Re Tucker Carlson’s article linked below it’s actually (IMO) a pretty succinct and cogent explanation of why GOP faithful are choosing Trump in droves. It’s an interesting “inside baseball” view by a conservative of the machinery at work in them making this choice.
You may disagree with his political orientation and premises but I think he has his finger on the pulse of why the movement toward Trump occurred.
Cogent? Try incoherent. He has a view that only willfully ignores what Trump is doing.
So indeed, Trump is wrong. and he is still wrong even if millions think he is right, because even more millions are not impressed by him.
Tucker is only seeing about 35% of the republican American voters as the real ones, it is indeed just a setup to a huge disappointment once the presidential contest starts.
Either Tucker Carlson is an idiot, or if he’s right and Trump truly has his finger on the pulse of the GOP faithful, then this country is in far worse shape than I ever imagined.
Whatever Trump’s personal beliefs may be, his bloviations are the worst kind of demagoguery designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator of ignorance and bigotry. Just another random example I came across last night, to add to the litany of Trumpisms:
“Don’t believe those phony numbers when you hear 4.9 and 5 percent unemployment. The number’s probably 28, 29, as high as 35. In fact, I even heard recently 42 percent.”
Anyone who actually believes that would have to be insane or have the awareness of a six-year-old. But for Trump, it’s just business as usual, no more outrageous than most of what he utters.
ETA: Actually, another possibility is that Carlson isn’t actually an idiot, but is doing the commercial media thing, whipping up fake sensationalism to sell audience share.
In fairness, said six year old would have to be included in the employment numbers in order for Trump’s statement to approach an honest one.
The pattern is established early in the piece:
Yeah, and apart from the incident with the interloper in the balcony box, Mrs. Lincoln found Our American Cousin to be an enjoyable play.
But in the GOP world, that six year old would be working and contributing to the family income.
Heard from who?
Actually very true! More than 60 million Americans are under 14, and 40 million of these unemployed bastards are less than 10 years old. Every single one of them, in my experience, is an unemployed bum living on handouts. As always, Trump really does have a point! 
You have to deconstruct Carlson just a bit to get his point.
IMO this is what Carlson said:
And while the specifics of Trump’s claims are often exaggerations (e.g. wolfpup’s employment cites above) there’s still a kind of truth there.
You don’t hear mainstream Rs saying the big problem in America is middle class unemployment and underemployment. You do hear Trump saying it via those BS stats of his. The hyped statistics include the all-but-stated: “…and that’s an emergency I will fix greatly. Unlike the mainstream Rs who think it’s just fine since it suppresses wages and increases profits.”
IOW Carlson’s point is (and IMO too) the essential contradiction of the economic middle-underclass backing the plutocrat party was bound to come to a head eventually. It seems that “eventually” is now and Trump is the Hercules pulling down the temple pillars.
When the economic system is going OK for those folks they can afford to indulge their socially conservative views, be they racial or religious views. Which they generally did from ~1960 to 2008. Now that they’re worried about affording a place to live or whether their kids will even have a job at all, much less one above minimum wage, well … their priorities shift.
Trump’s genius is one of timing. He identified the window of opportunity for a true populist true demagogue in the Peron, Tsipras, or maybe even the Mussolini tradition. And he’s giving it his all. Demagoguery comes easily to his personality and his skill set. Part of why it’s so effective is precisely that, unlike a lot of politicians, it’s not an unnatural act for him.
Carlson is saying the Rs are about to reap what they have so diligently sown these last 20+ years.
Sadly, so might we all be reaping what they so recklessly sowed.
I won’t weigh in on whether or not this is what Carlson is trying to say, but I will say that your analysis in itself is spot-on. The essential contradiction that you describe in your first paragraph is what I’ve been arguing in the several money-in-politics threads recently, and your characterization of Trump’s demagoguery is exactly right. Thank you. Great little cartoon pertinent to the subject.
You guys are way overthinking this. In the end, Trump is a con artist, simple as that.
And he’s benefiting from the political correctness of the media who won’t say what we all know deep down: His followers are just dupes. Fools. They may have some legitimate concerns, but Trump is just taking advantage of that.
I would not dismiss the Trump supporters that easily. I’m not a GOP fan but if I had to wade into a crowd of Hillary supporters or Trump supporters and choose 10 people at random in the respective crowds to build a house, run a business or get shit done generally I think I’d have better luck overall with Trump’s supporters vs Hillary supporters. Republicans are angry and getting angrier when they look at their choices, but they are not fools. Choosing Trump is an attitudinal choice, it’s an “anti-all you others” choice. They realize now how they have been handled and they are reacting.
Of course he is. But I don’t think most of us are overthinking it, it’s that it’s very valuable to regard him as a sort of diagnostic tool for what ails the US political system. Trump is like a beam of protons in the Large Hadron Collider – you watch what happens when it hits the target and you learn a lot about the makeup of the target by all the shit that spews out in all directions when it hits!
I think you mean Samson.
His power is in his hair . . .
Build a house, maybe. But I have a hard time seeing how anyone capable of running a business successfully could also be capable of supporting Trump.
That article basically says that Trump is getting votes because the voters think he’s telling the truth. And then he goes on to defend whatever Trump is saying.
I like this article better: Trump’s America by Charles Murray. It has a more detailed explanation of Trump voters and with more evidence to support its claims.
The short summary is that a lot of working class white voters are angry about economy. More white men are unemployed and unmarried and wages for working class white men haven’t gone up since the 1960s. These voters are angry and frustrated with the Republican establishment because of this, and Trump is feeding into their anger.
What’s interesting is that a lot of working class white men support Bernie Sanders for almost the same reasons. Both Trump and Sanders have tapped into anger about the economy and wage stagnation. And their supporters believe that each candidate is not afraid of telling the truth, while everyone else is being dishonest.
In short, this country has a sizable population of voters angry about the economy and politicians are exploiting their anger without offering any real solutions. Welcome to America.
I agree. I also think the exact same thing about the Bernie and his Bros.
Great analogy!
Sorry, but I pointed already at the foolishness Trump and his followers believe, it is not really bound to make America great but to make it fail.
The ones that know are the Republicans that are on the record of not supporting Trump (or Cruz) because they are aware of what what he told us now about what he will do if he gains power. I actually do think this will be like when Roosevelt allegedly told Black activists about “now you make me do it”, there will be a lot of things the extremist Republicans will expect to get from the deal of supporting and voting for Trump.
For all the ones that do think that what he is doing is a con, I have enough historical experience to know that you are really reckless if you don’t take into account what they report to believe now; as his positions have “[del]d[/del]evolved”. Thinking that we will get a different Trump once he becomes president is the true wishful thinking.
:rolleyes: Well, that ain’t very insightful, nor anything else but bullshit.
Trump isn’t handling them any better (albeit it differently). He’s implicitly mocking them by pushing their buttons to get a response. He’s an elaborate troll. Only fools feed the troll.