Trump Marches On

I have given up almost all attempts to fully understand the Donald Trump phenomenon, much less how to deal with it to an acceptable outcome, so I have decided not to spend a lot more time in analysis, but rather to let events play out.  However, I have become pretty sure that, regardless of the outcome in November, the political process in this country has been permanently changed, not simply because of Trump, but because of the underlying shifts in the sentiments of the electorate that made a serious candidacy by someone like him possible.  And the change is not for the better; I do not see this ending well.  More later.

Meanwhile, National Review magazine has done yeoman work in assembling some insightful thinkers for their issue entitled “Stop Trump”.  Most of the submissions can be summarized by one of their headlines: “He poses a direct challenge to conservatism, because he embodies the empty promise of managerial leadership outside of politics”.  And Bill Kristol of The Weekly Standard had the best closing: “Isn’t Trumpism a two-bit Caesarism of a kind that American conservatives have always disdained?  Isn’t the task of conservatives today to stand athwart Trumpism yelling ‘stop’?”  Indeed.