Paul Krugman- The Donald and the Delusional

[n2doc]

Nate Cohn cautions us not to make too much of the polls supposedly showing the Trump surge continuing, as many — but not all – were taken before the McCain affair. Fair point. But there’s enough genuine post-McCain polling to show that Trump hasn’t imploded, the way virtually every pundit predicted he would.

I’m actually mad at myself here: I had meant to put up a post questioning that conventional wisdom, but never got around to it, and now you only have my word that what I’m about to say isn’t just hindsight, but a prediction. Oh well. Anyway, on to the point.

What I would argue is key to this situation — and, in particular, key to understanding how the conventional wisdom on Trump/McCain went so wrong — is the reality that a lot of people are, in effect, members of a delusional cult that is impervious to logic and evidence, and has lost touch with reality.

I am, of course, talking about pundits who prize themselves for their centrism.

Pundit centrism in modern America is a strange thing. It’s not about policy, as you can see from the many occasions when members of the cult have demanded that Barack Obama change his ways and advocate things that … he was already advocating. What defines the cult is, instead, the insistence that the parties are symmetric, that they are equally extreme, and that the responsible, virtuous position is always somewhere in between.

The trouble is that this isn’t remotely true.

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http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/27/the-donald-and-the-delusional/?smid=tw-NytimesKrugman&seid=auto&_r=0

[pampango]

1. "a lot of people are ... members of a delusional cult that is impervious to logic and evidence ..."

I am, of course, talking about pundits who prize themselves for their centrism.

On one side, they can’t admit the moderation of the Democrats, which is why you had the spectacle of demands that Obama change course and support his own policies.

On the other side, they have had to invent an imaginary GOP that bears little resemblance to the real thing. This means being continually surprised by the radicalism of the base. It also means a determination to see various Republicans as Serious, Honest Conservatives — SHCs? — whom the centrists know, just know, have to exist.

The trouble is that this isn’t remotely true. Democrats constitute a normal political party, with some spread between its left and right wings, but in general espousing moderate positions. The GOP, on the other hand, is a deeply radical faction; even its supposed moderates are moderate only in tone, not in policy positions, and its base is motivated by anger against Others.

I would argue that the folks who are "members of a delusional cult that is impervious to logic and evidence" include both centrist pundits and the republican base itself which is "motivated by anger against Others".