WASHINGTON – I’ve been waiting for someone on the Right to say something close to what’s deserved about Mr. Tim Pawlenty and finally someone has.
If the GOP wants to finish Trump, GOP candidates had better learn to speak to those anxieties – to offer a remedy more effectual than the snake-oil now being peddled by Tim Pawlenty. – How to Beat Trump
If Republicans want to stop the reelection of Pres. Obama they won’t do it with Tim Pawlenty.
Watching Lawrence O’Donnell’s take downs of Donald Trump, many obviously have validity on the substance issues like on privacy, but also Canada regarding our oil, not to mention that you just don’t wave a wand and our trade challenges are fixed. But he’s completely missing the moment Mr. Trump has grabbed and is filling. He has tapped into an emotional current through instinctually understanding the mood of a segment of conservative Americans and Independents, which I’ve been talking about since he surfaced. His role as the un-Obama, a man who speaks his mind, knows where he’s going and is sure about the direction, because he knows even if he’s wrong he can adapt and figure it out on the fly. He’s done it all his life. Many of Mr. Trump’s pronouncements sound ludicrous (though he’s smart enough to stay away from Ryan’s plan), but after the last two years conservatives only respond to political dog whistles that now come in an assorted variety.
One day after being named to a presidential task force to negotiate deficit reduction, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor fired off a stark warning to Democrats that the GOP “will not grant their request for a debt limit increase” without major spending cuts or budget process reforms. – GOP escalates demands on debt limit
There is something else Frum wrote:
America has not had a mass conversion to ideological libertarianism…. The GOP establishment has successfully directed those emotions against the Obama administration. But there’s no guarantee that the emotions will remain fixed in that direction – because after all, the establishment GOP is offering little or nothing to allay the discontents producing the anger. Conservatives like liberals have suffered unemployment, the loss of savings, the decline in housing values. Conservatives like liberals find themselves suddenly poorer for reasons they do not understand. Conservatives like liberals fear and dread that Medicare and Social Security will soon be cut to rescue the country’s finances.
Liberals and conservatives are pissed off and “lesser of two evils” no matter where it’s represented isn’t good enough for some anymore. There are still a multitude of two party voter drones who’ll never alter their voting habits, but there’s now other contingents who will no longer settle and when politicians don’t deliver they feel no loyalty.
Trump, the real estate mogul and reality TV star, has been putting out the types of feelers that usually signal a real candidacy rather than a publicity stunt. He is riding high in the polls on essentially the same customer-service-style political strategy that fellow entrepreneur Mitt Romney pursued, but a la Trump, stronger, bigger, crasser—and in a far more radical political environment, where the demand for an ultra-hard line on terrorism has been eclipsed by the niche demand for Birtherism, along with extreme policy positions that voters weren’t even obsessing about yet like virulent anti-Chinese protectionism and a policy to openly steal the Arab world’s oil. The Republican establishment has perceived this as a threat—believing that Trump will drag the entire Republican field into a world where they cannot be taken seriously by general election voters—and launched an all-out effort to tar him. But the truth is that their effort may be a lost cause, for reasons that are intrinsic to the success of Trump’s consumer-focused approach: This year, GOP voters’ hunger for radicalism is so great that it can be filled by essentially anybody. Kill off Trump’s candidacy and the demand will remain, leaving an opening for yet another demagogic charlatan to take his place.
Ronald Reagan’s legacy is already being fulfilled before the candidates are even officially announced. The GOP’s B-movie segment of the golden age of Hollywood replaced by the tin age of TV, complete with their own television reality show stars. Everyone else will have to wait until this battle is over and if there’s anything left at the end someone else can pick up the spoils if they’re not scattered to smithereens.
But as things stand now Donald Trump just as easily could be the last man standing on the GOP side, but if he isn’t you’re still likely to get crazy over establishment.
Taylor Marsh is a Washington based political analyst, writer and commentator on national politics, foreign policy, and women in power. A veteran national politics writer, Taylor’s been writing on the web since 1996. She has reported from the White House, been profiled in the Washington Post, The New Republic, and has been seen on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, CNN, MSNBC, Al Jazeera English and Al Jazeera Arabic, as well as on radio across the dial and on satellite, including the BBC. Marsh lives in the Washington, D.C. area. This column is cross posted from her blog.
Paul Szep art used by permission and any reproduction is prohibited.