Ezra Klein: The rise of Donald Trump is a terrifying moment in American politics – Vox

CK MacLeod

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3 Responses

  1. pillsy says:

    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

  2. j r says:

    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:

    Trump’s other gift — the one that gets less attention but is perhaps more important — is his complete lack of shame. It’s easy to underestimate how important shame is in American politics. But shame is our most powerful restraint on politicians who would find success through demagoguery. Most people feel shame when they’re exposed as liars, when they’re seen as uninformed, when their behavior is thought cruel, when respected figures in their party condemn their actions, when experts dismiss their proposals, when they are mocked and booed and protested.

    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

    • Damon in reply to j r says:

      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