Donald Trump and America’s Post-constitutional Politics

City Journal ^ | April 03, 2016 | Fred Siegel

[Hojczyk]

Leaving Trump’s incoherence aside, James Kalb, writing in Chronicles, was right to argue that “political correctness is a genuine threat to any tolerable way of life. . . . domination of public life by p.c. elites has thus made it impossible for ordinary people to assert their complaints publicly in an acceptable way,

so their objections can be shrugged off as the outbursts of ignorant bigots who will, in any event, soon become demographically irrelevant.” Writing in the Daily Beast, Tom Nichols notes that part of Trump’s success is that his fans love his refusal to be politically correct: “Trump’s staying power . . . is rooted in the fact that his supporters are not fighting for any particular political outcome, they are fighting back against a culture they think is trying to smother them into cowed silence.” The American Left is composed of academia, media, and cultural elites, who, for decades, have tried to act as the arbiters of acceptable public debate and shut down any political expression with which they disagree. “To understand Trump’s seemingly effortless seizure of the public spotlight,” Nicols continues,

“forget about programs, and instead zero in on the one complaint that seems to unite all of the disparate angry factions gravitating to him: political correctness.” Because liberals couldn’t stop attacking conservatives as “sexists, racists, and imbeciles,” Nichols maintains, “they paved the way for a jackass who embodies their worst fears.”

Emerging in the midst of a sluggish economy, the Trump phenomenon has been based on bravado, on the candidate’s willingness to identify the elephant in the room—whether illegal immigration, the underside of global trade, declining wages, Islamic terrorism, or political correctness.

Events—and Obama—have repeatedly placed pachyderms in the public square, but most politicians either avert their eyes or describe the elephants as diminutive mammals.

[Beagle8U]

“Because liberals couldn’t stop attacking conservatives as “sexists, racists, and imbeciles,” Nichols maintains, “they paved the way for a jackass who embodies their worst fears.” “

LOL!

[stephenjohnbanker]

S N O R E

[GrandJediMasterYoda]

I sure hope to hell Trump wins, health care is so incredibly messed up now it’s absolutely utterly insane. I just came back from the eye doctor as I had a case of iritis or inflamed iris. $200 freakin’ bucks for a tiny bottle of eye drops AND I got insurance BUT the insurance don’t pay for it AND they gave me a coupon for the eye drops BUT the pharmacy don’t take the coupon, oh yeah AND they don’t give you a prescription anymore on paper - at least not here in the liberal sewer hole of New York - everything has to be done electronically, so if you shop around for the best price they have to keep calling the eye doctor to send the prescription to the new pharmacy which takes FOREVER because you have to go through an answering service in India which puts you on an answering machine to leave your name and date of birth. I gave up. I know liberals are going through the same crap, do they HONESTLY want Hillary in who will make this whole situation a billion times worse?

[Lurkinanloomin]

America is post-Constitutional because all of our elected officials and all of our judiciary decided to ignore that Barry Soetoro/Barack Hussein Obama was not a natural born citizen.

Barry Soetoro/Barack Hussein Obama should be proof enough of the wisdom of the founders when they tried to prevent him from being President by requiring someone who could only be a US citizen and nothing else.
Born here of citizen parents.
Naturally a US citizen because there is no other possibility.
One cannot be anything else and also be a natural born citizen.

Obama told us he was born a British Subject.

Who believes Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Jay, Monroe, Madison, etc. would have found him to be a natural born citizen?

Usurpation Day, January 20, 2009, happened with the complete cooperation of both parties.
They want the Constitution changed without the hassle of amending the Constitution.
Confuse people about the clear meaning of a three word phrase and voila, every anchor baby and Winston Churchill is eligible.

The bench was the reason the GOP went along with the fig leaf resolution for McCain that was used by the Democrats as cover for Obama.
Jindal, Rubio, Haley and Cruz were all up and comers and the future of the party and ineligible.

[betty boop]

“political correctness is a genuine threat to any tolerable way of life. . . . domination of public life by p.c. elites has thus made it impossible for ordinary people to assert their complaints publicly in an acceptable way, so their objections can be shrugged off as the outbursts of ignorant bigots who will, in any event, soon become demographically irrelevant.”

To put it in a nutshell....

Thank you so very much, Hojczyk, for posting Fred Siegel's outstanding essay here. I found it a brilliant analysis of Trump's appeal to what I'd call the broad American middle. It is the sort of appeal that is unlikely to be replicated by or easily transferred to another candidate.

JMHO FWIW

[JimSEA]

Political correctness is a severe limitation on speech and thought. Politeness is a manner of relating with each other so we may have expectations of civil discourse even on controversial subjects. Political correctness dictates the outcome of discussions. Politeness ensures that discussions take place without disintegrating into violence or suppression. Politeness enables free speech.