Then there’s Donald Trump, who likes to take an occasional break from his anti-immigrant diatribes to complain that China is taking advantage of America’s weak leadership. You might think that a swooning Chinese economy would fit awkwardly into that worldview. But no, he simply declared that U.S. markets seem troubled because Mr. Obama has let China “dictate the agenda.” What does that mean? I haven’t a clue — but neither does he.
.. To understand why, you need to go back to the politics of 2009, when the new Obama administration was trying to cope with the most terrifying crisis since the 1930s. The outgoing Bush administration had already engineered a bank bailout, but the Obama team reinforced this effort with a temporary program of deficit spending, while the Federal Reserve sought to bolster the economy by buying lots of assets.
And Republicans, across the board, predicted disaster. Deficit spending, they insisted, would cause soaring interest rates and bankruptcy; the Fed’s efforts would “debase the dollar” and produce runaway inflation.
None of it happened. Interest rates stayed very low, as did inflation. But the G.O.P. never acknowledged, after six full years of being wrong about everything, that the bad things it predicted failed to take place, or showed any willingness to rethink the doctrines that led to those bad predictions. Instead, the party’s leading figures kept talking, year after year, as if the disasters they had predicted were actually happening.
Donald Trump leaves indelible mark on Republicans
Alas, the cognoscenti are kidding themselves. US politics will not pick up where it left off. Even if Mr Trump becomes the first recorded human to be lifted skywards in rapture – the “end of days” scenario to which some of his fans subscribe – he will leave a visible mark on the Republican party.
.. The latest poll shows that only 8 per cent of Republican graduates support Mr Trump against 32 per cent of those without a degree. These are the angry swaths of America that feel left behind, belittled and insulted. They want to take their country back but cannot put their finger on what exactly they mean. For them it is evening in America. Nobody argues their case.
Then along comes Mr Trump. Foreigners may be tempted to see him as uniquely American. But he has his equivalents everywhere. Think of Silvio Berlusconi in Italy or even the UK’s Nigel Farage.
The Conservative War on the GOP
In the Tea Partiers’ view, the clueless establishment hasn’t yet internalized the seriousness of the threat to its supremacy. The grassroots has taken control, and it will have its way or secede. “This is where the wind is blowing,” Deace said. “I don’t think you can put Humpty Dumpty back together again. People like me are not just taking marching orders anymore—they actually want something in return for a vote.”
It will not be possible, Deace predicted, for the two factions to coexist. “This is going to end in divorce,” he said. “One side is going to win control, one side is going to lose, and the losing side will go do something else. There will not be a reunification.”
Why the GOP Just Can’t Quit Donald Trump
But why isn’t Trump at least “interesting”? His policy preferences are much more unpredictable than Paul’s. Paul is constrained by a coherent ideology, by the preferences of his donors and supporters, and by some internal commitment to consistency and sincerity.
Trump is burdened by none of these things. Like an electron in quantum mechanics, he can materialize almost anywhere in the political universe, obeying only some opaque internal decision-making of his own.
.. Modern liberalism admires three kinds of politics: equality politics, peace politics, and diversity politics.
.. The usual rule is that peace politics trumps equality politics.
.. But diversity politics trumps them all, as Bernie Sanders—a vociferous practitioner of both equality and peace politics—was reminded to his chagrin at this year’s Netroots Nation convention.
.. If the contest is suppressed, it does not vanish. It erupts in ways that are extra-political and anti-political, led by figures who are half-demagogue, half-clown. We’ve seen that happen in Europe. In Italy, for example, the second-largest party in Parliament—the populist protest Five Star Movement—is led literally by a comedian. Trump is bidding for a similar role in the United States.
.. Fox News alone can’t get rid of Trump. He can’t be exorcised until the discontents that sustain him are given a better and more responsible way to express themselves.