Thomas Donlan‘s editorial commentary in the latest issue of Barron’s labels Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump’s core constituency “losers.”
Out of 60 million eligible voters in 15 states, about 3.3 million Americans cast ballots for Donald Trump. That makes him the presumptive winner of this ridiculous Republican contest. Whose fault is this? Blame his voters.
On many issues that Republicans say rule their loyalties, Trump holds or has held an opposite opinion. Trump is an archetypal RINO (Republican in name only), and yet many Republicans who have used the term loosely to attack other politicians brush away his misalliances and miscues.
Their remarkable failure has been to ignore his manifest character flaws. They’ve been called values voters, but now they value only victory. Many Republicans profess shock at Bill Clinton’s priapism, at Hillary Clinton’s lack of classified care for e-mails and her extortionate speeches on Wall Street, and at Barack Obama’s regulatory runs around Congress and the Constitution. Now they overlook Trump’s accolades to infidelity and his lawless approach to government.
Too few Republicans who deplore the administrative state built up since 1887 as a threat to liberty have exhibited qualms about turning over the state’s powers to a man who recognizes no limits to his reach or grasp.
Trump voters are definitely angry, but why? To use a word that Trump throws around, many are angry about being losers in the modern economy. It’s harder than ever to make their way forward without the advanced education or skills that are in demand. Trump looks down on losers, and yet some look up to him, seeking an easy rescue, the way gamblers keep pulling the levers in his casinos.
They blame elites and the establishment for casting them loose, strangers and afraid in a world they never made, as poet A.E. Housman said about himself. Trump has taken their cause to the political stump and set himself up as their winner.
