The Road To Donald Trump Wasn’t Built In A Day

[DonViejo]

Froma Harrop

August 4, 2016 5:37 am

The implosion is so big it’s drowning out the “he said this monstrous thing” or “that easily caught lie.” Donald Trump has moved from the chaos candidate to the kamikaze candidate to the crazy-as-a-loon candidate. But none of his behavior is new. He’s been incoherent and ignorant — vulgar and indecent — since he started his campaign. The list of Republican defectors is now growing, but what took it so long?

In truth, the groundwork for Trump’s sort of candidacy was being laid decades ago. Here are five signposts:

1) The rise of right-wing talk media. The business model that serves Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly and Laura Ingraham seemed to serve the Republican Party at first. It riled up listeners with grievance, self-pity and the belief that Democrats are not people they just disagree with but evil. A fevered public became conditioned to regard normal politics as a war for America’s soul.

2) The Bill Clinton impeachment. In 1998, Republicans doggedly pursued the president over a sexual indiscretion, sending U.S. governance into the deep freeze for months. So grotesque was the overkill that public sympathy swung to Clinton. (He left office with a higher approval rating than did Ronald Reagan.) Most Republicans ignored the lesson there.

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http://www.nationalmemo.com/road-donald-trump-wasnt-built-day/?utm_campaign=website&utm_source=sd&utm_medium=email

[oberliner]

1. Great points made in this piece

Froma knows her stuff.