Slandering DeMaoi Worked

Via NBC-San Diego, DeMaio Accuser Sentenced for Obstructing Justice:

A former aide to Congressional candidate Carl DeMaio was sentenced to five years of probation Monday for using a phony email account to make it appear DeMaio or one of his associates threatened him.

The presiding judge said the slanders “definitely played a role” in DeMaio’s defeat.

LGBT progressives championed the (false) accusations that sunk Carl’s congressional campaign (he had been leading in the polls beforehand). I, however, was skeptical. As you may note, commenters on that thread were not.

Glenn Reynolds at instapundit: “I’m cynical enough to think that if he’d done this to a Democrat, he would have been punished more severely.”

35 Comments for “Slandering DeMaoi Worked”

  1. posted by Doug on

    And not one word about the GOP treatment of Max Cleland or Tami Duckworth just to name a couple.

    Life must me total hell in your little twisted bubble, Stephen.

    • posted by Houndentenor on

      Or what Bush/Rove did to McCain in 2000.

      I’d agree with a complaint about dirty politics and an insistence that politicians stop saying things that are easily proven to be untrue (see: Carson, Trump, et al.). But this love-affair with DeMaio (whose name is spelled wrong in the headline, btw) is baffling. A gay candidate who isn’t even for gay rights? Why should I care?

    • posted by Tom Scharbach on

      But this love-affair with DeMaio (whose name is spelled wrong in the headline, btw) is baffling. A gay candidate who isn’t even for gay rights?

      Hound, remember that GOProud — which touted eliminating social security and medicare, eliminating the marital deduction, and removing government regulation of business practices as the path to equality for gays and lesbians, while entirely ignoring marriage equality until after it was a fact-on-the-ground — was the homocon model. DeMaio was the incarnation of the GOProud/homocon gospel. If DeMaio was running in this election cycle, he would no doubt favor the so-called “religious exemption” that singles out gays and lesbians for special discrimination, and we’d be told that we were fascists for refusing to support him for that, too.

      Why should I care?

      You shouldn’t, no matter how hard the homocons pound the “gays and lesbians should flock to him because he is an “openly gay” Republican” drum. For homocons, supporting “openly gay” candidates is a one-way street, and a hypocritical one-way street at that — the homocons went after Jared Polis tooth and nail in the same election cycle in which they were bashing us for not shouting “Hosanna!” whenever DeMaio paraded through the streets.

      It is all politics and it is all bullshit.

      • posted by Houndentenor on

        For some reason we were supposed to feel obligated to support a gay candidate whose positions we didn’t like, while they were under no obligation to support gay Democrats. LOL I wouldn’t let a creep like DeMaio in my front door much less vote for him.

    • posted by Tom Jefferson III on

      I think that their needs to be a serious (and NON-PARTISAN) re-examination of ethics and transparency in campaigns — in terms of how they are reported on by the press, how they are financed, how winners are chosen and, yes, how much “dirty tricks” we are willing to put up with. Sadly, I do not see this happen in this particular case.

  2. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    Criminal convictions don’t happen all that often in the world of dirty-trick politics, and I’m glad to see it happen in this case, while noting that Todd Bosnich’s e-mail was just the tip of the iceberg as the DeMaio campaign came unglued. The candidate himself — and his bizarre behavior — was the biggest problem.

    Carl DeMaio wasn’t much, but he was a near-perfect homocon candidate, and the high-water mark of the “new generation Republicans”, now seemingly defunct.

    He was politically clever enough to leverage his sexual orientation to defuse his past support of Prop 8, while making it clear in campaign statements/literature that he had no interest in (a) advancing the cause of “equal means equal” in Congress or (b) confronting social conservatives in the party.

    DeMaio would have done nothing to threaten Republican social conservatives, while serving as a “openly gay” symbolic “seat at the table” for homocons. No wonder the homocons fell all over themselves in support of DeMaio, while giving a cold shoulder to Dan Innes, who challenged conservative Christian control of the party’s primary process.

    In retrospect, though, DeMaio would have been preferable to the candidates now dominating the party, who have regressed into a food-fight to see who can most effectively arouse the party’s anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, anti-gay base.

    What ever happened to the Priebus autopsy?

    • posted by Jorge on

      In retrospect, though, DeMaio would have been preferable to the candidates now dominating the party

      /\ Not since North Dallas Thirty have we seen the bowels of digging that will be needed to untangle these two statements. \/

      Carl DeMaio wasn’t much, but he was a near-perfect homocon candidate, and the high-water mark of the “new generation Republicans”, now seemingly defunct.

      • posted by Tom Scharbach on

        Not since North Dallas Thirty have we seen the bowels of digging that will be needed to untangle these two statements.

        I think that this comment speaks to your lack of knowledge of Republican/homocon politics.

        With respect to the “near-perfect homocon candidate” statement, DeMaio’s positions on issues tracked GOProud’s positions.

        GOProud was founded and funded by homocons who were dissatisfied with LCR’s centrist political positions. GOProud took no position at all on marriage equality until 2013, when the group took the position that marriage was a state issue, without federal constitutional implications. GOProud focused on “non-social” issues as the means to equal treatment of gays and lesbians, such as eliminating differential treatment of married/single income tax treatment, elimination of “death taxes”, privatization of social security and medicare, and otherwise took standard conservative-libertarian positions on the issues.

        With respect to the “new generation Republicans” statement, DeMaio was loudly toured as a “new generation Republican” , a post-Priebus-autopsy style candidate who was “diverse” but who hewed the party line on economic, environmental, government downsizing and other conservative issues and (according to his own campaign statements) was not focused on or concerned with “social issues”.

        With respect to the “now seemingly defunct” statement, have you heard anything much lately about the Priebus autopsy, or the need for the party to appeal to the diversity of the American population? Or to soft-pedal the party’s opposition to marriage equality, even if the party can’t come around to accepting it?

        If anyone in the party is still arguing to implement the Priebus autopsy’s findings and recommendations, it is lost in the food-right that is developing to arouse the party’s base.

        Even Senator Rubio, who created a stir a while back because he said he would attend a same-sex wedding, went on the Christian Broadcasting Network the other day to make a distinction between “current law” and “settled law”, indicating that Obergefell, like Roe, was in the former category, signaling his support for a long, drawn-out campaign of resistance to Obergefell.

        The Republican Party has fallen into an anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, anti-gay swamp in recent months, and the trend in that direction seems to be accelerating rather than decelerating. The Republican Party may someday wake up and follow the recommendations of the Priebus autopsy, but for this election cycle, it seems, the effort to become a diverse party is defunct.

        • posted by Jorge on

          With respect to the “now seemingly defunct” statement, have you heard anything much lately about the Priebus autopsy, or the need for the party to appeal to the diversity of the American population? Or to soft-pedal the party’s opposition to marriage equality, even if the party can’t come around to accepting it?

          Yes. Ben Carson has walked back his comments on gay conversion in prison and touched on his own experience as an inner city black male youth while at the same time saying the US Constitution is anti-Sharia.

          Donald Trump is even easier: he is pro-union, decidedly neutral on gay marriage, and I don’t even know if he’s pro-life.

          Just because the leading candidates are “anti-establishment” does not mean they are not embodying the establishment’s views on reforming the party’s image. It simply means they have chosen a different way and a different emphasis. I simply do not agree with any view that Trump and Carson are unable to appeal beyond the party’s base. That assumes too much similarity between the Democratic party’s base and its voters, and too little similarity between the Republican party’s base and Democratic voters.

          Once you reach Ted Cruz is where I’ll nasally gargle in rotten egg yolk, but we’re not anywhere close to that yet.

          • posted by Doug on

            With all due respect, Trump has stated that marriage is between one man and one woman, that is not neutral. Trump publicly makes fun of handicapped people and apparently believes 1000’s of people cheered while the twin towers fell. Carson thinks the pyramids are grain silos and the Chinese are fighting in Syria. The man is delusional.

            Neither Trump nor Carson has any significant appeal beyond the twisted GOP base.

          • posted by Tom Scharbach on

            Trump … apparently believes 1000’s of people cheered while the twin towers fell.

            Trump is apparently blessed with a form of eidetic memory that allows him to remember events that didn’t happen in great detail. A true gift, and useful as hell with the demographic he courts.

          • posted by Jorge on

            With all due respect, Trump has stated that marriage is between one man and one woman, that is not neutral.

            That is none of my concern.

            Trump publicly makes fun of handicapped people

            I publicly make fun of poor people.

            and apparently believes 1000’s of people cheered while the twin towers fell.

            1000’s of people did cheer when the Twin Towers fell.

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrM0dAFsZ8k

            (Good grief, know your own arguments!)

            Carson thinks the pyramids are grain silos and the Chinese are fighting in Syria.

            Those black intellectuals sure are subtle with their ethnic slurs. He’s basically calling Russins [bleep]y-eyed and the pyramids are sandy.

            Neither Trump nor Carson has any significant appeal beyond the twisted GOP base.

            I didn’t realize union plumbers, black preachers, and soccer moms had such saintly dispositions.

            Doug, you are underestimating how deep the appeal of “I fart just like you!” is. The Democratic party’s core base hates irreverent displays when they are used to attack its favored constituencies. But that’s not a very large group of people. I do not believe that the diverse communities of this country come to such hatred naturally. The Democratic party’s constituencies can be and have been divided by effective Republican politics (the posters who frequent this website point this out more often than average).

            Once Trump and Carson make that personal connection with the other side’s voters–and they will should either win the nomination–all it takes is a single devestating blow on the issues to defeat Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump will land that blow on immigration. Carson will probably go down on foreign policy.

            I know I am taking a risky position, and I stand by it.

          • posted by Doug on

            @Jorge, Trump said 1000’s cheered in New Jersey and you well know that or are willfully ignorant or an idiot. Take your choice.

          • posted by Jorge on

            I’m glad you corrected an embarassingly inept argument.

  3. posted by Jorge on

    The probation department said this case has “no victims,” but the judge said he strongly disagreed with this. . . . DeMaio, his campaign, and the democratic process itself are the real victims in this case, the judge said.

    According to federal prosecutors, Bosnich’s sent the “anonymous” email to himself “to bolster his claims that DeMaio was threatening him to remain silent about the alleged sexual harassment. In this fashion, Defendant’s claims about DeMaio’s sexual harassment appeared not only to be legitimate, but to take on a new and, perhaps, more sinister context.”

    Well, good.

    I can smell a skunk from the usual sewage pretty well (I will happily cite my first post in that thread), but a lot of other people can’t.

    I, however, was skeptical. As you may note, commenters on that thread were not.

    Oi-yoi-yoi! That was one of the sadder displays of See No Evil by Ignoring the Story I had ever seen on this site (although I missed Houndentenor’s last post in that thread).

  4. posted by Jorge on

    Speaking of Houndentenor:

    I’d agree with a complaint about dirty politics and an insistence that politicians stop saying things that are easily proven to be untrue (see: Carson, Trump, et al.). But this love-affair with DeMaio (whose name is spelled wrong in the headline, btw) is baffling. A gay candidate who isn’t even for gay rights? Why should I care?

    Hmm, that’s a little like an American Muslim asking why he should care about Daesh bags. Or me why I should care about the FLAN. (Or a Columbian American why he should care about the F***) Why can’t you just wipe your ass–or not notice it–and be done with it?

    I’m sure I’ve argued with you before about why you should wipe your ass Now Right Now! instead of ignoring it.

    There’s been a headline on Yahoo! News about why it’s offensive to ask Muslims to condemn terrorism. I didn’t even bother to read it. It’s the same exact issue, though.

    (Isn’t it the opposite issue if the victim is gay?)

    When you have people whose wrongdoing or aid and comfort to wrongdoers is motivated by their alliance with a particular in-group (gays), it puts members of that in-group in the position of being asked, “do you condemn this?” That is what you are objecting to. With terrorism the motivation is membership in a certain in-group which a minority of Americans (Muslims) are a part of. They are asked, “Do you condemn this?”

    There is one thing that I think is different. In the mass media, there is a tiring sameness about the stories and discussion about Muslim terrorism. Everything that can be said about it has been said already. I do not believe the same is true about progressive gay-bashing.

    • posted by Houndentenor on

      DeMaio is an anti-gay homosexual. It’s not about me expecting him to denounce something else. It’s about his own positions on issues. But frankly anyone claiming to be a Republican but not anti-gay is either an idiot or delusional.

      • posted by Jorge on

        But frankly anyone claiming to be a Republican but not anti-gay is either an idiot or delusional.

        Spoken like a true PhD of Antiestablishmentdecompensation

    • posted by Tom Scharbach on

      When you have people whose wrongdoing or aid and comfort to wrongdoers is motivated by their alliance with a particular in-group (gays), it puts members of that in-group in the position of being asked, “do you condemn this?” That is what you are objecting to. With terrorism the motivation is membership in a certain in-group which a minority of Americans (Muslims) are a part of. They are asked, “Do you condemn this?”

      So, as a Christian, do you condemn Christian terrorism, such as the murders of Dr. David Dunn, Dr. John Britton and James Barrett, Shannon Lowney and Lee Ann Nichols, Dr. Barnett Slepian, Dr. George Tiller, and/or the abortion clinic bombings? As a Christian, do you condemn the Army of God? As a Christian, do you condemn the Christian Identity movement? And so on, working our way through the entire litany of violence and hate from fringers claiming to be Christian.

      Are these questions that I should be asking you, Lori and my other Christian friends and neighbors? Are they fair questions to ask, just because you and they self-identify as Christian, as they do?

      You may think so, but I do not. And I think that they same is true of Muslims and gays.

      You mentioned North Dallas Thirty in an earlier comment. NDT often deployed the “Do you condemn …?” tactic on IGF. It didn’t make sense when he did it, and it doesn’t make sense in other contexts, either, unless there is a actual reason to ask the question to an actual person, such as some rational indication that the person might support such actions or such groups.

      • posted by Jorge on

        So, as a Christian, do you condemn Christian terrorism

        I have already answered that question. If you missed it, too bad. I don’t like the way my nose smells today.

        Are these questions that I should be asking you, Lori and my other Christian friends and neighbors? Are they fair questions to ask, just because you and they self-identify as Christian, as they do?

        You may think so, but I do not. And I think that they same is true of Muslims and gays.

        Well, I do not think we should judge those who ask.

        I have a fantasy book in which the world’s Elves think questions are rude because they place a demand for the query to be answered, and immediately. This is kind of like that.

        In my view it is perfectly reasonable to expect Muslims (etc.) to condemn mass murder that is motivated wholly or in part by the criminal’s membership in their same in-group. It’s a basic principle of modern political decency, and an important measure of loyalty that is not, contrary to the protests of liberals or conservatives, universally held.

        Less defensible is asking for the condemnation directly, but I do not think it is entirely unreasonable as a loyalty test. The problem with asking is that you have outside members regulating the pace, frequency, and intensity of one’s devotion to a moral judgment on a subject which may reasonably carry a different importance to the individual. It deprives the individual of the ability to condemn evil on his own terms, for his own reasons. But the harm to security, community, and well-being that results from seeing terrorism in the news is compelling. In my view it is not a great demand on the individual to simply assert his self-regulation. A question does not have to be answered in the time or manner in which it is asked. I also believe there are polite ways of bringing up the topic, even directly, such as by asking a Muslim what he thinks about a terrorist incident, even if asked because the person is a Muslim. That amounts to nothing riskier than a micro-aggression.

      • posted by Tom Scharbach on

        I understand the instinct to treat members of ethnic/religious groups as potential fifth columns during times of national danger. It is an entirely human instinct and, seemingly, pervasive.

        Our country is no stranger to the instinct played out collectively on the national stage with respect to immigrant groups, for all our country’s aspirations to “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

        German Americans went through it in World War I, Italian and Japanese Americans went through it during World War II, Jews went through it during the Great Depression and again during the McCarthy era, and now, I guess, Muslim Americans will have to take their turn at the grating.

        The calls for deportation, internment, identification cards and loyalty oaths/declarations we are now hearing with respect to Muslim Americans are nothing new. We’ve heard them before with respect to other ethnic/religious groups, and we will hear them again, no doubt.

        I think it important to remember two things: Our instinct to ascribed putative guilt by association does not come from our higher angels. When we act on those instincts, it doesn’t usually end well.

        • posted by Jorge on

          I think it important to remember two things: Our instinct to ascribed putative guilt by association does not come from our higher angels. When we act on those instincts, it doesn’t usually end well.

          When you combine the two realizations, and then act anyway, you get George W. Bush, a saintly terror.

          Or you get the Bill of Rights as interpreted by our current courts, but that’s boring.

  5. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    Glenn Reynolds at instapundit: “I’m cynical enough to think that if he’d done this to a Democrat, he would have been punished more severely.”

    Ah, another Republican gone bad. Judge Burns, who sentenced Bosnich, was appoint to the US District Court for Southern California by President Bush II in 2003. It is a sad and dangerous world we live in. Even Republicans can’t be trusted, at least in the paranoid worldview of modern conservatives.

  6. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    I simply do not agree with any view that Trump and Carson are unable to appeal beyond the party’s base. That assumes too much similarity between the Democratic party’s base and its voters, and too little similarity between the Republican party’s base and Democratic voters.

    Trump appeals to a broad part of the Republican base (he leads in national, Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina polls currently) and nothing seems to slow him down. The Republican “establishment” is baffled and clueless.

    Trump opposes marriage equality, but he isn’t making “fight to the last ditch” noises like Carson, Rubio and Cruz, the only other candidates with double digit percentages at present. Trump, unlike most of the rest of the field, didn’t quibble about Kim Davis, Christian Martyr, saying “You have to go with it. The decision has been made, and that is the law of the land.”

    Trump differs from the rest of the Republican field in one important respect, and that is the Equality Act of 2015. He supports inclusion of gays and lesbians in the classes protected by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and doesn’t seem to be backing down. That, of course, is anathema to the party’s conservative Christian base demographic, and to the so-called “libertarians” who ally themselves with conservative Christians on this issue (see” Yes, the Bakers Again”, Stephen H. Miller on October 16, 2015).

    I doubt that Trump’s refusal to go along with party orthodoxy on the issue will be enough to deny him the nomination (nothing else he’s said or done seems to sink him), but I wonder whether if he gets close enough to the nomination to have to make hard choices about enticing conservative Christians to turn out for the general election, he will toss his support for non-discrimination under the bus. His “overtures” to the conservative Christian demographic in the base (witness his Bible-waving and defense of Christmas at the Values Voters Summit) have been as much subtle mockery of conservative Christians as anything else, but he’s long-since demonstrated that he has no scruples about changing his political positions as needs be, and he could easily do a 180 on the Equality Act if needs be.

    Trump has a real knack for the thrust and parry of politics, cutting other candidates to the bone with panache. His description of Bush as “low energy” (read “low-T”) was devastating, funny and accurate. He demolished Fiorina by making a face that approximated her habitual sour scowl, saying “Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?!” He mocked Rubio as a “lightweight” who crumpled during his State of the Union response, hitting a chord with voters who wonder if Rubio’s boyish, puppy-dog demeanor betrays a lack of toughness. And so on, candidate by candidate.

    The only candidates he’s left alone so far are Carson and Cruz, and there is a reason for that, I suspect. Neither is a serious threat but will be useful later in the process (the conservative Christian base is necessary for the nomination, but not in itself strong enough to force a candidate on the party). In fact, as Carson falls and Cruz ascends, Trump has been making noises about a Trump-Cruz ticket.

    Trump regularly says things that would destroy any other candidate in the field, and his numbers go up, not down, in the aftermath. His is a populist campaign, appealing to the nativist, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, anti-Mexican demographic in the party’s base, and the party’s wing-tip-wearing “establishment” seems to have no idea what to do about it. The candidates who have tried to bring him down to date have brought themselves down, instead. Trump doesn’t play by the political rules, and watching the other candidates trying to counter is like watching a college kid trying to fight a street kid. He kicks them in the groin, and then puts the knife to them.

    I have no idea how Trump will fare in the long run. Trump is dangerous as hell, in my opinion (he’s authoritarian and a demogogue), but I think that he has a fair shot at the nomination, and if he wins the nomination, a fair shot in the general election. He’s touched a chord with a significant part of the American electorate, and that’s a fact.

    As to Carson, I think that he’s had his day in the Republican sun, and he’s finished. We’ll see.

    • posted by Jorge on

      Trump has a real knack for the thrust and parry of politics

      The only candidates he’s left alone so far are Carson and Cruz, and there is a reason for that, I suspect. Neither is a serious threat but will be useful later in the process (the conservative Christian base is necessary for the nomination, but not in itself strong enough to force a candidate on the party).

      (Eep!)

      Trump has said some mean things about Carson’s violent history, although to be fair Lindsey Graham started it.

      As for Trump himself…

      No, I think the PC crowd is more dangerous.

  7. posted by Tom Jefferson 3rd on

    Lindsey Graham had ZERO chance of winning the GOP presidential nomination, and we KNOW why that is…
    Let’s remember Charlie Crist

  8. posted by Dale of the Desert on

    “No, I think the PC crowd is more dangerous”

    Would that be the liberal PC crowd or the conservative one?

    • posted by Jorge on

      When I use the unmodified version I am referring to the liberal PC crowd. If it’s archaic it’s not because of new moderation.

      Lindsey Graham had ZERO chance of winning the GOP presidential nomination, and we KNOW why that is…
      Let’s remember Charlie Crist

      What, because he’s not conservative enough?

      Then why is Trump currently winning? Chris Christie has a fair chance, too.

      I figure if Rick Santorum placed second last time, Graham has a reasonable chance of… placing second.

      • posted by Doug on

        If you really believe a total war monger like Graham has a ‘reasonable’ chance of second place in Iowa I’d like some of whatever you are smoking. Graham’s chances of coming in second exactly match his current polling. . . less than 1%, and Christie’s chances are little better. The only shot Christie, aka porky pig, has, assuming ‘bridge gate’ doesn’t blow him out of the water, is a very strong showing and even then his chances are virtually none.

        • posted by Houndentenor on

          Saying that Graham is polling at less than 1% is generous. In most polls there are zero respondents that say they would vote for him. I guess there is the usual margin for error but really he should just quit, not that anyone would notice if he did and didn’t make an announcement.

        • posted by Jorge on

          Mmm-hmm. Lindsey Graham becomes competitive in any scenario in which the primary debates are no longer split. That will happen eventually. It’s only a question of whether it will come soon enough.

          The current front line consists of Trump, Carson, Bush, Rubio, Cruz, and Fiorina.

          Bush and Fiorina are the most vulnerable to dropping out. They do not have staying power. Trump, Carson, and Cruz are vulnerable to each other even though they haven’t broken their stalemate yet. Rubio is a likely finalist. Huckabee and Paul are unlikely to quit (they’re vulnerable to Carson and Cruz respectively but that’s an unlikely scenario) but also unlikely to take off. Christie may quit but is just as likely to become stronger. Graham, of course, knowing he was a longshot from the beginning, will not quit.

          The only real obstacle standing in the way of Senator Graham having a competitive showing–and it’s a significant one–is the continued stalemate between Trump, Carson, and Cruz. This benefits Rubio.

        • posted by Jorge on

          His main motivation for running, as I understand it, is that he does not have confidence in Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio.

  9. posted by Tom Jefferson III on

    1. OK, we want to have more ethical and transparent campaigns we need to have a serious and nonpartisan conversation about that. I would welcome that conversation, I do not see that happening, when “cynical” people make overtly partisan comments.

    2. I do not believe that a LGBT candidate is “entitled” to my vote because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. It is a good thing that LGBT people are running for elected office — as Democrats, Republicans and Independents — and I am open to listening to what prospective candidates (in my neck of the woods) have to say before deciding who I will vote for.

    3. Trump is probably trying to cast himself as a “red blooded American” or “average Joe”. I would not put it past him to actually be as ignorant and uneducated as he sounds, but I suspect that part of it is an act.

  10. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    Jorge: What, because he’s not conservative enough? Then why is Trump currently winning?

    Tom Jefferson III: Trump is probably trying to cast himself as a “red blooded American” or “average Joe”. I would not put it past him to actually be as ignorant and uneducated as he sounds, but I suspect that part of it is an act.

    The media plays Trump as sui generis, and his campaign as a phenomonen that mysteriously defies political gravity. Maybe that’s part of the story, but it isn’t the whole story.

    Trump is leading in the polls because he has won over the “anti-establishment” constituency within the Republican Party. He won them by working quietly and hard over the course of several years, doing basic constituency-building work like headlining local fundraisers, courting media like Breitbart and Limbaugh, cozying up to faded superstarts like Sarah Palin, and making strategic contributions to anti-establishment organizations. In short, Trump did the work that other politicians do to win over constituencies, and he did it more effectively that Rubio, Cruz and other contenders for that constituency.

    Also important is the fact that Trump has never waivered from the nativist, populist, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim message, and he vocalized and embodied their anger at “establishment” politicians. His rhetoric has been hell on wheels and he hasn’t backed down an inch on “birther” and other issues that are red meat to the “anti-establishment” crowd.

    And, most important of all, Trump projects the image of a powerful authoritarian to his constituency, which senses that it no longer counts in a racially and ethnically diverse America, and in a global economy. Trump’s put-down Bush and Rubio as political wimps, and his indirect put-down of Cruz as politcally inept ring loud to Trump’s constituency, which wants, above all things, a leader who has the balls to change things. Trump projects balls.

    I think Trump has the “anti-establishment” voters locked up.

    I have no idea what Trump’s internal political philosophy might be, and it doesn’t seem to make much difference. He’s playing to a crowd that doesn’t care. He’s riled the waters of resentment that George Wallace riled years back, and he’s done it very effectively, all the while playing the media superstar. He’s done it so effectively that he’s moved the rest of the candidates well to the right of where they started out.

    Whatever his prospects for the nomination, don’t count on him — or his constituency — going quietly.

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