Donald Trump
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Donald Trump's Appeal Is Based on Yesterday's News
Aside from the court-ordered dribbling out of Hillary Clinton's classified-material-filled emails, the big presidential campaign news of the summer has been the boom for Donald Trump in the race for the Republican nomination. Trump has risen from 3 percent in the polls (when he announced on June 16) to where he now stands at 26 percent — 14 percent ahead of any other candidate. Trump is drawing support from a constituency that in many ways resembles that amassed by another celebrity candidate who defied the usual political rules, Ross Perot in 1992. Like Perot, Trump runs better among whites than blacks, among men than women, among non-college graduates than college grads, in the suburbs and countryside than in big cities. Like Perot, he does not run especially strong among traditionally religious voters.
Iran's Shopping Spree, Act of Love, Bashing Boehner, Forgotten Already
Advocates of the nuclear treaty with Iran, including President Obama, have repeatedly claimed that the agreement strengthens moderates and will change Iran's behavior. They are wrong. [Monday], Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, chief of Tehran's top clerical body, said that the United States remains Iran's "number one enemy" and that the nuclear treaty changes nothing.
A Revealing Clue
Even those of us who are not supporters of either Donald Trump or Jeb Bush can learn something by comparing how each of these men handled people who tried to disrupt their question-and-answer period after a speech. After Bush's speech, hecklers from a group called "Black Lives Matter" caused Bush to simply leave the scene. When Trump opened his question-and-answer period by pointing to someone in the audience who had a question, a Hispanic immigration activist who had not been called on simply stood up and started haranguing.
Donald Trump, Eminent-Domain Abuser
Supporters of Donald Trump relish the prospect of a president who knows how to "get things done," and won't bore them with details or principles. They like hearing Trump tout the stop-at-nothing aggressiveness of his business dealings, as in this description, in a CNN interview, of how he acquired the Doral golf resort in Miami: "I didn't sit down and say 'let's do a 14-point plan.' I went in and got it. I took it away from so many people." Trump boasted of his prowess at a rally in Michigan on Aug. 11. "You have to be able to do certain things" if you want to be successful, he crowed. I "beat the hell out of people.... I know how to get things."
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Caesarism Comes to the Republican Party
Among a very long list of harms inflicted upon the United States by Barack Obama and his party, perhaps the worst was Caesarism. Obama relished the worship of millions in 2008. From his star turn at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, he was treated not as a political candidate, but as a savior. Progressives fell into a swoon, typified by Newsweek editor Evan Thomas' 2008 comment, "I mean in a way Obama's standing above the country, above — above the world; he's sort of God." Now, a similar kind of unreasoning adulation is greeting (improbably enough) Donald Trump. Fred Barnes reports that a focus group of Trump supporters is swept up in a kind of worship, too: "He's not just their favorite candidate. Their tie to him is almost mystical. He's a kind of political savior, someone who says what they think."
Trump Is All Talk
Donald Trump is the first talk radio candidate. Everything he says on the primary trail sounds just like what you can hear on conservative talk radio every day. When he's riffing about the failures of the political class in Washington, calling for an end to birthright citizenship or handling a media heckler like Jorge Ramos at a press conference, Trump is talking straight to the hearts and minds of the talk radio demographic. He's not much of a conservative, or much of a Republican, for that matter.
Two Impossible Things That Could Happen in 2016
"One can't believe impossible things," Alice objected. "I daresay you haven't had much practice," the Red Queen replied. "When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." You may be reading this sometime after breakfast, and six is a pretty large number of impossible things. But looking at developments in the 2016 campaign, I can see two impossible things — impossible in the sense that almost every pundit (including me) ruled them out — that might happen in the weeks and months ahead.
Letter to a Friend: 'Harsh Immigration' Is Not Why Latinos Hate Republicans
A blunt, P.O.'d talker like Trump strikes a nerve with people who feel like they're falling behind and, more importantly, have been let down by get-along, go-along GOP leaders. These are the Boehners and the McConnells who huff and puff about President Barack Obama and his "out of control" Democratic Party, but by Thursday have moved on to other issues, after having yet again been out-maneuvered by the Democratic Congressional minority.