Another very powerful conservative dogma: Our economic problems will be solved by an ever-greater market freedom. This means lower taxes for the rich, those pushing the economy forward. It also means continuing the liberalization of global markets with free trade agreements, as well as de-regulation and the end of government supports for businesses
.. In rejecting this dogma, Trump is unique among Republican primary candidates. He doesn’t outline anything coherent enough to qualify as economic policy. Instead, he lobs grenades at the dogma that market freedom is a cure-all.
.. Trump is saying, in effect, that the hollowing out of the American middle class will not be solved by still more economic freedom. This is at odds with a core commitment of conservatism, perhaps the core commitment, since Ronald Reagan. And Trump wins Republican primaries while trumpeting this heresy! I can’t imagine a more fundamental threat to the Republican establishment, which has made this dogma non-negotiable.
.. Over the last generation, our political culture has become very thin. Campaigns are conducted like bombing raids at 30,000 feet.
.. People feel themselves making a candidate rather than being sold one manufactured by party professionals.
.. I’m not sure I fully realized how political correctness humiliates and silences ordinary people.
.. As a religious believer, I need an effective Republican Party, if only to block the ascendancy of an increasingly hostile Democratic Party. But it’s also an outcome I’d welcome. Trump is exposing a failing establishment. It needs to collapse so that it can be rebuilt on sounder foundations.
The Trump Chastisement
They feel defenseless against the relentless re-characterizations of their concerns as moral failings—xenophobia, racism, populist rancor, gullibility, and more. They may not regard Trump as someone who agrees with them on every issue. But they’re gratified that he is not cowed.
.. His supporters like Trump because he threatens today’s economic elites, who are also our cultural elites, promising to bring them to heel just as often as he promises to strong-arm the Mexican government.
.. A great number of people in America no longer feel at home, a greater number than I imagined. They’ve been pushed aside by our global economy. A liberalized immigration regime has changed their hometowns. When they express their sense of loss, liberals denounce them as racists, which is equivalent to saying that they have no moral standing in our society
Bill O’Reilly Defends Trump’s Vulgarity
Bernie Goldberg: Donald Trump said something that I can’t say on this channel––what he really meant when he talked about the size of a particular body part, because that would be vulgar. I can’t say it. But Donald Trump said it. And he’s running for president of the United States. And he didn’t only say it on national television. He said it during a presidential debate. Bill, I know you care about kids. You’ve talked about that a lot. Imagine if a family is watching this debate with their 12-year-old daughter and she asks, “What did he mean by that about size?” Is there anything––anything that would embarrass his supporters? Mainly his supporters on conservative television and radio who have fallen madly in love with Donald Trump, and who slobber over him in just the same way as liberals in the media slobbered over Barack Obama?
Bill O’Reilly: All right. I see it differently. I didn’t take offense by it. I think Trump is doing what he always does: appealing to regular people, playing off the Rubio thing, so if you’re gonna criticize Trump you’ve got to criticize Rubio. He did it first.
Goldberg: Do you realize what he said?
O’Reilly: Of course I realize what he said. But it was done in a jocular way.
Goldberg: But you couldn’t say it.
O’Reilly: Of course I wouldn’t say it. It’s not my style. But I know what he’s doing. And all of the gals and guys who support him chortled––word of the day––they chortled when he said it. I wasn’t particularly offended by that. But that’s okay. You and I disagree.
Goldberg: He’s running for president!
O’Reilly: But it’s a different era. It’s a different time. He’s running for president as a populist, not a Republican or a Democrat.
Goldberg: How come, how come you’re so concerned, as you rightly should be, about the coarsening of the culture? You always talk about that. And how crude and vulgar we’re getting. But you don’t care about this?
O’Reilly: I am. I told him––you saw what Trump said to me at the top of the program. I’m a negative guy now in his mind, all right? I probably won’t even get him to come in anymore because I have challenged him on his demeanor. All right, I have. But I’m fair. I didn’t think that was that big a deal.
Will Mitt Romney’s Anti-Trump Pitch Work?
Romney is in just the right position to make the moral case against Trump. He’s well respected, his public image is squeaky clean, and, perhaps most importantly, he operates outside the Washington bubble. But where Romney went wrong Thursday was in presenting his criticism of Trump’s electability as equal to his criticism of Trump’s fitness to lead.
.. In his own way, by straying from his more powerful moral narrative, Romney gave Trump and his supporters an out: They can criticize Romney’s prediction, and ignore his larger, ethical case against Trump.