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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe political scientist who saw Trump's rise coming
http://www.vox.com/2016/5/6/11598838/donald-trump-predictions-norm-ornstein<snip>
Andrew Prokop: Your main culprit for Trump's rise is the Republican Party, and Republican leaders specifically. Can you walk me through how you think the party got here?
Norm Ornstein: Back in 1978, when I first came to AEI, Tom Mann and I set up a series of small, off the record dinners with some new members of Congress. And one of them, Newt Gingrich, stood out right away. As a brand new member of the House, he had a full-blown theory of how Republicans could break out of their seemingly permanent minority, and build a majority.
And over the next 16 years, he put that plan into action. He delegitimized the Congress and the Democratic leadership, convincing people that they were arrogant and corrupt and that the process was so bad that anything would be better than this. He tribalized the political process. He went out and recruited the candidates, and gave them the language to use about how disgusting and despicable and horrible and immoral and unpatriotic the Democrats were. That swept in the Republican majority in 1994.
The problem is that all the people he recruited to come in really believed that shit. They all came in believing that Washington was a cesspool. So what followed has been a very deliberate attempt to blow up and delegitimize government, not just the president but the actions of government itself in Washington.
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The political scientist who saw Trump's rise coming (Original Post)
kentuck
May 2016
OP
That was in 2012. This Pat Buchanan adviser saw "Trump" coming was back in 1996.
pampango
May 2016
#5
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)1. Now I'm almost wondering why Sarah Palin didn't make it
further than she did...
Yeah, the Glen Rice story hurt her immensely in certain circles, but I thought her style was very similar and played well to the Donald's voter base...
NV Whino
(20,886 posts)3. Several reasons, I think
Among them: She didn't (doesn't) have the staying power. And, I think she is just plain not very bright.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)4. You can't underestimate the Glen Rice thing...
Especially among conservative men who were drawn in by Palin's sex appeal (although this is one of those things they'd never admit to themselves)... Once their little idealized goddess had the 'taint' of having been with a black man in a lusty one-night stand, the wheels came off...
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)7. Palin, unlike Trump, actually is dumber than a box of rocks.
Trump is doing an act, pandering to the morons. Sarah's stupidity is 100% genuine.
NV Whino
(20,886 posts)2. There's an interesting comment at the end.
Norm Ornstein: One thing I am sure of is that were gonna have a continuing dysfunction in government that makes it hard to do much.
Even if Clinton wins the presidency, and Democrats take the Senate and the House, many of those new House members will be from Republican districts that are likely to swing back in the midterm. Theyre gonna be running scared right from the beginning. Maybe youve got a couple of months to do some things that would be salutary. But nothing big.
What Im hoping will happen is that wed be able to get is a few things, though I think they're unlikely. Maybe you can get a fix in the Affordable Care Act that does some tradeoffs, some technical corrections that makes it work a little bit better. Maybe we can get a more ambitious infrastructure passage where there isnt a great ideological divide and actually do something to help the country in a 21st-century global economy. Maybe you could get some modest tax reform that would be a part of that. Im hoping before this that we get some criminal justice reform and mental illness reform, but if not, throw those things in.
That would be terrific. But I doubt youll do much on immigration or on any of the larger issues that we face.
And for the Republicans, in the aftermath of this election were gonna see a pitched battle across these different boundaries the anti-leadership populist base, the radical conservatives, and the establishment leadership. At the moment, I don't see anyone who can stitch them together. And I think itll be a while before that happens.
Even if Clinton wins the presidency, and Democrats take the Senate and the House, many of those new House members will be from Republican districts that are likely to swing back in the midterm. Theyre gonna be running scared right from the beginning. Maybe youve got a couple of months to do some things that would be salutary. But nothing big.
What Im hoping will happen is that wed be able to get is a few things, though I think they're unlikely. Maybe you can get a fix in the Affordable Care Act that does some tradeoffs, some technical corrections that makes it work a little bit better. Maybe we can get a more ambitious infrastructure passage where there isnt a great ideological divide and actually do something to help the country in a 21st-century global economy. Maybe you could get some modest tax reform that would be a part of that. Im hoping before this that we get some criminal justice reform and mental illness reform, but if not, throw those things in.
That would be terrific. But I doubt youll do much on immigration or on any of the larger issues that we face.
And for the Republicans, in the aftermath of this election were gonna see a pitched battle across these different boundaries the anti-leadership populist base, the radical conservatives, and the establishment leadership. At the moment, I don't see anyone who can stitch them together. And I think itll be a while before that happens.
pampango
(24,692 posts)5. That was in 2012. This Pat Buchanan adviser saw "Trump" coming was back in 1996.
How an obscure adviser to Pat Buchanan predicted the wild Trump campaign in 1996
Imagine giving this advice to a Republican presidential candidate: What if you stopped calling yourself a conservative and instead just promised to make America great again?
What if you dropped all this leftover 19th-century piety about the free market and promised to fight the elites who were selling out American jobs? What if you just stopped talking about reforming Medicare and Social Security and instead said that the elites were failing to deliver better health care at a reasonable price? What if, instead of vainly talking about restoring the place of religion in society something that appeals only to a narrow slice of Middle America you simply promised to restore the Middle American core the economic and cultural losers of globalization to their rightful place in America? What if you said you would restore them as the chief clients of the American state under your watch, being mindful of their interests when regulating the economy or negotiating trade deals?
That's pretty much the advice that columnist Samuel Francis gave to Pat Buchanan in a 1996 essay, "From Household to Nation," in Chronicles magazine. Samuel Francis was a paleo-conservative intellectual who died in 2005. Earlier in his career he helped Senator East of North Carolina oppose the Martin Luther King holiday. He wrote a white paper recommending the Reagan White House use its law enforcement powers to break up and harass left-wing groups. He was an intellectual disciple of James Burnham's political realism, and Francis' political analysis always had a residue of Burnham's Marxist sociology about it. He argued that the political right needed to stop playing defense the globalist left won the political and cultural war a long time ago and should instead adopt the insurgent strategy of communist intellectual Antonio Gramsci. Francis eventually turned into a something resembling an all-out white nationalist, penning his most racist material under a pen name. Buchanan didn't take Francis' advice in 1996, not entirely. But 20 years later, "From Household to Nation," reads like a political manifesto from which the Trump campaign springs.
To simplify Francis' theory: There are a number of Americans who are losers from a process of economic globalization that enriches a transnational global elite. These Middle Americans see jobs disappearing to Asia and increased competition from immigrants. Most of them feel threatened by cultural liberalism, at least the type that sees Middle Americans as loathsome white bigots. But they are also threatened by conservatives who would take away their Medicare, hand their Social Security earnings to fund-managers in Connecticut, and cut off their unemployment too.
http://theweek.com/articles/599577/how-obscure-adviser-pat-buchanan-predicted-wild-trump-campaign-1996
Imagine giving this advice to a Republican presidential candidate: What if you stopped calling yourself a conservative and instead just promised to make America great again?
What if you dropped all this leftover 19th-century piety about the free market and promised to fight the elites who were selling out American jobs? What if you just stopped talking about reforming Medicare and Social Security and instead said that the elites were failing to deliver better health care at a reasonable price? What if, instead of vainly talking about restoring the place of religion in society something that appeals only to a narrow slice of Middle America you simply promised to restore the Middle American core the economic and cultural losers of globalization to their rightful place in America? What if you said you would restore them as the chief clients of the American state under your watch, being mindful of their interests when regulating the economy or negotiating trade deals?
That's pretty much the advice that columnist Samuel Francis gave to Pat Buchanan in a 1996 essay, "From Household to Nation," in Chronicles magazine. Samuel Francis was a paleo-conservative intellectual who died in 2005. Earlier in his career he helped Senator East of North Carolina oppose the Martin Luther King holiday. He wrote a white paper recommending the Reagan White House use its law enforcement powers to break up and harass left-wing groups. He was an intellectual disciple of James Burnham's political realism, and Francis' political analysis always had a residue of Burnham's Marxist sociology about it. He argued that the political right needed to stop playing defense the globalist left won the political and cultural war a long time ago and should instead adopt the insurgent strategy of communist intellectual Antonio Gramsci. Francis eventually turned into a something resembling an all-out white nationalist, penning his most racist material under a pen name. Buchanan didn't take Francis' advice in 1996, not entirely. But 20 years later, "From Household to Nation," reads like a political manifesto from which the Trump campaign springs.
To simplify Francis' theory: There are a number of Americans who are losers from a process of economic globalization that enriches a transnational global elite. These Middle Americans see jobs disappearing to Asia and increased competition from immigrants. Most of them feel threatened by cultural liberalism, at least the type that sees Middle Americans as loathsome white bigots. But they are also threatened by conservatives who would take away their Medicare, hand their Social Security earnings to fund-managers in Connecticut, and cut off their unemployment too.
http://theweek.com/articles/599577/how-obscure-adviser-pat-buchanan-predicted-wild-trump-campaign-1996
bemildred
(90,061 posts)6. Lot's of people saw Trump coming. nt