spite plays in the now-unbreachable divide between the new nationalists and the old conservatives.
.. Then again, I think maybe not. The Trump movement in its glandular core is a movement about resentment and payback. It makes sense to conclude that at least some of its most ardent disciples are psychologically inclined to resentment and payback as well.
.. But the truth is conservatism has become shot-through with a kind of vindictiveness that reflects poorly on everyone, friend and foe alike.
.. I hate that after 20 years of fighting what I believe tobe the good fight, so many can’t muster the good will or generosity to consider that I’m doing what I think is right. I’m entirely open to the argument that my analysis and judgment is wrong. But I am resentful, furious and, most of all, contemptuous of the lazy and self-justifying assumption that my motives are malign.
.. I have nothing but sympathy for those who feel they must vote against Hillary Clinton. But I have scorn for those who think that requires lying about Trump. If you’re a true-believer in Trump, that’s fine. I think you’re making the same mistake that the Left’s 2008 true believers made about Obama. There are no saviors in politics.
.. In Cleveland, I met scores of fellow heretics. We didn’t meet in catacombs. But we plotted and planned all the same. We are the anti-establishment now. We stand opposed to two parties united behind two different facets of statism and identity politics.
GOP convention delegate’s welcome for Trump: He’s ‘a sick sociopath’
“Trump is a sick sociopath. He has no conscience. No feelings of guilt, remorse, empathy or embarrassment. He has never apologized to Carly [Fiorina], the disabled reporter or Senator McCain on the horrible things he said about them,” said Humphrey, who served two terms in the Senate. “He has severe personality disorders and is not fit to be president.”
The Apotheosis of Donald J. Trump
The constitutional structure of American government forces politicians, no matter what their motives, to “feel constrained to say and do the right thing according to the Constitution whether or not they are sincere
.. But Trump, according to Tulis, is “unique in that no other previous major party presidential candidate has felt so unconstrained by these constitutional norms.”
In fact, the separation of powers under the Constitution was explicitlydesigned to prevent the usurpation of power by a political leader appealing to popular passions and prejudices. If the framers saw anything coming, it was exactly this: a demagogue in the true sense of the term, someone with a privileged background pretending to be a man of the people, channeling their grievances. In other words, a Trump-like candidate.
.. No previous nominee has been so much the creation of social media and so little the creation of a political party.
is not his determination to close the doors to immigration (that has all too many precedents in the American past), or his criticism of open world-trade agreements (that, too, is closer to the historical norm of U.S. policy than is commonly imagined), or the barely disguised racism (which was his entry, via the Birther movement, into national politics).
What is most distinctive is the strongman, authoritarian style of politics that he radiates so strongly both in the bigger-than-life-or-politics persona he projects and the trust-me, I’ll fix everything and make us great again, program he promises.
.. Capitalizing on legitimate discontent, Trump is both the exploiter and the beneficiary of stagnating median household income, declining productivityand gross domestic product growth, as well as a worldwide refugee and immigration crisis.
.. According to the American Psychological Association, some 72 percent of adults reported experiencing financial stress in 2014.
.. “His incoherent and contradictory utterances have one thing in common: They provoke and play on feelings of resentment and disdain, intermingled with bits of fear, hatred and anger,” Robert Kagan, the Republican foreign policy analyst, wrote in May.
.. According to a June Reuters/Ipsos survey, the percentage of Trump voters who agree with such statements as “blacks are less intelligent than whites” and “blacks are more lazy than whites” far outstrip supporters of any other candidate, Democrat or Republican.
.. the nomination of Trump signals
the burnout of modern conservatism. Trump, or Trumpism, is the residue of that burnout — thick with the nativism, racism, and authoritarianism that were always there.
.. One of the “most egregious misreadings of Trump is that he is part of the populist tradition of Andrew Jackson,”
.. Trump, Wilentz concludes, is just “the sort of gouger and business sharper that the Populists organized to stop.”
.. The conservative movement, Richardson writes, had a built-in conflict that it failed to resolve. In order to win white working class support for deregulation and smaller government, Republican leaders had to make the case
that an activist government redistributed wealth from hardworking white men to lazy African-Americans, women and organized workers.
.. While Trump has sent mixed signals on gay rights issues, he and his operatives stood aside while members of the Republican Platform Committee produced a document affirming hard right social conservative values.
a16z Podcast: On Productivity, Immigration, Trump, and Media
When Ted Cruz was leading in Iowa, Trump called for a ban on Muslim travel. (34 min)
Trump is a reality television star who has learned the lessons of TV.