Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

How Long Will Trump’s Cathartic Candidacy for Fed-Up Conservatives Last?
National Review ^ | August 12, 2015 | VICTOR DAVIS HANSON

Posted on 08/13/2015 6:40:24 PM PDT by Steelfish

How Long Will Trump’s Cathartic Candidacy for Fed-Up Conservatives Last?

by VICTOR DAVIS HANSON August 13, 2015 The coarser and cruder Donald Trump becomes, and the more ill-informed on the issues he sounds, the more he coasts in the polls. Apparently, a few of his targets must be regarded as unsympathetically as their defamer. Trump is rightly mocked for cynically spreading quid pro quo money around. But he quickly counters that his critics — from Hillary Clinton to his Republican rivals — have all asked him for such cash or for favors. Trump preps little. He has no real agenda.

And he makes stuff up as he goes along. For such a New York brawler, he has thin skin, smearing his critics, often in creepy fashion. How can a former Democrat, once a pro-choice, pro-amnesty liberal and a supporter of single-payer health care, remain the godhead of the conservative base for weeks on end? The answer is that Trump is a catharsis for 15 percent to 20 percent of the Republican electorate. They apparently like the broken china shop and appreciate the raging bull who runs amok in it. Politicians and the media are seen as corrupt and hypocritical, and the nihilistic Trump is a surrogate way of letting them take some heat for a change............

(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...


TOPICS: Politics
KEYWORDS: trump2016; vdh
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 121-138 next last
To: Free America52

VDH must not have listened to Trump tonight on Mark Levin

Levin gave Trump the courtesy of a fair interview focused on his position on various issues

Donald Trump is a hard working successful American businessman who is entitled to run for the USA presidency. The snob elite are showing themselves to be unworthy of being spokesman for the conservative cause by treating the man with such disdain. Get the issues out and let people decide.


21 posted on 08/13/2015 7:04:41 PM PDT by silverleaf (Age takes a toll: Please have exact change)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: tennmountainman

Was this the Levin show where he talks about Reagan?

I’m listening to it now.

On thing I caught Levin saying while talking about Reagan, he said :” He (Reagan) too would not take no for an answer.” In that statement by saying “too”, I knew he was referring to Trump.


22 posted on 08/13/2015 7:04:43 PM PDT by GilGil
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: Steelfish; GeronL

LOL “Cathartic” If Trump is Cathartic the other candidates must be dead and buried.

Steelfish, you’re hilarious.


23 posted on 08/13/2015 7:06:34 PM PDT by DannyTN
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: editor-surveyor

If what you’re saying is true and republicans disliked Trump, he wouldn’t be in first place.

The idiots the DC GOP Establishment supports are dead before they even start. Their collective goose is cooked. Look at their poll numbers! Jeb is in 5th place. So keep spreading this convenient falsehood. We’ll see if it helps you.


24 posted on 08/13/2015 7:06:38 PM PDT by o2bfree (It would save $Trillions if the GOP Establishment would just drop dead. :-)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: Steelfish
The coarser and cruder Donald Trump becomes, and the more ill-informed on the issues he sounds, the more he coasts in the polls.

How many "well-informed" candidates from both parties have made nice sounding campaign promises that they NEVER keep? Hint: Nearly ALL of them. I say we give someone a try that isn't caught up in lying to get elected to office.

25 posted on 08/13/2015 7:08:41 PM PDT by DouglasKC (I'm pro-choice when it comes to lion killing....)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Steelfish

Duplicate post


26 posted on 08/13/2015 7:08:57 PM PDT by ncalburt ( Amnesty-media out in full force)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: HerrBlucher

the nihilistic Trump

I have great respect for VDH but that was just idiotic. I have never seen VDH do a rant, and this one is a doozy.
_______________________________________________

Agreed. I was a fan of VDH until a few months ago when he showed a side that was too off-putting for me. I relegated him from must-read to case-by-case. Walter Williams fills the void nicely.


27 posted on 08/13/2015 7:11:58 PM PDT by sparklite2 (Voting is acting white.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: Steelfish

Is it now the fashion for people like Will and Hansen to write articles delineating Trump’s flaws?

Apparently.

What they need to be focusing on and blown away by is how popular this guy is and why.

He’s popular because we want someone to take no prisoners, tell it like he sees it.

We may not like the finer (?) points of his rhetoric, but he is saying what the people have been thinking and what they want to hear.

That would be a good topic for a thoughtful column, not this easy piling on of Trump.


28 posted on 08/13/2015 7:13:44 PM PDT by altura (Cruz for our country)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: silverleaf

Read the article by VDH and could not decide what his objective was. VDH has always been on the right (correct) side of issues, but here he does not make sense. Stick to classical history VDH, you make more sense.


29 posted on 08/13/2015 7:15:48 PM PDT by Fungi
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: GilGil

I can’t say for sure, as I tuned in about 5 minutes before the interview.
So, I did not hear the earlier parts of his show.


30 posted on 08/13/2015 7:16:47 PM PDT by tennmountainman ("Prophet Mountainman" Predicter Of All Things RINO...for a small pittance.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: HerrBlucher

“Nihilistic?” I think VDH meant “narcissistic.” Dude needs a thesaurus. And a therapist. And a pair of balls.


31 posted on 08/13/2015 7:16:54 PM PDT by 60Gunner (The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men. - Plato)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: altura

I have my concerns about Trump but one thing has struck me over the course of his very entertaining run thus far: he is reflexively pro-America. It just tumbles out like everything else. He’s not faking that. For all the potential disagreement I might have with the man on a variety of political points, that is a rare quality in a Presidential candidate these days. Unapologetically pro-America.


32 posted on 08/13/2015 7:17:15 PM PDT by RegulatorCountry
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies]

To: editor-surveyor

That may change but maybe not. His actual unfavorable is 48% and favorable 53% but I know what your saying. He hit a homer tonight on Levin.Let’s watch this.


33 posted on 08/13/2015 7:17:30 PM PDT by WENDLE (The server was destroyed after HRC was told not to by Congress!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: Raycpa

I know T is for Trump and the D is for Democrat, but what’s the S stand for? Shouting?


34 posted on 08/13/2015 7:17:48 PM PDT by 1010RD (First, Do No Harm)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: Steelfish

Cruz likes him. What else can I say?


35 posted on 08/13/2015 7:18:32 PM PDT by Karl Spooner
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: JSDude1; DannyTN

There is one real candidate here who is both very conservative and can will and has shown himself to be one. Ted Cruz.

The other is basically a buffoon playing the rest of us with empty platitudes and he has been all over the map on single-payer care; abortion, gay marriage and is weighted with strong negatives and an unbridgeable 15-point gender gap with women that will sink him faster than a rock.


36 posted on 08/13/2015 7:19:29 PM PDT by Steelfish
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: tennmountainman

Trump spoke in broad generalities and gave no specifics. We’ve got to fix things, but Trump is a say-whatever do-nothing.


37 posted on 08/13/2015 7:19:35 PM PDT by 1010RD (First, Do No Harm)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: onyx

Project we much?


38 posted on 08/13/2015 7:20:00 PM PDT by 1010RD (First, Do No Harm)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: editor-surveyor

He has even more negatives in national polls. This is a hot air balloon that will soon run out of its helium.


39 posted on 08/13/2015 7:21:33 PM PDT by Steelfish
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: o2bfree

Trump (D-NY) is a demagogue and speaks is broad generalizations. In a meeting with Democrat operatives looking to throw the election to their party a careful analysis was made of the most volatile members of the TEA Party movement. The GOPe was bushwhacked by TEA Party, but the Democrats always worried about the TEA Party. So they moved first.

What they found about the most Volatile TEA Partiers (and that’s what they called them) they had four push button issues all revolving around a 1950s nostalgia for American ‘greatness’. They are:

1. Immigration in general and specifically illegal immigration.

2. Red China and the ‘trade deficit’.

3. The military and specifically veterans with the VA and honoring them as a backdrop.

4. The coastal elites and their disdain for conservative values across a bevy of issues.

The Volatiles were looking for a brash champion to carry their cause forward. They want fighters, bombasts who take on the media and break through with tough words never backing down.

Thus was born the campaign of Trump (D-NY). Note bene that he hits on each of those issues with vague platitudes and is heroic in nature, brash to the point of tendentiousness and aggressive. Polling showed a candidate like that would peel off about 12-22% of the GOP electorate during the Primaries. More than enough even at the low end to kill off the most electable conservative candidates.


40 posted on 08/13/2015 7:21:34 PM PDT by 1010RD (First, Do No Harm)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 121-138 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson