Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 06:13 pm
This would be awkward for the Republican Party if they held consistent values, but since they don’t, they’re not feeling the sting from a know-nothing bigot who is polling first in the 2016 GOP presidential primary.
It’s Donald Trump, touting his power to buy the presidency as a rich celebrity, in an interview with the New York Times:
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“Expressing confidence that American voters do not care if he lacks specifics, Donald J. Trump says he has yet to fully exploit his personal advantages over his Republican presidential rivals — chiefly his enormous wealth and celebrity — and that both will matter more to his political fate than debate performances like his shaky one this week.
“Mr. Trump said in an interview that he was prepared to spend $100 million or more to become the Republican nominee and that most of it would go to galvanizing voter support in states with early nominating contests.
Remember when Republicans tried to accuse then sitting Senator Barack Obama of being a “celebrity”? LOL. They are getting that handed back to them on a big old plate of payback.
People (and by people, Trump is referring to Republican primary voters) don’t care about his policies; they just want to hear him be angry according to Trump.
“He said he did not give many specific answers at the debate because he believed that most people cared more about seeing his pugnacious leadership style than hearing detailed policy plans. He denied that he was unprepared for foreign policy questions, saying that he had received briefings from national security officials (whom he would not name), but that he preferred to speak in “broad strokes” about his views,” the New York Times reported.
Trump’s “views”, like his birtherism, his hatred of immigrants, his belief that Mexicans are all rapists, the nasty things he says about professional women with whom he is interacting… Yes, those views are the views that the Republican base loves to see on display.
Ironically, those views are also the carefully cultivated views that Republican establishment plants in their base in order to avoid discussing actual policies with them, so the horror of Trump’s popularity is simply the natural evolution of the Republican Party’s Southern Strategy. This is what it takes to sell a debunked economic policy that is designed specifically to benefit the top 2% at the expense of the very people whose votes they need.
Sarah Palin was a 2008 warning shot to Republicans to get it together, but they decided to blame her and carry on in deep denial, pretending all was well. Then in 2012 they took refuge in establishment pedigree with Mitt Romney, who hates half the country. But even he couldn’t sell the people the knife with which to stab themselves in the back. So now here they are, eight years later, caught between Donald Trump and Jeb Bush – or Sarah Palin with less knowledge of government (God help us all) and Mitt Romney with George W. Bush’s last name and the foreign policy posse to back up all that the Bush name stands for.
To make it rain trickle down, Trump will just have to keep insulting everyone but white, hetero Christian males and those who identify with them.
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Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.
Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
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