To be more explicit, is Trump’s rise as the penultimate outsider due to Republicans selling the idea that everybody in government is evil and ineffective for the last 2 decades?
My opinion is yes, at least to a certain extent. Republicans have been selling the idea since at least Clinton (I) that Congress is no good, the government is corrupt, and that nothing ever gets done in Washington. They have run on this platform as long as I can remember; is it any wonder that people will look to someone like Trump to get something done? [Tongue in cheek]All those Tea Party jackasses we elected in the last 6 years haven’t been able to get anything done for us, right? [/Tongue in cheek]
Not exactly. Pitts’ contention is that the anti-Obama obstructionist tactic is the cause of the rise of the Trumpists. Pubs thought they’d discredit him; it seems they never considered they’d be discrediting themselves at least as much.
They’ve pretty much always sold that Dems are the devil, and that they are the salvation.
WTF? 
Do you know what “penultimate” means?
I think part of the problem was that in 2010, the GOP went past de-legitimizing Congress, Scientists, Democrats, the Press, Obama, etc. and even started doing it to themselves. Bush II had left the GOP’s reputation in such a mess that even Republicans felt they had to distance themselves from the party. So they did to themselves what they’d already done to basically every other institution.
Re-branding themselves as the “Tea Party”, the GOP then ran against the GOP itself, vaguely represented by some combination of moderate Republicans, “elites”, the party leadership, etc. And it worked pretty well. Since most of the actual GOP moderates had already lost their seats in the 2006 and 2008 Dem waves, there wasn’t that much to lose. And vilifying their own party managed to paradoxically net them a huge number of seats, at the cost of having a few of their own membership primaried.
Except it turns out that once you’ve painted everyone, even yourself, as part of some weird liberal conspiracy, its impossible to direct your base to do…well…anything. Any attempt to inform them about something they don’t want to hear is just going to get disregarded as part of the conspiracy. Especially since there will always be some demagogue willing to tell them what they do want to hear. First the House Freedom Cacus, than Ted Cruz and now Donald Trump.
Yes, Trump is a result of that tactic you describe. That tactic also happens to be truthful. If Americans were satisfied with their government, Clinton vs. Bush would have been the race by March at the latest. Instead, it’s Trump vs. probably Clinton, who has yet to clinch the nomination because nearly half of Democrats would rather have someone who isn’t even a Democrat. And the public thinks pretty much every established politician is dirt.
The problem is that Americans hate politicians but haven’t found a way to discern good outsiders from bad outsiders.
Nah. The problem is that “outsider” is, has always been, an attractive concept in American politics. But as soon as one gets elected they are by definition the “insider” and suddenly are no longer so attractive.
But yes of course the GOP created the opportunity for this monster and probably he is not even the next to last one.
Nate Silver put it fairly well the other day:
To flesh that out a bit - the “traditional” GOP won elections by selling “Cultural resentment! We got your cultural resentment right here!” and certainly delivered on that as best they could but the product they sold came bundled with other parts of the coalition conservative package. Trump is cultural resentment unbundled, a cord cutters dream.
I believe it means he has a gigantic shlong, which he’s already confirmed.
But that’s not outsider vs. conventional politicians, that’s just identity politics. The Republican party is going hard white instead of hard right. Oh I’m so clever, you can say it.
Your tense is wrong. You want the present perfect.
The party was accused of it, but was essentially a conservative party. Their motivation was ideological, with a cultural element of course, but not the overriding priority that it has become under Trump.
You can say that, but you can’t make others believe it. You’ve been here 13 years and it’s never worked once.
The Republican Party went hard right in Nixon’s time. Reagan doubled down on it with a deliberate attack campaign against “urban” areas. (I was there, working for a city government: I experienced it first hand.) The House and Senate depend on it. What actual policies have they developed over 40 years other than hatred of the Other? Under Republican presidents, the deficit grows and so does the size of the federal government. OK, you removed health and safety regulations and cut the budgets of agencies protecting the public. I’ll give you that one. But I don’t understand why you’re proud of it.
I think a big appeal of Trump is the fact that both parties have given the middle finger to people in the bottom 95% of the economic ladder. Trump claims (at least verbally) to be on their side. I think that is a big appeal. The contemporary GOP wants to support social conservatism while also supporting economic plutocracy. Trump provides the social conservatism while claiming to stand up for the economic interests of the masses.
Trump self funds his campaign, he speaks out about the economic impact that illegal immigration has on wages for the working class, he opposes the lobbyist system, etc. That stuff makes him appealing to many people. Trump was also the only GOP candidate who pledged not to cut social security, medicare or medicaid.
The rise of candidates like Trump and Sanders should (ideally) signal to leaders of both parties that they need to change course. Empty rhetoric followed up by plutocratic policy isn’t cutting it anymore.
Not after several drinks apparently.
I blame the tacit acceptance of birtherism and similar tactics, which were itself a part of the decades-long, unspoken alliance between the Republican party and xenophobes, low-grade white supremacists, and the like (including right-wing radio) – if Romney had eviscerated Trump for being a birther in the 2012 election (along with other Republican leaders), then Trump probably couldn’t have succeeded in the party (though, perhaps, he could have had a 3rd party run).
Trump supporters aren’t happy with the people they voted for while they were angry, so now they’re voting for someone while they’re furious and expect him to be better.
The people who stoked that anger, who said it was good and righteous, bear some responsibility for the state of their party. Not all, but some.
The truly shocking and frightening part is that by most polls, 30%-40% of the country is at least okay with xenophobia as expressed by Trump in this election cycle.
The fact that many of them can be only marginally hushed into silence (i.e. McCain telling crowd Obama is not a Muslim), but only to have them repeat it, unchallenged.
I don’t see it quite as xenophobia
America needs to be simpler, it needs to go back to when it was great and the best at everything. This now is way to complicated and even uncertain. Things were fine before.
Details?
I don’t think there are too many details. Trump relies mostly on sentiment, a belief things were once better for working people (though only through the prism of capitalism dominated media).