Posted on 07/25/2015 2:09:21 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Two decades ago, in the spring of 1996, Newsweek magazine described a group of voters it called the “radical middle.” Formerly known as the Silent Majority, then the Reagan Democrats, these voters had supported Ross Perot in 1992, and were hoping the Texas billionaire would run again. Voters in the radical middle, Newsweek wrote, “see the traditional political system itself as the country’s chief problem.”
The radical middle is attracted to populists, outsiders, businessmen such as Perot and Lee Iacocca who have never held office, and to anyone, according to Newsweek, who is the “tribune of anti-insider discontent.” Newt Gingrich rallied the radical middle in 1994 — year of the Angry White Male — but his Republican Revolution sputtered to a halt after the government shut down over Medicare in 1995. Once more the radical middle had become estranged from the GOP. “If Perot gets in the race,” a Dole aide told Newsweek, “it will guarantee Clinton’s reelection.”
Well, here we are again, at the beginning of a presidential campaign in which the Republican Party, having lost its hold on the radical middle, is terrified of the electoral consequences. The supporters of Reagan and Perot, of Gingrich and Pat Buchanan, have found another aging billionaire in whom to place their fears and anxieties, their nostalgia and love of country, their disgust with the political and cultural elite, their trepidation at what our nation is becoming.
A brash showboat and celebrity, self-promoter and controversialist, silly and mocking, a caricature of a caricature, Donald Trump is no one’s idea of a serious presidential candidate. Which is exactly why the radical middle finds him refreshing. Not an iota of him is politically correct, he plays by no rules of comity or civility, he genuflects to no party or institution, he is unafraid of and antagonistic toward the media, and he challenges the conventional wisdom of both parties, which holds that there is no real cost to illegal immigration and to trade with China.
Trump’s foreign policy, such as it is, is like Perot’s, directed not toward Eurasia but our southern border. Unlike Perot, whose campaign emphasized the twin deficits of budget and trade, Trump has taken on illegal immigration from Mexico, fighting with both the identity politics left and the cheap labor right, with both Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush. Like Perot too he has seized the public imagination, masterfully exploiting the media’s craving for ratings and for negative portrayals of Republicans, turning CNN into TNN, the Trump News Network, the finest and most exclusive cable channel on air.
Trump would enjoy press coverage no matter what he ran on. But the fact that he has chosen, perhaps unwittingly, illegal immigration to be his cause makes the coverage all the more polarizing, visceral, contentious, spiteful. He dared say what no one of his wealth and prominence ever says — that illegal immigration is not limited to DREAMERs and laborers and aspirational Americans, that it is not always, as Jeb Bush put it, an “act of love,” that also traversing our southern border are criminals, rapists, and narcotics traffickers and human smugglers, displaced souls from illiberal cultures who carry with them not only dreams but nightmares, bad habits, and other costly baggage. That his poor phrasing was sickeningly confirmed in early July, when an illegal immigrant who had been deported several times shot Kathryn Steinle dead in broad daylight on a San Francisco pier, only strengthened Trump’s connection to the radical middle. So did the drug lord El Chapo’s escape from prison soon after Mexico received an extradition request from the United States.
It is immigration — its universally celebrated benefits and its barely acknowledged costs — that is the third rail of U.S. politics, with repercussions from the border to Eric Cantor’s district in 2014 to courtrooms and the Republican debate stage today. Trump didn’t step on the third rail; he embraced it, he won’t let go of it, and in so doing he’s become electric. Republicans, Democrats, journalists, corporations all want to define themselves against him, and their flaunting of their moral superiority only feeds the media monster, only makes Trump more attractive to the dispossessed, alienated, radical middle.
What Republicans are trying to figure out is not so much how to handle Trump as how to handle his supporters. Ignore or confront? Mock or treat seriously? Insult or persuade? The men and women in the uppermost ranks of the party, who have stood by Trump in the past as he gave them his endorsements and cash, are inclined to condescend to a large portion of the Republican base, to treat base voters’ concerns as unserious, nativist, racist, sexist, anachronistic, or nuts, to apologize for the “crazies” who fail to understand why America can build small cities in Iraq and Afghanistan but not a wall along the southern border, who do not have the education or skills or means to cope when factories move south or abroad, who stare incomprehensibly at the television screen when the media fail to see a “motive” for the Chattanooga shooting, who voted for Perot in ’92 and Buchanan in ’96 and Sarah Palin in ’08 and joined the Tea Party to fight death panels in ’09.
These voters don’t give a whit about corporate tax reform or TPP or the capital gains rate or the fate of Uber, they make a distinction between deserved benefits like Social Security and Medicare and undeserved ones like welfare and food stamps, their patriotism is real and nationalistic and skeptical of foreign entanglement, they wept on 9/11, they want America to be strong, dominant, confident, the America of their youth, their young adulthood, the America of 40 or 30 or even 20 years ago. They do not speak in the cadences or dialect of New York or Washington, their thoughts can be garbled, easily dismissed, or impugned, they are not members of a designated victim group and thus lack moral standing in the eyes of the media, but still they deserve as much attention and sympathy as any of our fellow citizens, still they vote.
What the radical middle has seen in recent years has not given them reason to be confident in our government, our political system, our legion of politicians clambering up the professional ladder office to office. Two inconclusive wars, a financial crisis, recession, and weak recovery, government failure from Katrina to the TSA to the launch of Obamacare to the federal background check system, an unelected and unaccountable managerial bureaucracy that targets grassroots organizations and makes law through diktat, race riots and Ebola and judicial overreach. And through it all, as constant as the northern star, a myopic drive on the part of leaders in both parties to enact a “comprehensive immigration reform” that would incentivize illegal immigration and increase legal immigration despite public opposition.
The Republican Party has had two historic midterm victories, only to see its gains at the ballot box overruled by presidential veto or decree, by infighting, by incompetence. When the salient GOP accomplishment of 2015 will be granting President Obama Trade Promotion Authority, when the leading Republican candidates for president are telling donors they will push for comprehensive immigration reform when in office, when those candidates seem more interested in following the lead of the press than caucus goers, when they so often fail to respond directly and forcefully to provocations domestic and foreign, when it is sometimes hard to determine what they believe in beyond their own ambition, how is it surprising that a not insignificant portion of the grassroots, along with some people who normally do not pay attention to politics, are supportive of or intrigued by the outspoken and entertaining Donald Trump?
That Trump is not a conservative, nor by any means a mainstream Republican, is not a minus but a plus to the radical middle. These voters are culturally right but economically left; they depend on the New Deal and parts of the Great Society, are estranged from the fiscal and monetary agendas of The Economist and Wall Street Journal. What they lack in free market bona fides they make up for in their romantic fantasy of the patriotic tycoon or general, the fixer, the Can-Do Man who will cut the baloney and Get Things Done. On social questions their views tend toward the moderate side — Perot was no social conservative, either. What unites them is opposition to elites in government, finance, culture, journalism; their search for a vehicle — whether it’s a political party or an outspoken publicity maven — that will displace the managers and technocrats and restore the America of old
Our political commentary is confused because it conceives of the Republican Party as a top-down entity. It’s not. There are two Republican parties, an elite party of the corporate upper crust and meritocratic winners that sits atop a mass party of whites without college degrees whose world-views and experiences and ambitions could not be more different from their social and economic betters. The former party enjoys the votes of the latter one, but those votes are not guaranteed. What so worries the GOP about Donald Trump is that he, like Ross Perot, has the resources and ego to rend the two parties apart. If history repeats itself, it will be because the Republican elite was so preoccupied with its own economic and ideological commitments that it failed to pay attention the needs and desires of millions of its voters. So the demagogue rises. The party splits. And the Clintons win.
Perot insisted on being an indy, which is different from Trump’s approach which appears to be to try to take the GOP by storm. Trump is more practical here. He could win this way although a lot of career Republican politicians would have their toes trampled on.
‘Radical middle’ is a comical phrase if you ask me. These are people mostly fed up with political double-talk and an executive form of government being mostly a lobbyist/special interest operating agency. You can find a quarter of all Democrats saying the same thing. Forty years ago....the news media could kill off the talk and just keep a minor topic. Now with the internet....there’s clarity to the discussion and open frustration with the way the system works.
I’m not saying that Trump is the guy for the job....but frankly, we’d probably like to fire half the senators (from both parties), and abolish IRS completely. We’d also like to establish some type of rule for a President to act Presidential and not be a regular on a weekly comedy show. The question would be....who fits the role
.......[BIG SNIP]........ before [Trump's] recent conversion, the views he expressed over the years would make him a mainstream Democrat. This is the great irony of the current moment in American political life: The man leading the primary of a party whose recent success owes largely to a shift rightward has never really been a Republican.
Trump described himself as “very liberal on health care” and was an advocate of a single-payer health insurance system, a view that puts him to the left of Barack Obama. He long considered himself “very pro-choice” and was in favor of drug legalization. Trump once called Mitt Romney’s self-deportation proposal “crazy” and “maniacal.” Trump said Obama’s $787 billion stimulus was “what we need” and added, “It looks like we have somebody that knows what he is doing finally in office.”
As those comments suggest, Trump didn’t think George W. Bush did a very good job in office. But he didn’t stop there. Trump said Bush was “evil.” Trump’s financial support for Democrats over the years has been well documented, with checks to Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton, and others. That’s no surprise, since he said in 2004, “I identify more as a Democrat.” He praised Nancy Pelosi as “the best” when she became speaker of the House in 2007. That same year, he said of a prospective Hillary Clinton in the White House: “I think Hillary would do a good job.”
To put it mildly, Trump is an uncomfortable fit in the Republican party. And that’s why he is unlikely to be there at the end of this process.
.....Trump’s political activism has its roots in the Reform party movement of the late 1990s. He flirted with a presidential bid in 1999 on the Reform party ticket. He has in recent days repeatedly declared his openness to running as an independent candidate in 2016....."
*****************
POLITICAL PARTY
Republican (Before 1999; 2009–11; 2012–present)
Reform Party (1999–2001)
Democratic (2001–09)
Independent (2011–12)
The rats have gone willingly to the socialist commie side and have over the years created a facist communist system within Americas capitolist system. It’s only survival depends on its host “us”. They have compromised the GOP side by subversion, entisement, threat and many have gone willingly hoping for some crumbs to be dropped thier way. The first order of business is the GOP the second is to push the protected minority who is making us believe they are the majority to the GOP position of crumb eaters.
The writer gets it wrong here. I would say the main constituency of "The Economist" and "The Wall Street Journal" are dependent on the ideology of the New Deal and Great Society.
That isn't enough to dismiss his entire idea--no one can be right 100% of the time. A lot of what he says is true. I do think Trump is playing the role Perot played 20+ years ago.
I am not on the Trump bandwagon, but I do think he is highlighting an important issue.
<rant>
Project much, Mr. Continetti?
More wishful thinking.
Are these people (Establishment insiders, the lamestream media, professional pundits) really so detached from reality that they can't see that the Trump phenomenon is real?
Their knee-jerk dismissive attitudes betray a profound anxiety. You can smell the fear and trepidation.
This is going to be a very entertaining election cycle, as more and more naysayers come to the realization that this anti-establishment furor is not going to wane. Indeed, as they continue to deride this national trend, they will only fuel the fire as the sentiment waxes stronger and stronger.
Hopefully, and regardless of who exactly will carry its banner, this movement will become a tsunami of epic proportions, with the potential to sweep away decades of overreaching and intrusive government, destructive domestic policy, balkanization of the population, and in general just a total disregard for the will of We the People.
I feel like there's something very special brewing, and Donald Trump's rise is just the tip of the iceberg, and merely a symptom of what lies beneath the surface of the electorate.
Nobody is perfect, but, hopefully, we will invoke a new era, where true statesmen fill the void left when the criminals, corporate cronies, demagogues, collectivist authoritarians and their ilk are swept away in a wave of patriotic, empowering, unifying national passion.
What a potential sea change is represented here at this time in history!
Yet it all stands on the edge of a knife. If not done sincerely and properly, there is an equal potential that a long age of unprecedented Tyranny will begin, an age under which our Republic will become an unrecognizable collectivist abomination.
Which will it be?
Let's all pray for the correct outcome.
Right now, I'm feeling very encouraged, but a few setbacks could neutralize what is building and destroy morale to the point that this trend fails.
I pray to God that the men and women who are taking their places on the stage of history at this moment will be wise, and play their roles as best they can, and not deviate from the script which is being written in the hearts of We the People, as we all become a captive audience to a phenomenon that is beyond the ken of any lone individual.
</rant>
You sound very much like you’re part of that ‘radical middle’.
He’s not talking about the “constituency” of The Economist or the WSJ, but the ownership and editorial leads of those publications.
Continetti is very much acknowledging the phenomenon as real.
The idea that the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal is anything but right wing is 100 percent wrong.
You obviously haven’t been reading it. I have for over forty years and Vermont Royster, Robert Bartley and Paul Gigot are not New Dealers.
From Wikipedia:
The Journal describes the history of its editorials:
They are united by the mantra “free markets and free people”, the principles, if you will, marked in the watershed year of 1776 by Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence and Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. So over the past century and into the next, the Journal stands for free trade and sound money; against confiscatory taxation and the ukases of kings and other collectivists; and for individual autonomy against dictators, bullies and even the tempers of momentary majorities. If these principles sound unexceptionable in theory, applying them to current issues is often unfashionable and controversial.[citation needed]
Its historical position was much the same. As former editor William H. Grimes wrote in 1951:
On our editorial page we make no pretense of walking down the middle of the road. Our comments and interpretations are made from a definite point of view. We believe in the individual, in his wisdom and his decency. We oppose all infringements on individual rights, whether they stem from attempts at private monopoly, labor union monopoly or from an overgrowing government. People will say we are conservative or even reactionary. We are not much interested in labels but if we were to choose one, we would say we are radical. Just as radical as the Christian doctrine.
That’s not a bad thing.
Yes he is. But what he thinks is “phenomenon” just might be more than that. WE gave them back the House in 2012 and in 2014 we gave them the Senate. They, GOPe, took this as a mandate to keep doing the quisling job they’ve been doing for decades. They were and are never more wrong.
We have so-called candidates on the GOP side now castigating Trump like he dropped a turd in their soup over an issue that ought to scare the living daylights of Americans that value their country’s sovereignty.
Kooks, crazies, showman, show boater, Democrat/Indy/Republican donated to all of them - bad, bad man...virtually every name in the book. Even [ooga booga] Tea Party! when in their minds, they’re thinking “tea baggers.”
McCain, Perry, Graham, Huckabee, BUSH, and the other establishment also-runs calling him and his supporters all the words they daren’t say about Hillary, or worse about Obama.
They sow the wind - they shall reap the whirlwind.
What the radical middle has seen in recent years has not given them reason to be confident in our government, our political system, our legion of politicians clambering up the professional ladder office to office. Two inconclusive wars, a financial crisis, recession, and weak recovery, government failure from Katrina to the TSA to the launch of ObamaCare to the federal background check system, an unelected and unaccountable managerial bureaucracy that targets grassroots organizations and makes law through diktat, race riots and Ebola and judicial overreach. And through it all, as constant as the northern star, a myopic drive on the part of leaders in both parties to enact a “comprehensive immigration reform” that would incentivize illegal immigration and increase legal immigration despite public opposition.
I see a lot of truth to the article as to the description of the disenchantment of the demographic, but I'm not sure that they are dumb enough ultimately to follow The Donald over the cliff. There are similarities to Perot, but Perot IIRC didn't just bluster with shifting incoherent bumper sticker pronouncements, he had charts. However, like Perot, he doesn't look like someone who could work with anyone. His pronouncements are like those of a would-be benevolent despot. "I'm going to be the best (fill in the blank) president and if you don't agree, you're fired!" Tyranny is still tyranny, whether by Obama or Trump.
The article's conclusion is that Trump, like Perot, will siphon off all the disenchanted conservative independent Tea Party types from voting GOP and hand Hillary the election. Could happen. Hope not. I don't care what he says he is. His record sure looks more like a self-absorbed Democrat of convenience.
Trump is an imperfect vessel even on his signature issue. This week he came out for amnesty for the 30 million illegals here presently who aren’t otherwise clear criminals. He, like Cruz, may not favor citizenship for them, but citizenship is sure to follow legalization.
My thinking is that with all these other candidates who have declared for the presidency — http://www.fec.gov/press/resources/2016presidential_form2nm.shtml — there must be one Republican who isn’t for amnesty.
Maybe we could find him (or her) and give his race a boost?
Even as an imperfect vessel as you say, bringing the issue of “illegals” to the stage as a group, those people always obfuscated under “undocumented or immigrant” is still a good thing.
I actually don’t intend to vote for him, but I won’t condemn him like supporters of the others, officially declared or not. If they have a better position, then they can precisely articulate it and stop hiding behind the twisted meanings of words like Amnesty, Pathway, etc.
The potential for citizenship-from-legalization is a very real possibility, especially when that legalization isn’t defined in terms of existing laws and actions of precedent, e.g, temporary worker visas, guest-worker programs, etc.
“.... However, like Perot, he doesn’t look like someone who could work with anyone. His pronouncements are like those of a would-be benevolent despot. “I’m going to be the best (fill in the blank) president and if you don’t agree, you’re fired!” Tyranny is still tyranny, whether by Obama or Trump...”
That’s it in a nutshell.
There cannot be government of The Donald.
I see what you both are saying....perhaps I did confuse the Wall Street Journal readers with the ideological writers on its board.
Thanks.
I’m not surprised that this scribbler can’t see the big, smelly Frankenstein monster in the room, mainly the establishment of an illegal, crony capitalist, fascist rule by the executive branch and its tacit approval by a bunch of scared rabbits in the legislature.
The executive is writing laws via the unelected, unaccountable bureaucracy, which is a primary tenet of any dictatorship. That’s illegal and needs to be stopped now.
Perhaps this idiot scribbler should read our Declaration of Independence to understand what is happening and see the storm that is gathering.
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