Monday, February 29, 2016

Anti-Trumpism

I suppose Trump's explicit racism as opposed to the usual dog-whistle kind might make them worry about the GOP brand a bit, but otherwise the general Republican bigwig and establishment journalism (except for cable news) opposition to Trump has little to do with Trump himself or his policies. It's that DC is an interconnected web of journalism, think tanks, donors, various party "insiders," low, middle, and high level staffers, lobbyists, the military-industrial and security state complexes, etc. Most of those people know they can leverage what connections they have under the other candidates, because they're all, to varying degrees, a part of the same web. But Trump isn't. Even "outsider" candidates usually have to kiss the pinky rings of those who are, or imagine they are, "insiders," but not Trump. Statements like "The Republican Party is imploding" don't (or shouldn't) mean that Trump is destroying the electoral chances of Republicans, it means he's potentially breaking that web.