Ezra Klein: The rise of Donald Trump is a terrifying moment in American politics – Vox
Trump lives by the reality television trope that he’s not here to make friends. But the reason reality television villains always say they’re not there to make friends is because it sets them apart, makes them unpredictable and fun to watch. “I’m not here to make friends” is another way of saying, “I’m not bound by the social conventions of normal people.” The rest of us are here to make friends, and it makes us boring, gentle, kind.
This, more than his ideology, is why Trump genuinely scares me. There are places where I think his instincts are an improvement on the Republican field. He seems more dovish than neoconservatives like Marco Rubio, and less dismissive of the social safety net than libertarians like Rand Paul. But those candidates are checked by institutions and incentives that hold no sway over Trump; his temperament is so immature, his narcissism so clear, his political base so unique, his reactions so strange, that I honestly have no idea what he would do — or what he wouldn’t do.
From: The rise of Donald Trump is a terrifying moment in American politics – Vox
This overlaps strongly with why Trump freaks me out. He has no interest in conforming to any of the informal norms that govern political campaigns (or just politics broadly), and while some of those are pretty dippy, stuff like, “Don’t encourage or excuse your supporters when they kick someone’s ass,” and, “Don’t talk about how offing journalists is cool,” is actually kind of important, as is, “Don’t signal-boost neo-Nazis.”Report
Color me less than impressed by all the Trump histrionics. What social conventions exactly stopped the Bush administration from mistakenly invading a country, helping to destabilize an entire region, and ushering in an era of domestic surveillance and enhanced interrogation? And what social conventions stopped Obama from ordering extra-legal assassinations of U.S. citizens continuing and effectively bureaucratizing almost all of what Bush had started? More from Klein:
There is some truth here, but I cannot help but read this through the lens of Ezra Klein seeing the ultimate horror in the fact that Trump doesn’t seem to care much about what Klein thinks of him or his proposals. And that is really what is so frightening to so much of the beltway crowd; that some populist may come along who doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the ecosystem of pundits, lobbyists, and camp followers permanently inhabiting the banks of the Potomac.
What shame stops Hillary Clinton from evolving her positions in whatever direction the political wind is blowing and pandering to each and every group that she can? And what shame stops Ted Cruz from being… Ted Cruz?
For the record, I don’t like Trump. I think that good policy analysis has value and ought to be there to check populist instincts. However, as we saw in the FP piece about Hillary’s foreign policy network, that rosy vision of informed, objective public policy-making is mostly an illusion. It would be nice if Klein would acknowledge exactly why Trump and Sanders have so much popular support right now.Report
Nice post JR. “And that is really what is so frightening to so much of the beltway crowd; that some populist may come along who doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the ecosystem of pundits, lobbyists, and camp followers permanently inhabiting the banks of the Potomac..” I think this is exactly why you’re getting articles like this in the media, although I add that it seems the average politician has a lower amount of shame, or higher resistance to it, than the average person anyway. How else could they do / get away with the crap they do?
Maybe, just maybe, the “base” that is for Trump is tired of candidates beholden to and checked by “institutions and incentives that hold no sway over Trump” and want something other than the deep state and some change the status quo. Trump/Sanders “seem” to be the answer.Report