Paul Krugman- The Village, the Base, and Saint John

So, over the weekend we were told that our pass the popcorn moment — I mean, our long national nightmare — was over: Donald Trump would implode now that he had dared to question John McCain’s heroism.

But lo and behold, he’s still hanging on to front-runner status for the Republican nomination. How is that possible?

The short answer, surely, is that the inside-the-Beltway crowd — not for the first time — confused its own perceptions with those of actual voters.

Inside the Village, McCain is a sacred figure; he is still, after all these years of being a conventional ideologue, perceived as being McCain the Maverick; he is still seen as a wise man on national security despite his warmongering; he’s virtually a constant presence on the Sunday talk shows. So the villagers expected everyone to recoil in horror when Trump ridiculed his war record — you’re only supposed to do that to Democrats.

But the Republican base really doesn’t care very much. Whatever they may say, its members don’t really care about military heroism — it’s not just the treatment of John Kerry, think about how little they seemed to care when we finally did get Osama. And they really, really don’t care about some old guy who lost an election.

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http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/23/the-village-the-base-and-saint-john/?smid=re-share&_r=0