Of the recent debates, Peggy Noonan writes in her column in the WSJ that she realized she was witnessing something grave, something historic. “Something important is ending. … What is happening now is bigger and less remediable in part because the battles in the past were over conservatism, an actual political philosophy. … It is hard to believe what replaces it will be better.”
This column has been pretty devoted the past nine months to everything that gave rise to this moment, to Mr. Trump. His supporters disrespect the system—fair enough, it’s earned disrespect. They see Washington dysfunction and want to break through it—fair enough. In a world of thugs, they say, he will be our thug. Politics is a freak show? He’s our freak. They know they’re lowering standards by giving the top political job in America to a man who never held office. But they feel Washington lowered all standards first. They hate political correctness—there is no one in the country the past quarter-century who has not been embarrassed or humiliated for using the wrong word or concept or having the wrong thought—and see his rudeness as proof he hates PC too.
He is a divider of the Republican Party and yet an enlarger of the tent. His candidacy is contributing to record turnouts in primary after primary, and surely bringing in Democrats and independents. But it should concern his supporters that his brain appears to be a grab bag of impulses, and although he has many views and opinions he doesn’t seem to know anything about public policy or the way the White House or the government actually works.
Someone compared Donald Trump to the Kim Kardashian of politics. There’s a lot of glitz, glamour and outrageous stunts—all emotion with little thought. One of Trump’s supporters admitted to Ms. Noonan that he knows that Trump is a “junkyard dog.” And Trump’s supporters, unfortunately, think his character is equal to the moment. Read more from Peggy Noonan here.
Related: Trump responds to Romney’s attack
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