Donald Trump’s Backers Express Deep and Diverse Support

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Donald J. Trump won the vote of a 59-year-old cabdriver in the Boston suburbs who said he lost his trucking business after immigrants began delivering cargo for less.

In Loudoun County, Virginia, one of the country’s wealthiest, he won the backing of a newly separated mother and a longtime Democrat who spoke of the possibility of another terrorist attack, saying, “I don’t think we feel safe right now.”

And Mark Harris, a 48-year-old owner of an antiques shop in Canton, Ga., said he did not much care for Mr. Trump’s ego and worried that his impolitic speech could derail American diplomacy.

But Mr. Harris voted for Mr. Trump, too.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/02/us/politics/donald-trump.html?_r=0

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1. Why the Nation of Islam is praising Donald Trump

They may not hold the same views on race, but even black and white extremists sometimes agree.

Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, praised Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Saturday for, as Farrakhan put it, not accepting money from the Jewish community — comments delivered just a day before Trump appeared on CNN and failed to condemn white supremacist David Duke, who voiced support for Trump's campaign.

Though Trump has said that his campaign is self-funded, he has in fact received millions of dollars in small donations. His daughter, Ivanka, with whom he is close, converted to Judaism to marry her husband Jared Kushner.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/03/01/why-the-nation-of-islam-is-praising-donald-trump/

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2. Chris Christie’s Donald Trump endorsement has New Jersey newspapers calling for his resignation

So, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) set off from his regular duties in the Garden State last year full of hopes and dreams about the White House.

This, Christie and his campaign advisers seemed to think for what are not at all clear reasons, was Christie's year. On Feb. 10, Christie dropped his White House bid, acknowledging that it was a futile pursuit. He briefly came home to New Jersey to, many people presumed, serve, govern, pontificate and continue legislative and legal battle with lawmakers in that state. There were, after all, many, many months between now and the end of his final term in 2017. New Jersey term limits wouldn't allow him to run again. So presumably there was some kind of future that Christie was going to have to figure out. And having made quite a show of his tough-talking prosecutor skills on various debate stages during his time in the 2016 presidential race, there may have been some options for Christie in Washington if the next administration is a Republican one.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/03/01/chris-christies-donald-trump-endorsement-has-new-jersey-newspapers-calling-for-his-resignation/

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3. Do not underestimate Trump

You do so at your own peril.

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12. I think we are safely past that danger now. nt

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4. Chris Christie steals Donald Trump's show

(CNN)Donald Trump won big on Super Tuesday, but Chris Christie nearly stole the show at Trump's election-night event.

The New Jersey governor, who endorsed Trump on Friday, introduced the real estate mogul during a Super Tuesday press conference. But as Trump began speaking, people couldn't stop talking about the look on Christie's face.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/01/politics/chris-christie-donald-trump-face/index.html

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5. Donald Trump’s success is frightening: Tony Blair

Donald Trump's wins in the U.S. primary elections are worrying and highlight the rising popularity of insurgent political movements around the world, former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Wednesday.

Trump surprised some pundits with his success in the Republican primaries this week and is projected to win in Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Massachusetts, Vermont and Alabama, NBC News has reported. His rival Ted Cruz is projected to win in Alaska, according to NBC News, after taking Texas and Oklahoma.

The businessman is known for his divisive views on immigration and was previously viewed as too maverick and extremist to succeed in his bid for the leadership of the Republican Party.

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/02/donald-trumps-success-is-frightening-tony-blair.html

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6. ANALYSIS: Amid Noise, Donald Trump Uniting Republican Party

The Republican Party isn’t all that divided, actually. After Tuesday night, the GOP looks remarkably united –- behind someone who happens to divide.

If you judge the party by its voters, as opposed to its leaders, the Republican Party belongs to Donald Trump. With at least five wins Tuesday, and running against a still-divided opposition, Trump is taking control the old-fashioned way: by getting more votes than the others.

Republican voters want an outsider who “tells it like it is” and will build a border wall and ban Muslims from entering the country. They may not have known they wanted those things until Trump landed on the scene -– but that’s the point of a candidacy that is shaking a major party’s foundations.

Super Tuesday provided convincing evidence that Trump’s appeal extends across Cracker Barrel territory and well into Whole Foods land, to borrow a phrase used by FiveThirtyEight.com. Two states where Trump romped -– rolling up some of his biggest margins yet -- tell that story.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/analysis-amid-noise-donald-trump-uniting-republican-party/story?id=37329289

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7. Trump and KKK inspire meltdown on CNN starring Van Jones and Jeffrey Lord

On the night of a primary, CNN is known for its comprehensive coverage of who won what, flashy graphics, stalling for time and open speculation about what the heck will happen next. Moments of passionate exchange are, perhaps, less common.

Yet during CNN’s Super Tuesday coverage, such a moment came when former Obama staffer Van Jones took on former Reagan staffer and Donald Trump supporter Jeffrey Lord in a heated debate about race, the Democratic Party and the Ku Klux Klan.

The trouble began when fellow contributor S.E. Cupp, a conservative, accused Trump of “crazy, dog-whistle policy proposals” to curry favor with prejudiced voters.

“Donald Trump has tried to otherize every other candidate in this race,” Cupp said, “… to sort of scare this very small part of the electorate who thinks that all of their problems are the fault of people who don’t look like them.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/03/02/trump-and-kkk-inspire-meltdown-on-cnn-starring-van-jones-jeffrey-lord/

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8. Listen to the Donald Trump voters: It has taken an ignorant demagogue to tell truth about GOP, humil

For the last several decades, the Republican party has been selling a simple economic message to its base: what is good for rich people is good for you too. And, until this election, the base was buying it. The astonishing rise of Donald Trump is an almost apocalyptic sign that they’re not buying it any more.

The GOP establishment has seen all of its candidates not merely beaten, but utterly humiliated, by an aggressively ignorant demagogue, whose rhetoric makes him sound like a cheap knockoff of Benito Mussolini and George Wallace.

Why? A look at the facts of American economic life suggests that the rubes have decided they’re tired of being played for marks, which explains why the GOP establishment’s siren song about the Land of Opportunity is no longer doing the trick.

The basic myth the right wing of The Money Party has sold to Republican voters over the past 40 years (the left wing of the party is called the Democrats) goes like this: the economy boomed in the decades immediately after World War II, and standards of living rose rapidly. But since then, too much government regulation, too many taxes, and an overly generous welfare system that has made Those People even lazier than they were before have combined to kill the American dream.

http://www.salon.com/2016/03/02/listen_to_the_donald_trump_voters_it_has_taken_an_ignorant_demagogue_to_tell_truth_about_gop_humiliate_party_establishment/

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9. Republican elites harden resolve against Trump as voters flock to him

Donald Trump’s Republican presidential campaign has now collected victories in the vast majority of the first 15 states of the nomination contest. He’s on pace to win more votes than any other Republican primary candidate before him, and his candidacy is helping fuel record turnout across the country.

And yet on Tuesday, as Trump continued to gather sweeping victories from New England to the Deep South, the urgent calls from establishment Republicans to stop him only grew louder and more apocalyptic.

“If we nominated Donald Trump,” Senator Marco Rubio, a presidential candidate from Florida, said Tuesday on CNN, “it will be the end of the modern Republican Party.”

In any other year, a candidate who amassed as many victories as Trump would be busy accepting stacks of endorsements and consolidating support of the party’s power brokers. But Trump continues to be spurned not only as an outsider seeking political office for the first time but as a candidate who is stacking up wins without voting blocs crucial to winning the White House.

http://www.pressherald.com/2016/03/02/republican-elites-harden-resolve-against-trump-as-voters-flock-to-him/

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10. Stromberg: The Republican Party is not lost. Yet.

The Republican Party is on the brink of failing in practically every way. Politically, by nominating a man who would be completely unacceptable to many in the GOP. Organizationally, by failing to coordinate an effective challenge to Donald Trump despite widespread recognition that he is a severe threat to the party. Morally, by embracing an offensive bully who is running a witless campaign and poses a direct threat to the American political system. Morally, again, as some party elites show they are so derangedly anti-Democrat that they question whether Trump might be better than Hillary Clinton.

In short, Super Tuesday was an utter disaster for the GOP.

Trump took at least seven states, sweeping nearly every contest. Because the Super Tuesday states hand out delegates proportionally, he has not yet taken a commanding delegate lead. The GOP has until March 15 to stop Trump from winning several big winner-take-all states, including Sen. Marco Rubio's home state of Florida.

Now is not the time for ideology-fueled denial of reality. Now is not the time for vanity to override reason. Now is not the time, in other words, for Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. He just won his home state and Oklahoma. Now he should get out.

http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/3605401-155/stromberg-the-republican-party-is-not

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11. . nt