“Admit it, you just want your own dictator“:
this is certainly not the first time we’ve seen voters adopt a cultish reverence for a strong-willed presidential candidate without any perceptible deference to the foundational ideals of the country whose personal charisma was supposed to shatter obstacles standing in the way of making America great again. Many of the same people anxious about the authoritarian overtones of Trump’s appeal were unconcerned about the intense adulation that adoring crowds showered on Obama in 2008, though the spectacle featured similarly troubling signs—the iconography, the messianic messaging, and the implausible promises of government-produced comfort and safety. Just as President Trump fans will judge every person on how nice or mean they are to Trump, so too, those rooting against Obama were immediately branded unpatriotic or racist.
It’s frightening how many people support Trump or Hillary. Of course, they’re also the candidates with the biggest negatives, so that’s sort of encouraging.
[Update a few minutes later]
2016: The Democrats theme is totalitarianism. Not that totalitarianism is anything new to the Left, which is what the Democrats have essentially become.
[Update a few minutes later]
Related: Sad that it takes a Canadian to point out: “Don’t blame Trump; blame America“:
I agree Trump is ridiculous — but he is an illustration of a problem and not its cause. Trump is not the swamp: he is the creature emerging from it. For however ridiculous and appalling his candidacy may be, it is no worse and no more ridiculous and appalling than the whole pattern of American politics at this time.
Is his candidacy more lunatic than the idea of a third President Bush or a second President Clinton? More despairing than the idea of an America so bereft of political talent that two families supply the major pool?
Is he more manipulative than President “you can keep you doctor, you can keep you plan” Obama? Is he less venal or arrogant than Hillary “it’s my server and it’s my State Department” Clinton?
Is his candidacy less perplexing than parts of the Democratic party’s fixations? Is it less lunatic that the spectacle of a former governor, Martin O’Malley — one of the few Democrats wandering the no-man’s land of opposition to the Hillary machine — apologizing, more than once, for asserting out loud that “all lives matter”? The Democrats have drilled so deep into the factionalism and demagoguery of identity politics — sexual and ethnic — that any appeal to universalism, any echo of the greatest phrase in the Declaration of Independence — “all men are created equal” — is now toxic? Donald Trump may be annoying, but he has said or done nothing that equals the fatuousness of a system in which the claim that all lives matter is seen as a troubling deviancy?
[Via Ed Driscoll]
The founding fathers all saw this coming and put in firewalls to prevent the damage: a strong Congress, a strong Judiciary and the rights of the states to block centralized tyranny by electing senators through the state legislatures.
Oh wait, the Progressives took all of those away. If we get Trump as president, I will point out to Jim, et al. that it is their fault by sacrificing liberty for free stuff.
>Donald Trump may be annoying, but he has said or done nothing that equals the fatuousness of a system in which the claim that all lives matter is seen as a troubling deviancy?
I get the fear of a Trump Presidency, because he isn’t a conservative standard bearer, but a dictator? Really? I haven’t seen him propose anything illegal or even suggest doing extrajudicial things similar to those Obama has done.
My worry isn’t that he would go around congress but rather than he would be spectacularly effective at getting congress to go along with big government programs with bills that enrich through pork and favors. Paul Ryan looks to be just the kind of speaker a Trump would need.
And that last link is right to point out the damage to our system is done. We can all hope for a President like Cruz that would return us to a constrained government but the precedent is there for whomever should choose to emulate Obama. Hillary has openly promised to rule through dictate, not Trump.
Idealistically, I don’t want Republicans to rule like Democrats but Democrats do not have ethics. Regardless of who the next President is, it is apparent the next Democrat President will govern in the mold of Obama’s Imperial Presidency. Republicans always pull their punches and Democrats count on this and hit below the belt and bite ears.
I’m no fan of Ed. I think he is hurting the brand of Instapundit.
I don’t dislike him. He has longer posts but all the new people but Hoyt have longer posts. What bugs me is that they will post the same article like the cobloggers don’t read the blog.
Trump supporters want a president who won’t lie about immigration or amnesty. That doesn’t take a dictator.
Whether Trump lives up to his promises is another question. He can’t possibly live up to his talk on health care. On the border, he probably will get the border sealed, regardless whether we end up paying the cost. We know that most of the other candidates won’t.
This could have been avoided. It wasn’t.
Trump isn’t an idiot, and he’s not a Buzz Windrip. We could do a lot worse.