He is winning because he understands that nationalism is more important to real-world conservative politics than free market dogma, and he offers what conservatives care about: a populist nationalism that is inflected with conservative policy commitments but by no means limited to them.
.. For candidates like Rubio — following the pace set by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton — it’s about embracing a new, more diverse, more tolerant country. For Trumpers, it’s precisely the opposite.
.. And what is Trump’s agenda? A revived and unapologetic American nationalism, which will stand for American interests abroad while defending the traditional conception of the American nation at home.
- On foreign policy, he is suspicious of idealistic ventures but willing to be maximally brutal and maximally avaricious when force does need to be used.
.. The point, in other words, isn’t about wall construction. It’s about Trump signaling that he wants to take a punitive attitude toward Mexico and an unapologetic attitude toward cracking down on illegal immigration. The wall says that Trump’s thinking on the matter is untouched by humanitarian concern or high-mindedness.
.. The Rubio gambit, in short, is that Republicans should surrender to Obama-era cultural change, that they ought to embrace it and simply position their party as having a tax-cutting, spending-hating, free-trading, war-fighting ideology that Americans of all skin tones and musical tastes can learn to love.
.. the demagogue’s instinct for finding the angriest voice in the room.