Revenge of the Radical Middle

National rview ^ | 7/25/15 | MATTHEW CONTINETTI

[Amntn]

“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.

[Amntn]

Snip: 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.

[Amntn]

Please read the entire piece at the link.

[nascarnation]

I’m convinced the Dems are worried about Trump and have mobilized forces.

I was at a funeral yesterday in my home state of Ohio.
Three separate family members (idiot liberal union members) went out of their way to seek me out and offer up rants against Trump.

[Amntn]

I think the “elite” of both parties are afraid of him.

[Bringbackthedraft]

“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.” ................................ SAME TACTIC AS 92!!! And you wonder why Hillary is always smiling?

[Amntn]

Then maybe the GOPe should reconsider how they treat the base and candidates like Cruz.

[Steve_Seattle]

"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."

This comment (from the article) is a good example of the false stereotypes emanating from establishment Republicans and beltway conservatives. Many Freepers, for example, are VERY interested in TPP, have been following the Uber situation, and do not think that food stamps are bad per se, as a stop-gap emergency program, but that their increasingly widespread use is a sign of social and economic decline.

And our thoughts are not always "garbled", whereas the thoughts of mainstream Republicans and Democrats are often garbled and incoherent.

[Bringbackthedraft]

Too may Republicans are really Democrats in Republican clothing.

[Amntn]

You’re right.

I think this article says as much about the GOPe as anything.

[Amntn]

Yes and Trump his helping to point them out.

[right way right]

Just an example of the phenomenom that is going on...If Trump were to say tomorrow (purely fiction here) that he would nuke Iran and ISIS, his poll numbers would go up and the discussion in the media would follow.
This is working because of the outrage that follows and then the issue becomes a policy discussion and Ted Cruz gets his say.
Trumps stays in the fray with the media and does not apolgize. Next outrage please sir, can I have another.

Cruz 2016

[Amntn]

Exactly.

I honestly think Trump’s handling of the media is helping Cruz and even Paul.

It is definitely shining a light on just who the enemy is.