- Joined
- Feb 12, 2013
- Messages
- 160,900
- Reaction score
- 57,844
- Gender
- Undisclosed
- Political Leaning
- Centrist
THe true genius of Trump is convincing those who say they are self-reliant and free that they need a strongman. What has become of Conservatism?
Trump is the Right's Messiah. And, that is, simply put, a damned shame.
I read Trump’s draft acceptance speech a couple of hours ago. It’s a remarkable piece of oratory, cannily crafted, framed by massive lies and distortions, crammed with incoherence, and yet, I’m afraid to say, scarily potent. It invents a reality – that the U.S. is in a state of chaos, lawlessness and soaring crime; that the world is careening toward catastrophe – and then makes a classic argument for a strongman to set things straight.
This is a very new departure for politics in a liberal democracy. We’ve never heard an appeal from a major party platform to junk traditional democratic norms, and cede power to a new tyrant...
The speech is entirely about fear, to be somehow vanquished by a single man’s will to power. Its core message is what America was founded to resist. Its success would be an abolition of the core promise of this country for two centuries – that self-government is incompatible with the rule by the whims and prejudices and impulses of a man on a white horse.
Andrew Sullivan Liveblogs the RNC, Night 4
Trump is the Right's Messiah. And, that is, simply put, a damned shame.