Why It's Hard for the GOP to Discredit Donald Trump

Why It's Hard for the GOP to Discredit Donald Trump

by Connor Friedersdorf at the Atlantic

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/07/6-reasons-why-its-hard-for-the-gop-to-discredit-donald-trump/398951/

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Yes, the comments were inane, offensive nonsense, as Matt Welch explains better than anyone. But Donald Trump has made headlines with inane nonsense for years, and his brash, offensive style seems to be part of his “I’m not a politician” appeal. He is succeeding among the part of his party that rallied around Michelle Bachmann and Herman Cain—and while GOP moderates will assert themselves eventually, as they did in 2012 by nominating Mitt Romney and in 2008 with John McCain, farcical candidacies are difficult for the GOP to avoid or end quickly because the party is averse to certain truths that would help inoculate it against demagogues.

Here are six of them:
1.When someone makes a lot of money in business that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’d make a good president or even a good steward of the economy.
2.Just because Rush Limbaugh and other talk radio hosts take a figure seriously it doesn’t mean that anyone else should. Trusted conservative entertainers frequently fail to warn their audiences away from obvious hucksters.
3.Mainstream media pundits and the Republican-Party establishment have their respective flaws, but that doesn’t mean that they’re always wrong and safely ignored. Sometimes their criticism of public figures is insightful and accurate. Their arguments should be weighed and grappled with, not reflexively dismissed.
4.At times, transgressing against political correctness is a sign of intellectual integrity and bravery. More often, it requires no courage and is undertaken as a cynical gambit to get money, fame, or power from a block of disaffected Americans. Lots of figures who court conservatives are opportunists of this sort.
5.The fact that a public figure drives the left crazy is not itself a good reason for conservatives to rally around them, no matter how emotionally satisfying some find it. Supporting a politician on that basis is shallow, irresponsible, and shameful.
6.Bombastic rhetoric is not a proxy for conservatism. Too many GOP voters don’t see that, treating very conservative politicians like Jon Huntsman as RINO traitors while mistaking Trump-like poseurs for champions.




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