It’s very possible”, he once boasted, “that I could be the first presidential candidate to run and make money on it.”
.. His approach to foreign affairs is equally crude. He would crush Islamic State and send American troops to “take the oil”.
.. Instead, pay attention to the paranoia of his worldview. “[E]very single country that does business with us” is ripping America off, he says. “The money [China] took out of the United States is the greatest theft in the history of our country.” He is referring to the fact that Americans sometimes buy Chinese products. He blames currency manipulation by Beijing, and would slap tariffs on many imported goods. He would also, in some unspecified way, rethink how America protects allies such as South Korea and Japan, because “if we step back they will protect themselves very well. Remember when Japan used to beat China routinely in wars?”
.. Mr Trump’s secret sauce has two spices. First, he has a genius for self-promotion, unmoored from reality (“I play to people’s fantasies. I call it truthful hyperbole,” he once said). Second, he says things that no politician would, so people think he is not a politician. Sticklers for politeness might object when he calls someone a “fat pig” or suggests that a challenging female interviewer has “blood coming out of her wherever”. His supporters, however, think his boorishness is a sign of authenticity—of a leader who can channel the rage of those who feel betrayed by the elite or left behind by social change. It turns out that there are tens of millions of such people in America.
.. Demagogues in other countries sometimes win elections, and there is no compelling reason why America should always be immune.
CNBC Gives In to Donald Trump on Details of the Debate
The Oct. 28 debate at the Coors Events Center in Boulder, Colo., will last two hours, including commercials, another accommodation to Mr. Trump, who was unhappy with the length of the three-hour Republican debate last month in California.
.. Mr. Trump and Ben Carson, who are leading in many polls of the Republican field, led the push on the opening statements and time limit, threatening to boycott the forum if their demands were not met.
.. By moving to adjust the format, CNBC may be setting a precedent for the other media organizations sponsoring debates. The presence of Mr. Trump in the race led to record-shattering viewership of first two Republican forums. Were the provocative real estate magnate not to appear at future debates, the audience could sharply drop off.
With Anti-Muslim Campaign, Canada Has Its Trump Moment
Effectively, Mr. Harper hopes to win his fourth term on Oct. 19 in part by demonizing those few who wear the niqab — and much of Canada’s Muslim population by extension.
.. In this fear-mongering, many see the hand of Lynton Crosby, the Australian political operative who had been advising the Conservatives, according to a campaign spokesman. A veteran of winning campaigns for the former Australian prime minister John Howard and Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain, Mr. Crosby is known for his use of divisive social issues, if only to spur political apoplexy from political opponents and populist outrage from the masses.
Democracy and the Demagogue
Trump’s and Carson’s comments are explicitly antidemocratic. The fact that they seem to have been rewarded — at least in immediate improvements in poll standings — confronts defenders of the American political system with two questions. There once was a facade of equal respect that required political strategists to use code words to avoid accusations of violating it. What has caused it to crack? And what are the risks for our democracy?
.. When large inequalities exist, the problem is aggravated: People tend to take out their resentment on groups they believe don’t share their way of life.
.. For these reasons, our politics right now appear insincere to many voters. And they are sick of it – they crave principled, honest politicians. They want politicians to tell it like it is. And they will seek such candidates even in the absence of a clear set of values they share. But how can politicians signal that they are not hypocritical, especially when voters have grown accustomed to what seems, for both real and contrived reasons, to be a deep stratum of hypocrisy?
.. But there is a way a politician could appear to be honest and nonhypocritical without having to vie against other candidates pursing the same strategy: by standing for division and conflict without apology. Such a candidate might openly side with Christians over Muslims or atheists, or native-born Americans over immigrants, or whites over blacks, or the rich over the poor. In short, one could signal honesty by openly and explicitly rejecting what are presumed to be sacrosanct political values.
.. They would be especially compelling if they demonstrated their supposed honesty and sincerity by explicitly targeting groups that are disliked by the voters they seek to attract. Such open rejection of democratic values would be taken as political bravery, as a signal of sincerity.
.. When voters are so concerned about authenticity, it obscures the fact that commitment to the common interest is a strength, not a weakness. Such a commitment requires more strength, not less, than commitment to almost any other value one can imagine (including for example the values of one’s particular religion). It is much easier to declare that one’s own interests are all that matters.
.. What we are seeing in both Congress and the presidential campaign is a yearning for politicians who reject commitment to the democratic value of equal respect.
.. Since candidates who reject equal respect win office by explicitly flouting democratic values, there is no reason to think that, once in office, they will suddenly embrace them.