The Fearful and the Frustrated: Donald Trump’s nationalist coalition takes shape—for now
As readers of this blog well know, Donald Trump has been in the news of late. To make sense of Trump’;’s immigration appeal, I commend this New Yorker article by Evan Osnos, which looks at the radical white nationalist coalition that Trump is building. It is an incredibly thoughtful piece that includes such lines as this: “Trump takes an expansive view of reality.” The concluding paragraph brings home the political gravity of the situation:
Trump’s candidacy has already left a durable mark, expanding the discourse of hate such that, in the midst of his feuds and provocations, we barely even registered that Senator Ted Cruz had called the sitting President “the world’s leading financier of radical Islamic terrorism,” or that Senator Marco Rubio had redoubled his opposition to abortion in cases of rape, incest, or a mortal threat to the mother. Trump has bequeathed a concoction of celebrity, wealth, and alienation that is more potent than any we’ve seen before. If, as the Republican establishment hopes, the stargazers eventually defect, Trump will be left with the hardest core—the portion of the electorate that is drifting deeper into unreality, with no reconciliation in sight.
KJ