“[T]he same blustering verbosity that has fueled Trump will inevitably be his downfall.”
No, it won’t. It really won’t. It should be his downfall, but it won’t. It won’t because Donald Trump is precisely the sort of candidate the Republican party has been evolving toward. Trump is the distillation of the modern Republican party perspective.
If you spend a quarter of a century telling members of your party (and anybody else who’ll listen) that government is always the problem and never the solution, you get Trump. If you convince your party that compromise equals failure, you get Trump. If you keep repeating that government should be run like a business, you get Trump. If you promote bluster and saber-rattling over diplomacy, you get Trump. If you equate financial success with leadership, you get Trump. If you frame personal selfishness as the hallmark of the free market, you get Trump. If you tell your party members that their economic problems are a result of illegal immigrants and lazy minorities, you get Trump. If you dismiss science and expertise in favor of fervent belief and loudly stated opinion, you get Trump. If you consistently stress that the value of a conservative is measured by how much he or she offends liberals, you get Trump.
If you cease to be a political party that’s genuinely interested in governance, you get Trump. And you get Palin. And you get Cruz and Gohmert. You get an entire political party firmly grounded in the immediate, reactive gut feelings of Joe the Plumber.
You get what you deserve.
So no, the ‘blustering verbosity’ of Trump won’t be his downfall. But if we’re very, very lucky, it’ll be the beginning of the downfall of the modern Republican party. If we’re lucky, eight more years of Democratic presidents will force Republicans to evolve back into a party of principled conservatives who are more interested in getting government to work than in posturing.
That’s what the American people deserve.
gregfallis.com 
Very well put, Greg. There is a reason for Trump’s “popularity” at the moment. You’ve put your finger on it.
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First, I’m loving my Donald Trump Trumpweb extension (except that I get the same Trump quote with every mention of his name within the same paragraph. Grrr…).
Second… one reason that I think he’ll last a while is that he probably won’t put a whole lot of money into his so-called candidacy. Since it’s all about publicity, and not about an actual run for the White House, I’m guessing that he doesn’t have a campaign staff per se. He might put out for the room rentals, but I suspect he’s spending as little as possible, and will, of course, claim it all as business expenses at the end of the year.
Third… since he clearly doesn’t care about what people think about him, he’s going to continue his jackassery for as long as it entertains himself. It matters little to him how others in the GOP clown car perceive him since, well, they’re all clowns themselves… what could they possible say to or about him that he can’t really throw back at them?
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Yeah, this is absolutely a win-win situation for him. He gets tons of free publicity, he gets tons of ego-stroking, and he gets tons of shallow political cred because he’ll be able to say he was once the leader in the race for the presidency.
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while there is a wait-and-see if the GOP will be “Silkwood” showered, the concern now is how other politicians in the world will subscribe to the crazy-talk to get the low-hanging votes. Sweden, the UK, France, and others, are already mining this stuff.
one thing about 8 more years of presidential dominance from the Democrats: 1. the mid-term wins by the GOP, if they continue, are used to “validate” that America wants the result of what you outline (cf. 2014), as it really takes very little to activate the cognitive dissonance at the fringe; 2. the (intellectual) corruption that it can bring to the Democrats can turn into a worry, which I think can also be fueled by Clinton-populated system — even if Hillary tries to avoid such a pitfall, the baggage that must brought into an administration can still be the ones to cause such a rot.
[ps] couldn’t post with Twitter… I try with WP login.
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Silkwood showered — brilliant.
I have very mixed feelings about a Hillary presidency. I suspect she’s both smarter and more ruthless than her husband, but I also think she’s actually more interested in ‘helping’ people than he was too. Of course, that’s ‘helping’ in a rather Methodist I-know-what’s-good-for-you sort of way.
Assuming she wins (which seems likely, regardless of how well Bernie is doing at the moment) I suspect she’ll be a more moderate Obama. Not at all what I want, but vastly preferable to any of the Republic fuckwits who are running.
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I’ve been at a loss to explain why this egomaniacal windbag keeps ending up at the top of the polls. I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. And done so with eloquence and humor, as usual.
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It’s the America id speaking — all untamed, barbaric yawp, but without any of Whitman’s love or poetry.
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I think all of you are a wee bit optimistic regarding Trump. Ross Perot started out much the same way, but shot himself in the foot with an off-color joke about rape. As much as I like much of what Trump says, I know the day is coming when his ego will fully step in and he’ll shoot himself in the foot, too, just like Perot did. Perhaps not in the same way, but with the same end result.
Oh, yeah. PS: Trump ain’t from Texas. Isn’t THAT refreshing?
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Here, here Greg! I’m all for eight more years of Democratic leadership in the White House (GO BERNIE SANDERS 2016)!!!!!!
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