“The Trump era has often come wrapped in a cloak of self-protective irony”
The Trump era has often come wrapped in a cloak of self-protective irony. We have been asked to separate the man from his tweets, to believe that Trump doesn’t mean what he says, that he doesn’t intend to act on his beliefs, that he isn’t what he obviously is. Any divergence between word and reality […]continued…
“Spreading conspiracy theories once had a price — printing or even mimeographing a tract costs money — but now…, anyone can post a madcap theory or a doctored photograph virtually for free”
Democracies depend on buy-in; citizens need to believe in certain basics, starting with the legitimacy of elections. Trump both runs the government and runs it down. The electoral system, he asserts, can’t be trusted. Voter fraud is rampant. His contempt for institutions ranging from the courts (“slow and political”) to the Federal Communications Commission (“so […]continued…
“Trump’s assault on the premises of democracy is not only unique in modern American history but unique in the annals of modern liberal democracy”
Trump’s assault on the premises of democracy is not only unique in modern American history but unique in the annals of modern liberal democracy. No duly elected leader of any mature democratic state has gone on repeated public rants against his enemies, fed cries of “lock her up” directed at a political opponent, or routinely […]continued…
“‘Classified’ still conjures images of top-secret government plots, but, in Trump’s Washington, it’s more often used to describe information that the president would prefer to keep quiet”
Trump has been merciless toward anyone else in government who reveals his administration’s secrets, tweeting that ‘‘the real story that Congress, the F.B.I. and all others should be looking into is the leaking of Classified information.’’ This summer, after the former F.B.I. director James Comey produced what he said were unclassified personal notes on their […]continued…
“Mr. Bush left many voters on the right angry, resentful and suspicious — of war, of policy, of ideology, of the very idea of political solutions and leadership”
There is always some space between a party’s voters and its leaders, some difference between what the average supporter wants and what the elected representatives are willing to do. But by excusing Mr. Bush’s errors, Republicans radically expanded the trust deficit, creating a yawning gap between the party’s base and its elites, one that has […]continued…
“For evangelicals, voting in the macro is the moral thing to do, even if the candidate is morally flawed”
Does Mr. Trump have moral failings? Yes. Critics will suggest a hypocrisy coming from evangelical leaders who are quick to denounce the ethical failings of others who don’t have an “R” next to their name. But the goal of evangelicals has always been winning the larger battle over control of the culture, not to get […]continued…
“Republican voters…were attracted to shallow political entertainers and obviously unqualified candidates long before Mr. Trump threw his hat in the ring”
For years before Mr. Trump was elected, Republicans lacked a consensus plan to replace Obamacare, and their tax reform plans were vague. Republicans blew up the deficit under Mr. Bush before complaining about it under Mr. Obama, and the party has fought bitter internal battles over immigration for decades. Republican voters, meanwhile, were attracted to […]continued…
“In many ways, the [Republican] party’s hangups stem from its unwillingness to fully reckon with the Bush legacy”
It would be easy to simply blame the president for the party’s disarray. Donald Trump’s aversion to policy detail, his chaotic management style and his combustible personality have all contributed to the party’s failures this year. Yet it would also be a mistake to pin the party’s problems on Mr. Trump alone. He is not […]continued…
The Republican Party “became defined by what was left: its resentments and suspicions, its antagonisms and obsessions, its anger and its differences”
The focal point for much of the post-Bush right’s anger and resentment was the Tea Party, a decentralized movement that variously mixed genuine desire for limited government with white resentment and flare-ups of outright paranoia. It attracted hucksters and manipulators, in the media and in the activist sphere, and embraced a cast of unconventional and […]continued…
“Trump’s innovation is to have mined a deeper vein of cynicism, exhausting the weary tropes of polite political discourse”
…Trump is pivoting constantly. Or perhaps more accurately, the man is so erratic that he has no baseline of behavior against which to pivot. For instance, Trump seemed to change his mind last month on the war in Afghanistan, adopting a very Obama-like policy of deploying more troops into the country. While he once presented […]continued…