Trump knows what the Republican base has become even if mainstream punditry refuse to acknowledge it
As much as they’ve awakened to the threat that Trumpism poses to their party, Republicans and the conservative intelligentsia lack the self-awareness—or perhaps the temerity—to acknowledge that though they now resent it, they’ve been courting it all along.https://newrepublic.com/article/124632/gop-finally-emerging-trump-denialism
Trump hardly comes out of nowhere. There's really little about his ascent that is surprising at all if you've been paying attention to the direction of our politics in the last decade. I don't mean that I would have predicted he'd do this well. I didn't. What I mean is that the nature of his success, the effectiveness of his strategy and message, is entirely predictable. What Trump has done is taken the half-subterranean Republican script of the Obama years, turbocharge it and add a level of media savvy that Trump gained not only from The Apprentice but more from decades navigating and exploiting New York City's rich tabloid news culture. He's just taken the existing script, wrung out the wrinkles and internal contradictions and given it its full voice. There's very, very little that is new or unfamiliar in Trump's campaign beside taking the world of talk radio, conservative media and base Republican hijinx and pushing them to the center of the national political conversation. If you're surprised, it's because you haven't been paying attention.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/that-s-why-we-do-this
It is Trump who has set the pace. His talent for manipulating the darkest emotions of the conservative id, while minimizing specific policy commitments, has been on full display. In every public appearance, he emitted new, authoritarian-sounding warnings. “We’re going to have to do things that we never did before. And some people are going to be upset about it, but I think that now everybody is feeling that security is going to rule,” he vowed. “We’re going to have to look at the mosques. We’re going to have to look very, very carefully.” Every new sound bite set off a profitable fervor of media speculation, forcing other candidates to raise the bidding or be left behind. “It’s not about closing down mosques,” insisted Rubio, placing himself rhetorically to Trump’s right, “it’s about closing down anyplace — whether it’s a café, a diner, an internet site — anyplace where radicals are being inspired.”
The tea-party movement had initially fashioned itself as wildly anti-statist. Now its advocates have veered into wild authoritarianism. None of this requires intellectual justification in lizard-brain America, and Trump, for now, is the Lizard King.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/11/terrorism-in-the-age-of-trump.html#
= new reply since forum marked as read
and switching to obedience mode is a major part of the danger authoritarians pose. I am wondering these days if the figure MUST always be white and male, or even Christian, any more though. Look at Cain and Carson. Look at conservatives for Romney and Sanders. Look at those who would be glad to vote for Fiorina over Hillary. Of course, it's far more likely to be than not.
Trump's white, male, and at least declared Christian. All thought of the general makes me nervous because of what is at stake, but I'm starting to smile a bit at the thought that it could be Trump on stage with Hillary.
...they appeared to be caring, humane beings was in front of a crowd (that they knew didn't share their views)...or a TV camera.
Last edited Thu Nov 26, 2015, 04:29 PM - Edit history (1)
is emboldened and bubbling to the surface after a few decades of RW media getting rich spewing hate and propaganda and the Intertubes enabling bigots everywhere to assemble and organize much like ISIS.
What to do? 
I am so disgusted watching them hurl hatred against blacks, gays, women who want control over their bodies, all minorities, Asians, anyone who is not white, RR and a "true 'mercan."
