In the summer of 2012, everyone was talking about Mitt Romney’s running-mate: Who would it be? We had nothing else to talk about for several weeks, or months (I forget). I asked a very smart political journalist, “Whom do you think Mitt should pick?” He said, “I would pick Christie.” I was surprised. No one else was saying that. I asked, “Why?” My friend said, “Because he’s a bruiser. The Obama machine is absolutely ruthless. Destructive. And Romney could use a bruiser at his side.”
.. “Establishment” is the epithet de nos jours. (I wrote an essay about it in late 2013: “The E-Word.”) But as Mona Charen pointed out in a recent podcast of ours, the “Establishment” left us a pretty damn good country. And it has taken Alinsky types to weaken it, severely — to transform it fundamentally, or try to.
Read more at:
The ‘Establishment’ Nonsense
Cruz may be anti-establishment but he’s a principled conservative, while Trump has no coherent political philosophy, no core beliefs, at all. Trump offers barstool eruptions and whatever contradictory “idea” pops into his head at the time, such as “humane” mass deportation, followed by mass amnesty when the immigrants are returned to the United States.
.. His actual platform is all persona — the wonders that will emanate from his own self-proclaimed strength, toughness, brilliance, money, his very yugeness.
Trump’s is faith-based politics of the Latin American caudillo variety. “At the [Sarah] Palin rally,” reports John McCormack of The Weekly Standard, “Trump promised he would localize education. ‘How?’ shouted one man in the crowd. ‘Just you watch,’ Trump replied.” Meaning: I have no idea. Just trust me.
.. He reasonably calculates that his hard-edged conservatism sells best when presented not as pristine ideology but as a revolt against entrenched interests.
.. To imagine, however, that his railing against “the Washington cartel” makes him a Trumpian brother-in-arms is to mistake tactics for strategy, style for substance.
The result is a three-way fight between Trump’s personalized strongman populism and two flavors of conservatism — Marco Rubio’s more mainstream version and Cruz’s more uncompromising take-no-prisoners version.
The Bernie Insurgency
Bernie Sanders says that team is a failure, even a fraud. It’s not truly “progressive.” It’s a bunch of sellouts. It hasn’t taken us to the promised land of Denmark. A large part of it supported the war in Iraq. It’s not willing to support the “political revolution” necessary to effect real change in American politics and society. The Netroots rebellion of a decade ago challenged the party to live up to its principles. Sanders and his voters are calling for a new set of principles.
.. Sanders is a critic not just of the Democratic party but of the thrust of 30 years of American politics. He’s hostile to the tradition of friendliness to markets at home and abroad, openness to foreign trade, and support for America’s role as guarantor of international security. The Democratic party has been open to an alliance with portions of Wall Street for decades. Sanders vehemently rejects that alliance. He doesn’t want to regulate the banks. He wants to break them up.
.. But I must admit a feeling of pleasure in the way Sanders has exposed the liberal Democratic establishment for what it is. These people are so self-absorbed and self-congratulatory that they do not even conceive of themselves as an establishment.
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/430875/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-didnt-expect-such-challenge
Trump Plucked The Populist Apple
Point is, 11 years ago, the basis for a Trump-like candidacy was there. A candidate that was broadly socially conservative, favored government programs but was broadly skeptical of government, and broadly wary of big business: that was where the great center of American politics was.
Nobody could really take advantage of it. The parties were too ideologically rigid, and redistricting favored the most ideologically rigid candidates.
.. First, Steadfast Conservatives take very conservative views on key social issues like homosexuality and immigration, while Business Conservatives are less conservative – if not actually progressive – on these issues. Nearly three-quarters of Steadfast Conservatives (74%) believe that homosexuality should be discouraged by society. Among Business Conservatives, just 31% think homosexuality should be discouraged; 58% believe it should be accepted.
.. The Steadfast Conservatives (15% of the overall electorate) are much more likely than the Business Conservatives (12% overall) to back Trump, it would appear. But if you look further into the typology, you’ll find the single largest group, at 16%, is the Faith and Family Left — basically, pro-government, skeptical of business, but also religiously conservative.
.. And are you beginning to see why the gatekeepers on the GOP side — the party insiders, the think tanks, the conservative media — were able to keep any candidate who might have appealed to the middle, against the interests of Business Conservatives, from getting through?
Until along came someone so rich he didn’t have to depend on party donors and insiders to promote his political career. Those voters were there, but there was no way for Republican politicians within the system to speak to them, and for them.
.. the leadership of the Republican Party and the old conservative movement is, itself, culturally cosmopolitan. I doubt if many top Republican consultants interact with many Young Earth Creationists on a regular basis. Many quietly cheered the Supreme Court’s gay marriage decisions. Most of them live in blue megapolises, most come from middle-class families and attended elite institutions, and a great many of them roll their eyes at the various cultural excesses of “the base.” There is, in other words, a court/country divide among Republicans.
.. So the Republicans offer up candidates who are from cosmopolitan America, who have their speeches written by speechwriters from cosmopolitan American, who have their images created by consultants from cosmopolitan America, and who develop their issue positions in office buildings located in cosmopolitan America. Then they wonder why the base isn’t excited. Say what you will about George W. Bush, but a large part of why he was successful was that he didn’t talk like your average D.C. denizen.
.. Cosmopolitan America sees a strong, moral – frankly ideological – interest in accepting refugees from Syria. Traditionalist America thinks that after Paris, this is insane.
.. All of this is a lengthy way of saying that Trump is a creation of the Republican establishment, which is frankly uncomfortable with many of its own voters, and which mostly seeks to “manage” them.