Watching Trump’s rise, America’s middle class “fed-up crowd” is enjoying the comeuppance of an elite that never pays for the ramifications of its own ideology.
by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media
![Yeah, I kind of love this guy —->@unsavoryagents [1] Ha ha #LosAngeles [2] violent crime up 26% wake up! #SanctuaryCity [3] pic.twitter.com/4TtvwVWY5C [4] — RockPrincess (@Rockprincess818) July 10, 2015 [5]](https://i0.wp.com/victorhanson.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/CJkKxzAUsAA7wnC.jpg?resize=485%2C365&ssl=1)
— RockPrincess (@Rockprincess818) July 10, 2015 [5]
Perhaps they don’t see the abjectly crude Trump as any more crude that Barack Obama calmly in academic tones assuring Americans that they all could keep their doctors and health plans when he knew that was simply untrue or announcing to the nation that his own grandmother was a “typical white person” or advising supporters to “get in their face.” They see Trump as no more vindictive that Harry Reid lying about Mitt Romney’s tax returns (and then bragging that such a lie helped defeat him), or a Sen. Barbara Boxer publicly attacking the single, non-parental status of then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. And they certainly don’t see Trump as uncouth as an Al Sharpton — former presidential candidate, chief advisor on matters of race to Barack Obama, and current TV news show host. Trump’s crass bombast is enjoyed by the fed-up crowd as the proper antidote to the even greater bombast of the Left, who created Trump’s latest manifestations.
The conservative base is tired of illegal immigration. Their furor peaked with the horrific killing of Kate Steinle by a seven-time convicted felon and five-time deported illegal alien. They are baffled that one apparently exempt and privileged ethnic group can arbitrarily decide to ignore federal law. They are irate that they are lectured about their supposed racism from an open-borders movement predicated on La Raza-like ethnic chauvinism. They do not want to hear about nativism from a lobby that so often at rallies waves the flag of the country that none of the protestors seems to wish to return to, a country whose authoritarianism is romanticized as much as their host country is faulted for its magnanimity. Call this what you will, but emotion over neglecting federal law is much less worrisome than cool calculation over violating it.
The fed-up crowd expects statistics to be massaged to counter reality; in the real world nearly a million illegal aliens have committed crimes, with almost 700,000 charged with felonies and serious misdemeanors. In fantasyland, they are said to be more lawful than U.S. citizens. Most Americans would be guilty of felonies for creating false identities, or using fraudulent Social Security numbers; in matters of illegal immigration, these common crimes are not even considered crimes.
The furor over the death of Ms. Steinle reflected the mounting outrage — especially at the hypocrisy of the elites who crafted sanctuary-city legislation. Would they be so nonchalant about the law if a daughter of one of the architects of the legislation were to be gunned down by an illegal alien? Would San Franciscans object if Tulsa nullified federal gun legislation or declared open season on federally protected species? Only liberalism can take a reactionary Old Confederacy idea of federal nullification and turn it into a progressive fad.
The recent disclosures about Planned Parenthood likewise infuriated the fed-up base. Again, they were not incensed just at the callous and sick way supposed humanitarians at Planned Parenthood talked of slicing up fetal tissue and selling organs, but at the hypocrisy of it all. At a time liberals are Trotskyzing our past to damn to memory any ancient historical figure who owned slaves or practiced racism, how does Planned Parenthood’s godhead Margaret Sanger, the racist eugenicist and promoter of abortion to curb minority populations [6], get a pass?
Liberals lecture about “settled science” and adherence to logic instead of myth and folklore. But they also insist on talking of fetuses as non-human organisms, even as they concede both that fetuses in the womb possess viable — and marketable — human tissues and that developing babies at 22 weeks are now viable outside the womb.
For those who bandy about words like troglodyte, it is quite Neanderthal, in the scientific sense, to believe that a baby is not a living, viable organism until it emerges from the birth canal. For a movement that talks of caring and compassion, it is hard to write a script more cruel and callous than that of the Planned Parenthood talking heads referencing a Lamborghini or a “less crunchy” abortion technique or the macabre house of horrors of the abortionist and convicted murderer Dr. Gosnell. As for the supposed questionable ethics of catching Planned Parenthood with ruse and stealthy tape, no one seemed to object over secretly taping at a private gathering Mitt Romney’s unfortunate quip about the “47 percent,” much less did liberals object to four decades of 60 Minutes ambush-style, secret-video reporting.
The fed-up crowd is tired of racial hypocrisy. In the Trayvon Martin case, the president weighed in on the ongoing case in blatantly racist fashion by announcing the deceased might have looked like his own son, as the New York Times invented “white Hispanic” to lessen George’s Zimmerman’s ethnic fides (e.g., is Barack Obama, of similar half-minority lineage, a “white African-American”?) and as the media photo-shopped Zimmerman’s head wounds and selectively edited his taped 911 call.
Fantasy was thematic ad nauseam from the Duke lacrosse fiasco to the Michael Brown mythologies, the font of the “hands up, don’t shoot” lie that became a national slogan. But again, the hypocrisy is what irritates more — a Barack Obama siccing his administration after supposedly elite segregated neighborhoods as he sends his kids to Sidwell Friends.
The fed-up crowd expects that Paula Deen, the Duck Dynasty crowd, and Donald Sterling can become public enemies with a racist or insensitive word. But this is not so when a Harry Reid, Joe Biden, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Chris Rock, Jamie Foxx, Spike Lee, Al Sharpton, or Jesse Jackson mouths unequivocal racism. They assume that Jefferson can be rendered no more than a slave owner, but not liberal icon Woodrow Wilson who practiced 20th-century not 18th-century-style racism.
The fed-up crowd senses that if America continues its present regressive trajectory it will end up as a Greece, Detroit, or Chicago, without anywhere in America to flee to. It no doubt wants Trump to continue for a bit longer, as he struts about and shouts over why Hillary has a career when Gen. David Petraeus’s was ruined for roughly the same offenses, or cuts short an agenda-driven and biased Telemundo reporter as biased and agenda-driven. At some point the fed-ups will have vented and become fed up themselves with the circus-master Trump, who equates his own money-making with both virtue and wisdom. But we are not there yet quite yet.
To explain the inexplicable rise of Donald Trump is to calibrate the anger of a fed-up crowd that is enjoying the comeuppance of an elite that never pays for the ramifications of its own ideology. The elite media, whose trademark is fad and cant, writes off the fed-up crowd as naïve and susceptible to demagoguery as the contradictory and hypocritical Trump manipulates their anger. In fact, they probably got it backwards. Trump is a transitory vehicle of the fed-up crowd, a current expression of their distaste for both Democratic and Republican politics, but not an end in and of himself. The fed-up crowd is tired of being demagogued to death by progressives, who brag of “working across the aisle” and “bipartisanship” as they ram through agendas with executive orders, court decisions, and public ridicule. So the fed-ups want other conservative candidates to emulate Trump’s verve, energy, eagerness to speak the unspeakable, and no-holds barred Lee Atwater style — without otherwise being Trump.
Article printed from Works and Days: http://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson
URL to article: http://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/trump-and-the-fed-up-crowd/
URLs in this post:
[1] @unsavoryagents: https://twitter.com/unsavoryagents
[2] #LosAngeles: https://twitter.com/hashtag/LosAngeles?src=hash
[3] #SanctuaryCity: https://twitter.com/hashtag/SanctuaryCity?src=hash
[4] pic.twitter.com/4TtvwVWY5C: http://t.co/4TtvwVWY5C
[5] July 10, 2015: https://twitter.com/Rockprincess818/status/619538278962737152
[6] the racist eugenicist and promoter of abortion to curb minority populations: http://pjmedia.com/blog/we-shouldnt-be-surprised-at-planned-parenthoods-callous-inhumanity/
Copyright © 2015 Works and Days. All rights reserved.
I like Trump and I don’t think there is another conservative candidate who can emulate him. I really think he wants to make the country great again. Maybe he will not be able to do that and maybe Ann Coulter is right that America will end up as a third rate hellhole.
Obama would be ecstatic if the US turned into a third rate hellhole…he would feel that his fundamental transformation of this country is complete! Seriously..any person, and esp. one who is the President, who can say that there isn’t any such thing as American exceptionality doesn’t really care about this country. Obama worships himself and his ideology. I think Dennis Miller is correct when he says that the US has to hit absolute bottom before it can turn around. And we’ve still got a long way to go. BTW..I certainly prefer Trumps rhetoric to Romney’s performance .
VDH nails it again!
I promise you.! I have had it with the lesser of two evils even more so than with the pure evil, I hate a fake. I will not vote for anyone who does not convince me that he is as fed-up as the fed-up crowd. I have skipped elections before because there was no one on the ballot as fed-up as I am. This does not necessarily mean that I would vote for Donald Trump. There are other issues not mentioned in this blog where I find him on the side of the unrighteous.
When someone rebukes me with the comment “if you don’t vote you have no right to complain” I will respond with “what right do you have to vote in evil?
Better to lose in righteousness than to win in ignominy.
I hear your frustration William, but I would urge you to keep voting, It’s still your right and it will make a difference. Even the worst RINO might be better (marginally) than the most moderate Marxocrat. What we need to do as Fed-Ups is keep pressuring the GOP establishment and the Media to take our grievances seriously, and never give up hope that we can hold the line against the barbarian hordes.
Actually, the marginal “difference” between the two is do you want to “go’ quicker or slower.? Either way, we all get there. My personal taste, I’d like to “go” a bit “faster” so don’t have to endure the suffering. Like the true words of our former secretary of state “What difference does it make”? I’ve figured you’ve forgotten what happpened over the weekend. No ideas why Reps. continue to “accept” this trickery and deception from a bunch of thieves AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN. Now they will continue with the charade over the House w/ the bills by “vowing” not to go through with it, but wait until the rage “dies” down. It will pass. Do you know in six years, Pres. Obama, only vetoed 4 times w/ the majority of the time during the Republican controlled Congress?
I’m with you William! I switched to being an Independent in disgust over the Repubs. I’m backing Trump for now as is my wife. Our teenage sons like him, too. The Repubs have done nothing for me and much to me. To hell with them. My younger brother, a conservative Repub, skipped the last two elections. He was one of the reasons Romney the Rino lost, one of those four million.
Elections don’t work anymore. We are living under tyranny. Unfortunately, most of populace do not have courage to fight it and are succumbing to it. They may be fed-up but they aren’t doing much other than talk.
right on
Good points. It might be well for everyone to keep in mind that if the quieter masses in the United States ever get to a certain point of fear and disgust, they will not be uniquely immune to the Siren call of solutions offered by tyrants such as those who solved problems in near history in places such as 1930’s and 1940’s Germany, Russia, China, etc. Human nature will not change, freedom in chaos will still trade itself away for order, and power has yet to develop a fear of filling vacuums.
David, I certainly agree with you. I think it would go a long way toward confronting evil if the delegates to state party conventions would force the candidates seeking their endorsement to sign off on the party platform. George Bush admitted after he was nominated in Texas that he had not even read the platform. What nonsense.
Of course the delegates would have to show some backbone to override the national party. I am sick of the national parties. Its time for the states to take over the process. Uncommitted electors is the best answer yet. To my knowledge, no such slate has run since about 1960 in Louisiana. They didn’t win but is was a very satisfying vote anyway.
Now this is spot on! Exactly where I’m at. I don’t think Trump would make a good POTUS but I do think he is taking on the bullying and abuse we are subjected to every day. He’s saying what I’m thinking. Fyi, I think Cruz is about to go just as ballistic – just look at what he did on the senate floor on Friday. If he’s smart, he’ll take on the illegal immigration issue just as strongly as Trump.
Interesting analysis.
Of course, (I believe) the double standard that allows progressive’s to be wantonly nefarious is just the end result of Marcuse’s ‘Repressive Tolerance,’ the overturning of all values, commonly known as political correctness. Even those who do not understand the history of the ‘march through the institutions of the West’ still understand that political correctness is a double standard and is nefarious.
To me, the affinity for Trump is an expressive of this. One can hope it will rise to be a total rejection of repressive tolerance, but its really a matter of how deeply the poison is seated and how many are left to fight.
Corporations are quite happy to continue Repressive Tolerance, since it gives them large, easily manipulated, homogeneous markets. And since they own every politician (except those wealthy enough), we can only expect Trump to work against it in this election cycle. In that regard I see him as a potential American hero, one who can counter the poison of defeatism and apologetics that political correct browbeating has created amongst the previous greatness of this nation.
Perhaps I give him more credit than is due, but its another take at any rate.
Would it not be nice to see a president Trump declare: “I have a pen. And I don’t need a phone!” And then use the first week in office to executive order out every last thing Obama has done – Obama Care, Amnesty, militarize the border. And then the second week to open legal investigations into: Hillary Clinton, Lois Lerner, and a host more I cannot think of. And the third week to kill the IRS, introduce a new flat tax,… There is so much to do, so much time to do, all the while ignoring the Democrats, the lobbyists, and the media, saying ” I won the Presidency, now sit down and shut up!:” in truly Trump- style.
Better yet perhaps, just declare the Obama presidency a non event, and start the prosecution of the criminals he put in high positions, and low, first.
Excellent piece. You really hit the nail on the head, VDH. I wish there were more Republican pols like Trump and Cruz willing to speak up for conservatives and stop rolling over to the left, but this is what we have right now. Trump has given us a public voice again.
Donald Trump would be a terrible president but I admit enjoying his presence as a gadfly in the modern political arena much the same his fellow Athenians must have enjoyed Socrates jousting with the Poli establishment.
I really miss hearing the truth from our elected “leaders”.
Great article. Perhaps Dr Hanson could go on TV, conservative radio, and articulate these thoughts to a larger crowd.
The country needs you Dr Hanson. You’re the thinking person’s Donald Trump.
So, I’m curious to ask Joan how well she likes Trump’s positions, or does she just like the way he talks. I think that maybe she is like my Dad (New Yorker by birth), who really likes Trump, but wasn’t aware of the following: In 2000, Trump promoted single payer healthcare. In 1999, he supported abortion rights (but has changed his mind). In 1999 proposed a one-time 14% tax on all wealth to wipe out the National Debt (and again in 2015). In 2011 proposed legalizing all drugs to collect more tax revenue. Check it all on “on the issues dot com.”
Yes, he’s patriotic and supports a strong military. Most of this other conservative positions were taken up after previously professing the opposite. Did you know that he donated to Hillary in 2002, 05, 06, 07, plus over $100K to the Clinton Foundation?
I think if you listen carefully, Joan, there’s not a lot of depth to most of what he says, but there’s a lot of self-promotion about how great he is because he’s got a lot of money. Did you know that he inherited a $300M real estate fortune in NYC? Joan, I think either of us would be unbelievably wealthy if we inherited tons of NY real estate. I don’t think that makes him a saint or a statesman.
What is so remarkable about Victor’s writing is his detailed – nay, picky – slashing of his victims!.
References abound – indeed they make up a study in themselves!
When will you make it on national cable, Mr Hanson?
NBC or CBS taken an interest in you – or have they all determined you must be made ‘radioactive’??
Best Wishes,
J.Berger(retired lecturer in Americana and British Cultural history 1978-1992)
Hello Mr. Berger,
I grew up in Britain during the Thatcher years so I remember quite well the social and economic changes that took place at this time. I didn’t see the mass unemployment that the industrialized North experienced, as I lived in the West Country where the economy was more service oriented and linked to the Continent. I did see, however, a lot of social upheaval in terms of rioting, casual street violence in the pubs and football stands, and a general abuse of Britain’s extensive Welfare state. With free healthcare, free higher education, rent benefit, food benefit, clothing benefit and a dole system in which you could sign on indefinitely it’s really hard to imagine looking back what the proletariat had to be so angry about. If it hadn’t been for Maggie’s stalwart leadership, the Looney-Left would have ruined that country. You may recall that under the Labour party in 1976 Britain had been forced to take out an IMF loan just to avoid bankruptcy, and if it hadn’t been for North Sea oil revenues she may very well have gone down the tubes.
Your topic covers only fourteen years and seems quite narrow in scope; did you teach other areas of history?
I did teach the above discipline, but wanted to teach older students – those resembling college ‘input’.
When I discovered that older students became more fed up studying more advanced text-book material and explaining the subject matter to an increasingly uninterested ‘crowd’ I stopped teaching English – be it history, literature AND grammar.
Trump is popular because he appeals to disenfranchised Conservatives who increasing feel that they are not welcome in their own country, but illegal aliens are embraced. Conservatives are told that they need to be more loving of other people, but find that they are held in bitter contempt by the same people telling them to open their hearts. Meanwhile these liberals open their hearts to illegal aliens and Islamic Jihadists.
“…that developing babies at 22 months are now viable outside the womb.”
Think you meant “22 weeks,” Mr. Hanson?
Not sure where to Start! When you speak of the “fed-up” crowd, well, that is a very broad category! And, you bounce around several subjects of import. Very cute “tags” you use to “simplify” but very complex issues to do so. And, as a Profe – that you are – well, don’t show your Bulldog colors.
First, Trump is only about Trump. Always Has been always will be.(Scratch That Off!).
Second, Obama has deported more immigrants back to their country of origin than any other US President! Hello! (Second Scratch)
Third, Is there a “conservative base”? Numbers – based on GIS Data and Voter Reg info – points to a ” Dead” Base. (Always Research Prof.)
Fourth, we – the US – will Never end up as Greece. Never Ever. (Again, Check Your Data Prof.)
Fifth, you focus on the “anger of Trump supporters” but negate the Slow Simmer of “ethnics” who have been here prior to the “Rise of Trump”! Generations of what you call ” ethnics.”. For me, it was always a game…”What Are You?”. My response of “American” never seemed to suffice. Jeez, wonder why. “Pre-Trump”.
Lastly, you focus your article on politics. But, when you look at numbers, changing demographics, Voter registration data, and other data points…..Just Won’t Matter…. Rant all that you want but while you DO – ” The Fed-Up Crowd” – (please learn Spanish!) And, as California and the US….We will Survive! We always do….but now, we will be a Lighter Shade of Brown!!
A self-portrait——study it objectively, for the “entity meets itself.”
Whistle past the national graveyard, Heffie. You and your ilk ruined a once great state and Nation, and you are smugly happy about it. You so deserve to be pulled out of your car and beaten when the proverbial chickens come home to roost.
I really respect and enjoy VDH, and I think Donald Trump has woken up the fed up. This is VDH’s third article dismissing Trump. Even if his only success is waking up our other true conservative candidates, he will go down in history. I am appreciative of what Trump is doing and don’t dismiss him.
Who will be the next Lee Atwater for the middle-class Fed-Ups? Clearly, with Hillary’s campaign sputtering, the Democrats are vulnerable to a skillful warrior that can harness the Fed-Ups’ energy and angst to verbally hem and hew his opponents. Obama’s innate smugness and gross overreaching of Executive authority should be low hanging fruit to someone confident in their convictions and smart enough to deconstruct the Marxist radicals for everyone to see. And with the leadership vacuum left by Boehner and the rest of them, the conditions are ripe for a real opposition leader to emerge who can speak to middle America’s neglected interests. Maybe a Ted Cruz, a Scott Walker or a Rand Paul?
Let’s just hope this Achilles like figure isn’t a third-party spoiler named Donald Trump.
Dr. Hanson:
It’s somewhat disingenuous to describe Planned Parenthood’s actions as “selling” anything. Being reimbursed for the cost of shipping donated tissue to approved research institutes is not the same as “selling organs.”
What do people think happens to the placenta and umbilical cord that result from successful, viable live births? This material is either incinerated or donated for medical research. I prefer research. These are very disturbing and distasteful situations that the majority of non-medical professionals don’t care to think about: I certainly would rather not. (Full disclaimer: I’m not in the medical profession, but my wife has been for 40+ years, in positions ranging from surgical RN to Nurse Practitioner. My statements are based on her comments and observations over our 32 years of marriage.)
By the way, an amusing typo: “developing babies at 22 months are now viable outside the womb.” At 22 months these embryos outside the womb are called “toddlers.”
While I don’t always agree with your positions (but very often do agree), I commend you for raising our social and political discourse to a much higher level of civility and erudition than is often found.
There’s another guy whose not afraid to speak truth to power though on a far more low key, intelligent perspective based on years of exemplary legal experience and currently a very unpopular republican senator from Texas among the establishment republican leadership, namely Ted Cruz. Here’s a recent speech he made on the senate floor that exemplifies this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eu77aiLXTNQ
I am so sick and tired of politicians and media pundits telling me how great immigration (illegal and legal) is
When I hear about Americans being displaced by H 1-B visas and American Blacks are unable to find work It is heart breaking
It is basically “who are you going to believe me the media and politicians or your eyes?”
When that Illegal immigrant said to Ann Coulter “out of humanity can I hug you?’ I would have said NO!
Remember we had to paid for her education, housing, food stamps, health care. As far as I am concerned she stole that money. The money that was used to paid for all her free stuff came from a middle class family. As a result, the middle class family was left poorer. This is the reason that the middle class can not afford health and if a child becomes sick, the same family has to beg for money to care for their child.
No I would have never have hug that illegal immigrant, Hugging her would have been like the thief who stole my wallet saying Ann out of your humanity can I have a hug I would say NO I want my wallet back!
Donald would not make any better POTUS than the fellow we see in there now. His over reaches would probably be different but the disregard for the Law of The Land would be just as heinous.
Sure, many Americans are upset about the way our government is directing their nation. Of course, we lack a viable alternative to what we see now and envision for the future. The problem is not so much a problem with the people we have elected as with the people who elected them. If you don’t like the nations direction it might be time to hitch up your big boy pants and start working for government representatives that are:
1) Honest,
2) Men and women of provably good character.
3) Citizens who have the interests of the nation as their motivation to serve.
4) People who are not carrier politicians, with all the baggage that entails.
5) Individuals that you would not be afraid to leave your Kids and Grand-kids with for a weekend. Because that is exactly what you are doing when you pass on through, but leave a governmental of corruption, greed, and illegality to those who remain in the nation you left for them as your legacy.
I think there are too many typos in this editorial for it to be from VDH, but the points were better made than the proof reading.
“” Sino russian gas deal delayed indefinitely.””” From peoples daily. China is playing Putin for the tool that he is. China seizes Russia’s eastern territory in the next 15 years? Just how much land can a beaten down Russia defend without the West? Remember the WSJ article pointing to Saudi Arabia consuming all available oil exports by 2030. ” Made in China” will be receding, the world grows smaller, with regional trade dominating. Still rooting for the neurosurgeon to lead the country, with Cruz as Tonto. Debates in August— someone needs to call for ALL the voices to be heard in the debates. Have zero trust in the people giving the polls.
Perhaps we are facing the same type of crisis as existed in the time of the Civil War. The issue of slavery was not resolved by great orators and politicians, or by compromise and government action. The resolution required a fracture of the government and the country, and a massive and bloody loss of life. While predicting catastrophe always risks being nothing more than a cheap trick to inflate our egos, perhaps Trump truly does represent the coming need for an unforeseen massive discontinuity in our public life.
Victor Davis Hansen is one of the best commentators out there. Anyone who’s read his book “Mexifornia” knows he’s been paying attention to the illegal immigration issue longer than most. However I think even Victor Davis Hansen doesn’t get Trump. The support for Trump is more than a passing fad. Its going to be up to Trump to sustain it with actual policy ideas instead of just funny soundbites like make Mexico build a wall. We’ll find out if he’s up to the task. If he is, I think Trump will last a lot longer than all the pundits suspect. If not, hopefully another Republican will step up to the plate on this issue. Don’t trust Jeb on it that’s for sure.
Elections don’t work anymore. We are living under tyranny. Unfortunately, most of populace do not have courage to fight it and are succumbing to it. They may be fed-up but they aren’t doing much other than talk.
“It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.”
— Voltaire
Another Hansonian lightning bolt blasting the abject political discourse of our day! It appears that the current mode of debate involving the most powerful position on the face of the earth is unfettered hyperbole.
And if not that add muck-raking.
Looks like it’s deemed the only way to get the attention of a possibly confused and sleepy electorate. And why be surprised? Unfortunately, at this point we still cannot see anything worthy in the various candidates that would provide confidence to the American public as they evaluate who should get the new reins of power. This really is a poor bunch for the title POTUS. We wade in bad waters.
Mr. Hanson,
I think you, and other intellectuals are missing a huge fact. It’s not just about Trump moving in the republican polls……he is also moving in to the democrat voter bloc also. I have spoken with several young people who traditionally are low information voters that swing democrat, and they are “fed up” with having their candidate selected for them, just like republicans. They see Trump as a successful mogul that can “get things done”. Unless he bows out, I truly think he might sweep the election.
Addendum to my comment: Trump also has great name recognition among young people, and in their eyes he isn’t the typical “out of touch old white dude” that makes up the rest of the field.
Mr. Hanson,
I’m not sure if you read these comments, but I must say, these Trump articles sure do garner a lot of attention!
I like Trump, but not sure why other than that he is not politically correct. Things need to be said and our political discourse is lacking in real substance. Let’s hope he continues to forge the way and brings these verboten topics to the fore.
I also truly want a non-professional politician to lead the way. Professional politicians have given us a declining country with close to 20 trillion in national debt. Thanks but no thanks. We need to consider other avenues to fix this country as well, perhaps something Levin writes about in the Liberty Amendments. To avert this slide off the cliff we might need to try something really radical. Perhaps a Trump-inspired reboot will fit the bill.
I am glad to see VH recognizing the de facto implementaion of ‘nullification’ by democrats to ignore laws they find inconvienient to their aspirations. While they are busy villifying the confederate flag, progressives are following the very policies which led to the War Between The States to begin with.
“Only liberalism can take a reactionary Old Confederacy idea of federal nullification and turn it into a progressive fad.”
Indeed, because the Old Confederacy was politically Democrat through and through.
Their is one candidate who is like Trump in the sense that he is an outsider to the current political machine. He does not have the bluster of Trump. He does not have the stand in the public arena that Trump possesses. But he has great wisdom and something Trump will never have. Humility. Dr. Ben Carson. Watch him rise as Trump fades.
Trump is a human being and can change his stripes, may have already changed hi stripes, and perhaps can become a winning conservative leader. He is smart enough and has enough money to fund his campaign. Dr. Sowell, Horowitz, Mamet, Reagan and many others changed. The first two were socialists at one point in their lives. Lets quit trying to guess what Trump will do. Lets watch and see. What we do know is that many of his opponents are or will be impotent to change the tragic direction America is going. What we want is for a republican to win and we need economic leadership. So far I am not sure anyone but Trump, provided he stays conservative, can whip Hilliary in a debate or in the election.
Go to http://www.fedupwithdonaldtrump.com and vote to express your opinion.