Missed A Chance There

InstaPundit on failures by elites to understand the right:
The Tea Party movement — which you also failed to understand, and thus mostly despised — was a bourgeois, well-mannered effort (remember how Tea Party protests left the Mall cleaner than before they arrived?) to fix America. It was treated with contempt, smeared as racist, and blocked by a bipartisan coalition of business-as-usual elites. So now you have Trump, who’s not so well-mannered, and his followers, who are not so well-mannered, and you don’t like it.

20 comments:

raven said...



Every time they pass a new rule or regulation, they piss off a bunch more people. You could start a revolution in this country just by organizing all the people who have to deal with the new gas cans.

Tom said...

That's not a bad idea, there, raven. Collect everyone ticked off about one silly regulation or another and you'd have quite a party.

raven said...

yeah, it goes on and on- every vocation, hobby, every area of our lives is getting micromanaged. Even the unicorn lickers will freely admit it, although they have absolutely no ability to connect the dots.
Stopped by an old friends to and she was extolling the new gov restrictions of opiate painkillers like it was just the greatest thing, after we were talking about pain-medical type things. And went on about how complicated the tax return is now and implied all those pages were because the tax prep people wanted it so they could charge a lot for preparing the return. See what I mean? No connection between cause and effect. It is mind-boggling how effective the propaganda-demoralization campaign has been.

Unknown said...

I think the elites have been caught flatfooted that the peons aren't rolling over as usual. The rabble even sent Rubio's head back in a box (to quote the Zblog). This election cycle isn't about vertical fractures between Rep and Dem, left and right, constitutionalist/judicial activist; this is a horizontal crack between the regular every day folks and those people who are insulated from the consequences of globalization, open borders, and other iffy policies of the managerial class.
So now you have blue collar Dems, middle class minorities, Indies, and wage earners, small business and tradesmen pushing back in the person of Donald J Trump. The idea that they are trashy is preposterous, BTW. They have been ready to jump ship for at least a decade, without anywhere to go. So, why now, why Trump? It takes money, honey. The billionaires, Davos caste, International Chamber of Commerce types aren't interested in funding the agenda for regular folks, or even in their well being, unless you are a well organized special interest. See Mancur Olsen for the explanation, re: special interests. I don't have an answer for the Constitution purists, but I wouldn't look to the International Chamber of Commerce or the Davos Caste to be your allies.

douglas said...

" The idea that they are trashy is preposterous, BTW."
Let's be honest, he also attracts the trashy quite readily, as he's one of their own. Just look into the comment section pretty much anywhere but here (or do yourself a favor and don't). Everyone else who's with him is either doing so in spite of his trashiness, or because they believe it serves them at this moment.

The irony of course was put quite well by Ace today, commenting on this same Instapundit post:
"Don't take this as any kind of endorsement of Trump from me -- Trump will lead us to an electoral disaster the very dimensions of which will perversely serve as a validation of the Establishment who actually caused the disaster.

That is, when Trump loses everything -- and all indications are that he will lose everything for us, the presidency, the Senate, the courts-- the well-read-but-stupid seneschals of the Establishment will rise back to prominence.

There's an old saying: If you take a shot at the king, you'd best not miss.

The current trajectory we're on -- taking a shot at the Establishment princelimgs with Trump, then getting blown out in the general and thereby confirming the alleged wisdom of the Capital Class -- would be a case of assassin's aiming at the king, but then all of their guns exploding in their own faces."

Eric Blair said...

Ace has gone 'round the bend, and dismissing Trump (especially if there are leftist-inspired riots at the Republican convention), is too premature.

Frankly, people like Ace are part of the problem. All talk, no action.

Gringo said...

A further comment on why the regulatory state can infuriate those it regulates: many of those enforcing the regulations are not the cream of the crop. As a result, it is not uncommon to see administrative action -often punitive action- stemming from a misreading of the regulation. The administrator rarely suffers any negative consequences from misreading the regulations, but John Q Public usually does.

douglas said...

Eric, just what problem is Ace part of?

I'll agree that I could be wrong along with Ace about Trump in the general, but there's precious little to hang hope on there. An awful lot of people support Trump, but I believe even more are quite against him, many even considering voting against their normal party preference because of it. That's not a formula for winning. Trump may be the only candidate possible who could lose to Hillary because his negatives are higher than hers. Or he could win, this year, who knows? But I don't think it's a mere irrational dismissal to suggest he's likely to lose the general.

Unknown said...

The administrator rarely suffers any negative consequences from misreading the regulations, but John Q Public usually does.

Anyone catch the head of ICE stammering through an explain for the failure to detain the 19 year old illegal with a record, who killed a 21 year old woman in OK, drunk drag racing. The reason offered is that the victim wasn't yet dead; rather, she was on life support so that her organs could be donated. It is all part and parcel of the recently released analysis of Obama administration statistics regarding the murder of Americans by illegals who were already charged with murder for previous crimes.

Gringo said...

A further point about administrators "misreading the regulations" is that as in the case that Edith Hook points out, this "misreading" could also come not from inability to correctly apply or interpret the regulations, but from ideological bias.

The IRS's dealing with the TEA Party organizations also comes to mind.

Grim said...

" The idea that they are trashy is preposterous, BTW."
Let's be honest, he also attracts the trashy quite readily, as he's one of their own.


There's an important distinction there. The treatment of Trump supporters who are blue-collar as "trash" is a bit of classist prejudice. Mostly they are very decent but poorer people who have been suffering.

On the other hand, as Douglas says, there is some trash including Trump himself. This can be seen in his general disrespect for women (and his particular disrespect for women who dare to disagree with him).

Unknown said...

" The idea that they are trashy is preposterous, BTW."
Let's be honest, he also attracts the trashy quite readily, as he's one of their own.

My point is that you can't have it both ways. You can't decry people who ice fish and buy jet skis as trash, and then turn around and expect them to vote for you. Yes, this is tongue in cheek, in any case I don't think the interests of working people are represented by either party.

Unknown said...

"Misreading regulations"

I read another take on this recently that suggested that they have tied themselves up into such knots that they can't respond or react appropriately, as though the feed back loops are broken.

Unknown said...

http://althouse.blogspot.com/2016/03/a-phrase-that-shocked-me-down-scale.html

I think this touches on some of the ideas that have been mentioned here. It is interesting juxtaposed against another article from the Cato Institute dismissing, I expect rightly so, Trumps economic proposals, especially tariffs. I acknowledge that globalism is probably inevitable and a net positive. I am not enthused over the cliche "a rising tide lifts all boats", even though I understand that we all benefit, at least indirectly. I was thinking trickle down as I read the article.
What gives me pause, is that despite a likelihood of greater material well being, the future looks bleak. I can't see a stable livelihood for myself or many others.(And yes, I know it was already a given by the 80s, that people may have to reinvent themselves more than once.) In fact, I don't see any point to all those middle class values without meaningful employment. Maybe, I am just a down scale white, who should die, already.

Texan99 said...

I'm not that interested in his claims to social status vel non. What worries me about him is that he's not a reliable conservative. If he were a reliable conservative I wouldn't mind if he were an arriviste, a hayseed, a boor, or any of the other things the GOPe sniffs at.

Unknown said...

Sorry, Tex. I'm not sure, if you are responding to my post, but, if you are, it's not about Trump's social status or about his bono fides; it's not even about about Trump. It is about the working Americans who have been left behind. It's about who has solutions for the bleakness of their futures, and about the obvious disdain in which they are held. The referenced Althouse post has actually generated a lot of activity; 160+ posts in a little over three hours.
If your post was not in response to mine, then please disregard.

Texan99 said...

I was mostly thinking about "he also attracts the trashy quite readily, as he's one of their own."

Grim said...

Some things you're running together strike me as distinct. I would make a category out of social markers like "hayseed, arriviste" and a second category out of things like "boor." The first has to do with how he presents himself or conceives of himself. The second has to do with whether or not he shows respect for others.

The first is a mark of class only in the sense of accidents of birth or habits of communication. The second is a mark also of character.

Unknown said...

I'll go along with BOOR, but I have wondered about it for some time. I suspect that he knows better and is perfectly capable of turning this on and off. Is it some sort of useful tool, something that makes rivals uncomfortable, off balance, and gives him some sort of edge. I have remarked before that he seems to have a knack for zeroing in on weakness. Just speculating and reminding you that we wouldn't be talking about him, if he was a gentleman.

Ymar Sakar said...

The problem with Democrats behind Trump isn't their class or their attitude. It's the fact that when the Leftist indoctrination mind control has affected you for generations, you aren't going to break out by voting Republican, especially not Trump Republican. It doesn't work like that.

All the problems in this country caused and funded and supported by Democrats, were never going to go away, no matter who they put on the US Throne, Trump included. The problem and the evil decay, was always in the people. No people, no problem.