One word explains Donald Trump’s rise
Christopher Ingraham – The Washington Post
Donald Trump is now the 2016 GOP frontrunner…
All of which has observers scratching their heads and asking: what do people see in the guy?
A lot, as it turns out. On a recent trip to rural Upstate New York I was surprised by the intensity of support for Trump among friends and family members I talked to. In many cases, their support for Trump boiled down to a simple fact: they were angry.
Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Bluffton, S.C. on July 21, 2015. (AP)
Angry at Obama, angry at congressional leaders, and angry at the political establishment as a whole. And they’re not alone — surveys show that anger toward the government, particularly among Republicans, has been rising over the course of Obama’s two terms in office.
Trump Should Pull the Plug on His Bloviating Side Show
The Register’s editorial – The Des Moines Register
It’s time for Donald Trump to drop out of the race for president of the United States. People who run for public office typically perform a great public service, regardless of whether they win on Election Day….
And then there’s Trump.
In the five weeks since he announced his campaign to seek the GOP nomination for president, Trump has been more focused on promoting himself, and his brand, than in addressing the problems facing the nation….
That is problematic, because Trump, by every indication, seems wholly unqualified to sit in the White House. If he had not already disqualified himself through his attempts to demonize immigrants as rapists and drug dealers, he certainly did so by questioning the war record of John McCain, the Republican senator from Arizona.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., listens as Republican presidential candidate Lindsey Graham defends McCain’s military record on July 20, 2015 in New York. (AP)
Live By the Rant, Die By the Rant
Robert Schlesinger – US News and World Report
Trump made news on Saturday by declaring of 2008 GOP nominee John McCain – a prisoner of war for more than five years – that, “he’s not a war hero” and that “he is a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”
This drew immediate condemnation in some form or another from all respectable corners of the GOP and the conservative movement – much more and much faster than Trump’s dismissal of Mexicans as rapists and thugs….
And that brings us back to the broader lesson for the Republican Party. As I wrote a few weeks ago, Trump is a funhouse mirror caricature of the GOP (rich, white, bombastic, bigoted) but he’s also an unpleasant distillation of some of the right’s worst impulses…. Either way, Trump’s verbal diarrhea is bound to be his undoing.
Trump Is Defying Conventional Wisdom
Brian Joondeph – The Daily Caller
Conventional wisdom is that Trump’s short lived presidential candidacy is done. The New York Post pronounced on their front page, “Trump is toast…Don Voyage.” The Washington Examiner declared Trump’s “political suicide.” The Wall Street Journal predicted his “inevitable self-immolation.” And these are all conservative publications….
Starting with his controversial comments on illegal immigration, culminating in his criticism of McCain’s war record, he has finally crossed the line and can kiss his presidential aspirations goodbye. But could conventional wisdom be wrong?
… Americans distrust mass media. According to Gallup, only 40 percent of Americans are confident, “in the media’s ability report the news fully, accurately, and fairly.”….
The second reason is that much of the Washington DC political establishment is disconnected to the heartland of the country. Latte sipping, New York Times reading East Coast liberals have little in common with Iowa or Kansas voters…
