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Trump Is a Wake-Up Call--Even If He Fades
RealClearPolitics ^ | 10/24/2015 | Jonah Goldberg

Posted on 10/25/2015 8:34:02 AM PDT by iowamark

Most of the politically savvy people I know are still confident that Donald Trump will not be the Republican nominee for president.

Some are even dismissive...

Giuliani, Dean, and all the other outsiders who failed to close the deal were constrained by those rules and standards of politics I referred to earlier... They couldn’t flip-flop — often mid-sentence — the way Trump can with carefree abandon. If they hurled childish insults at opponents and critics, it would have cost them dearly.

Meanwhile, Trump keeps on a’Trumping, flouting those constraints. His unfavorable numbers have actually come down in the process. It’s a cliché to say he’s defying the laws of political gravity, but it’s true. He respects only the laws of entertainment gravity.

And those laws may ultimately prove his undoing. Eventually, his shtick could get old, even for his fans. There are signs that this is happening. But there are also signs that he’s improving as a candidate. His interviews are getting sharper and less manic. Earlier this month, reporters kept asking Trump what it would take for him to drop out of the race. It seems to me what they were really asking was, “When will things get back to normal?”

The hard truth: They just might not get back to normal.

Whether or not he gets the nomination, Trump should be seen as a wake-up call. His entirely cynical exploitation of immigration — Trump criticized Mitt Romney in 2012 for being too harsh on immigration — tapped into an entirely sincere dissatisfaction with the status quo. His brilliant leveraging of his celebrity for political gain reveals much about the calcified state of American politics. Trump may fade away, but the forces driving Trumpism are more enduring and must be taken seriously.

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


TOPICS: Editorial; Politics/Elections; US: Iowa
KEYWORDS: donaldtrump; elections; immigration; trump
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To: Cowboy Bob

“I don’t trust any author who tries to paint Trump as anti-immigrant”

If the nation does not shut the door on ALL immigration, the nation will cease to exist as we know it. There as has got to be a time out for assimilation.

There is no moral or historical imperative that ordains immigration. As Senator Sessions states, immigration is to help Americans only, and not immigrants.

I will never comprehend why the correct belief about immigration requires one to quickly profess purity on wanting more immigration, to insist on it.


21 posted on 10/25/2015 9:26:03 AM PDT by odawg
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To: iowamark

Dream on.


22 posted on 10/25/2015 9:27:01 AM PDT by Lopeover (2016 Election is about allegiance to the United States)
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To: AmusedBystander

Trump can appeal to legal immigrants including Asians by promoting heavily his plans for improving the small business climate in the USA with less taxes and government regulations. Highlight the legal immigrants who came here to make a success by honest hard work and diligence. Why cede the immigrants to the Rat party as if they own them by default? Break that chain. The case should be made more visible and clearly why legal immigrants would do much better under a President Trump.


23 posted on 10/25/2015 9:30:09 AM PDT by tflabo (Psalm 1)
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To: iowamark

“Eventually, his shtick could get old, even for his fans.”

I don’t support Trump because of his shtick. I support Trump because of the ISSUES he campaigns on. I don’t think I am alone in this. These pundits refuse to acknowledge that is a possibility.


24 posted on 10/25/2015 9:30:33 AM PDT by odawg
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To: iowamark

I am politically savvy an i think Goldberg is wrong
Freegards
LEX


25 posted on 10/25/2015 9:33:29 AM PDT by lexington minuteman 1775
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To: iowamark

Trump has made Jonah G. look like a cry baby.


26 posted on 10/25/2015 9:34:57 AM PDT by AdaGray
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To: AdaGray

Worse than that, Trump has caused Jonah Goldberg to expose himself as a fraud. Nothing but a chubby little establishment fraud.


27 posted on 10/25/2015 9:37:38 AM PDT by uncitizen (Trump: Saying what we are all thinking)
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To: odawg
Oh, I agree with you that immigration (legal) needs to be scaled back or even temporarily suspended. BUT, my point is that Trump has not said anything about immigration. I hate journalists who try to put words in people's mouths.
28 posted on 10/25/2015 9:38:10 AM PDT by Cowboy Bob (With Trump & Cruz, America can't lose!)
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To: Cowboy Bob

I know, I wasn’t necessarily aiming at you but at most, if not all, presidential candidates. I noticed that four years ago during the Republican presidential debates. They were all trying to jump higher that the next candidate professing allegiance and fealty to the sacrosanct idea of immigration. I mean, you were a racist, white supremacist jerk if you did not.


29 posted on 10/25/2015 9:45:23 AM PDT by odawg
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To: iowamark

These outsiders with Trump in the lead is the last chance for the ignored to attempt change within the system...whether many realize it or not...


30 posted on 10/25/2015 9:48:59 AM PDT by TalBlack (Evil doesn't have a day job...)
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To: iowamark

Jonah! You’re so full of crap your eyes are brown! I can’t wait to hear your lame, wimpy excuse Election Night, when Trump’s landslide victory is so OBVIOUS, that the election could be called before the Pacific Time Zone polls close.

Even sadder is that you feel you must LIE your butt off to prop up your point; e.g., saying, “...he changes positions in mid-sentence...”

Jonah, your Mom is an honorable lady, and raised you better. I think you’ve sold your soul to the GOPe.


31 posted on 10/25/2015 10:01:25 AM PDT by Tucker39 (Welcome to America! Now speak English; and keep to the right....In driving, in Faith, and politics.)
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To: tflabo
I think Trump has the best chance to beat the democrats. He will get votes from conservatives, democrats and independent voters. I hear union members talking about voting for Trump. Donald is appealing to the frustration that runs through every American who isn't a liberal douchebag.
32 posted on 10/25/2015 10:03:03 AM PDT by peeps36 (Save The Tortoise And Kill The People)
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To: vette6387

Yeah, with respect, that pundit is totally lacking in any kind of class. Stupid and bad use of language and imagery transcends political affiliation. REMEMBER IT, please, next time you’re tempted to basically do the linguistic equivalent of hawking a big gelatinous loogey in the middle of the kitchen floor.


33 posted on 10/25/2015 10:04:41 AM PDT by Finny (Voting "against" is a wish. Be ready to own what you vote for.)
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To: iowamark
It baffles me a little why the punditocracy is so baffled by Trump. After all, the one thing the fellow does is communicate his message. What is it about this that is so difficult to comprehend?

I am not especially enamored of the notion of another celebrity President after the one we have nearly finished enduring. The other side of that coin, however, is that his status in the entertainment industry has served to insulate Trump against the Dictatorship Of The Media, itself purblind to its own entertainment status and fully enamored of its superiority in political philosophy and vision. Point for Trump.

The punditocracy is itself blithely ignorant of its own entertainment industry dependency, similarly convinced of its own intellectual superiority despite a record of accuracy approaching an amateur weatherman on a high school television station. These are our nations movers and shakers, dontcha know. The Important People. Political trends and the very careers of politicians rise and fall at their lofty regard or disregard.

Only this one isn't. And that's what has them baffled, and I'm not sure there is much that can be done about it. Jonah is, for all his usual perspicacity, himself purblind to trends outside his well-ingrained set of political assumptions. And this one is.

And he is correct about one thing: somebody in the political establishment had better start paying attention, because we just might be coming for them too.

34 posted on 10/25/2015 10:20:47 AM PDT by Billthedrill
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To: AmusedBystander
I think it will be tougher to win the primary than the general. Trump will pickup a lot of crossover in the general.

I assume it's not coincidence that Trump keeps creating no-lose situations. Whether he wins or loses (primary or general) he will have accelerated the decline of the GOPee.

I'd concluded the GOP was beyond reform and was open to a serious third party. Trump represents my last shot at the GOP.

On a different note...it's good to see Goldberg crawled out from under his desk. The @sskicking administered by Sundance may have a beneficial affect.

35 posted on 10/25/2015 10:22:21 AM PDT by gogeo (If you are Tea Party, the GOPee does not want you.)
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To: RIghtwardHo

IMHO....These idiots have jobs because the outfits they work for need WORDS to print and to broadcast. So as long as they can put out some sort of high sounding riffs for publication at the required intervals, they have a gig.

They don’t even need to be correct. Their political position merely needs to align with that of their employer’s. Look at what abyssmal records 99% of pundits have in the positions they take.

Trump is a prime example. They’ve ALL been wrong about him. But their (left-leaning, anti-constitutional) opinions and desires are PC, so they are given a pass because their intentions were “good”.

It’s a beautiful thing./S


36 posted on 10/25/2015 10:37:49 AM PDT by Tucker39 (Welcome to America! Now speak English; and keep to the right....In driving, in Faith, and politics.)
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To: iowamark

Alternate headline: ‘Jonah Goldberg Tries to Stay Relevant’


37 posted on 10/25/2015 10:56:15 AM PDT by mbrfl (fightingmad)
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To: AmusedBystander

I understand your points BUT here’s another thought. Non mexican Hispanics will go Trump....more than 50%. The mexican Hispanics are concentrated in very blue states..Ca, IL and others but Trump wont carry those anyway. He will carry TX, FL and most of the east coast. He will get Ohio. Game.

I was at the Trump rally in Doral(Miami) and the crowd was at least 50% Hispanic.


38 posted on 10/25/2015 11:06:35 AM PDT by rrrod (just an old guy with a gun in his pocket.l)
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To: iowamark

The U.S. Left will heed no wake-up call. They are drunk on decadence. They are no more likely to come to sobriety than are those who are addicted to heroin, methamphetamine, and crack cocaine and have drugged themselves so long that they have permanent brain damage—though it’s unlikely that any of these people had normal central nervous systems to begin with.


39 posted on 10/25/2015 11:48:07 AM PDT by Savage Beast ("You can, in fact must, shout 'Fire!' in a crowded theater. It just has to be the truth." J.Goldberg)
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To: SE Mom

I used to like Jonah.


40 posted on 10/26/2015 9:39:58 AM PDT by petercooper (And I was born in the back seat of a Greyhound bus... Rollin' down Highway 41.)
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