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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe GOP Isn’t Choosing a President. They Are Choosing a Rebel Leader.
The blue-collar white males who make up the GOP base are struggling more and more as business-friendly trickle-down economic policies continue to rob them of their economic securitybut their inherent distrust of government leads them to inherently reject reasonable liberal solutions in the fear that someone they dont like might get a handout with their tax dollars. Hardcore political Republican partisans are slowly realizing that they no longer hold a silent majority in the country if they ever did, that every passing year demographic change makes their electoral prospects increasingly difficult, and that only a combination of gerrymandering, small-state-favoritism and accidental geographic political self-selection allows them to hold on to control of the House and Senate for now. And conservatives of all stripes can feel the ground shift underneath them irrevocably as liberals continue to win battles on social issues even as unfiltered left-leaning economic populism becomes increasingly mainstream.
Unwilling and unable to moderate their positions, the Republican base has assumed a pose of irredentist defiance, an insurgent war against perceived liberal orthodoxy in which the loudest, most aggressive warrior becomes their favorite son. It is this insurgent stance that informs their hardline views on guns: many of them see a day coming when their nativist, secessionist political insurgency may become an active military insurgency, and they intend to be armed to the teeth in the event that they deem it necessary. The GOP electorate isnt choosing a potential president for 2016: theyre choosing a rebel leader. The Republican base doesnt intend to go down compromising. They intend to go down fighting.
Thats why Donald Trump is so popular. Thats why the Republican Partys brand is weak even among conservativesbecause its too extreme for everyone else, but not nearly extreme enough for them. And thats why every other Republican candidate is saying increasingly outrageous things just to get noticed. Under normal circumstances these sorts of statements would be a death knell for presidential candidates. But these are not normal times. The Republican Party is now locked into a cataclysmic cycle of increasing and self-reinforcing extremism. http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2015_07/the_gop_isnt_choosing_a_presid056769.php
tanyev
(42,677 posts)Motown_Johnny
(22,308 posts)...where they asked a follow up question about supporting someone who agrees with you or who you think can win.
Both in Iowa and in New Hampshire, (R) primary voters responded that they want someone who agrees with them more than they want someone who can win. That number was 67% for both states.
That is really why Trump is popular. They are not thinking about winning. They are just supporting a protest candidate.
This may be the final showdown between the mainstream Republicans and the Tea Party. There was bound to be one more fight for the party and if Trump wins the nomination the teabaggers win.
big_dog
(4,144 posts)Ed was right on MSNBC, I would watch out for him. He has had three bloody campaigns in Wisc. and it still leading in Iowa over Trump right now, don't sleep on the underdog coming through the rust belt /purple/swing state midwest...
aint_no_life_nowhere
(21,925 posts)I think they just know what they don't want. They hate the nuances of running a modern complex government. They hate intellectuals who might have ideas about running a country. They want a reality TV star or better yet a simple-minded WWE star who can win any contest by yelling "shut up" and throwing his weight around.. They'd love a Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho (if he just wasn't black).
https://vimeo.com/82074066