Supporters don’t have to believe Trump will get Mexico to pay for a wall, they can observe he’s building a coalition that is incapable of backtracking towards Hispanics in the general.
.. I do think those anxieties are worse now, but institutional breakdown is also important.
.. The chickens are coming home to roost. Trump is the culmination of three major GOP trends: the bubble mentality where outside opinions aren’t respected, much less engaged, the Southern Strategy of racial resentment, and the embrace of conservative economics. Trump is the symptom here, not the disease
.. Egged on by Fox News and other institutional players, those arguing that President Obama’s agenda was fundamentally radical, a hijacking of government designed to destroy the American way of life, were bound to see this explode in their faces when they then tried to run more respectable candidates.
.. For the past decade, the GOP has been responding that liberals and Democrats don’t have reasonable disagreements, but that they are instead committing treason and trying to destroy the country. If you toss both evidence and civility overboard in your politics, of course someone like Trump will show up
.. It’s also talk radio. If you are reading this, chances are you don’t listen to much conservative talk radio, even though it’s massive, an order of magnitude size larger than whatever “respectable” conservatives you read online. Trump’s scorched earth approach reflects the mindset and worldview talk radio creates much more than the DC consultant class
.. The Republican base doesn’t share elite ideological commitments to entitlement-slashing and low taxes. The Tea Party views these programs not through abstract ideological commitments but in terms of deservedness. That the GOP left 2012 thinking they didn’t need to back off an agenda of more immigration and cutting both taxes and entitlement had them walking right into this mess
.. neoconservatives used to get this. Their bread-and-butter was being for the New Deal but skeptical of the War on Poverty, and they were the perfect intellectuals to guide the Reagan Democrats into the GOP. Yet they quickly fell in line with the movement, trading any thoughts on economic policy to the libertarians in exchange for getting to run the foreign policy
.. ”Movement conservatism is a jobs program. Those who have the jobs in DC are happy. No one else is”
.. It’s also the media too. Their fake “objectivity” and “neutrality” has stopped their role as gatekeepers against an authoritarian political figure (Glenn Greenwald). Their desire for clicks and eyeballs have them giving Trump more coverage and credibility than he ever deserved (Eliana Johnson). Maybe, but the coverage is just as much a demand as a supply phenomenon, and the turnouts Trump is getting is bigger than what could be driven by CNN stories. Also Republicans have spent so much time saying the media is corrupt it’s rich to have them expect the media to bail them out here.
.. By forming a young, multiethnic coalition that is liberal on social issues, Obama has alienated blue-collar Democrats, forcing them into the GOP but the GOP doesn’t know what to do with them, so Trump
InfoWars: Roger Stone for Donald Trump
Alex Jones talks with former Donald Trump insider Roger Stone and discuss conspiracy theories especially who really killed President John F. Kennedy.
Talk Radio: Morning-Noon-and-Night
“In the morning we have Herman Cain out of Atlanta,” Ms. Pearson said. “Then we have Rush from noon to 3, and then Hannity from 3 to 5, and then — oh, what’s that guy’s name? — the RedState guy, Erick Erickson, from 5 to 7.”
Georgia’s 10th District got Mr. Hice, 55, from talk radio, too. Before seeking office in 2014, Mr. Hice, a Southern Baptist minister, had his own show, syndicated on 400 stations, on which listeners heard him inveigh against Islam and homosexuality and for gun rights and traditional Christian values.