We Need Six More Years To MAGA

True in 2009, still true today

It might be interesting to reflect on how we got where we are today. Specifically, how we got Trump. This reminder, circa early 2016, comes compliments of Glenn Harlan Reynolds:

Brooks is, of course, horrified at Trump and his supporters, whom he finds childish, thuggish and contemptuous of the things that David Brooks likes about today’s America. It’s clear that he’d like a social/political revolution that was more refined, better-mannered, more focused on the Constitution and, well, more bourgeois as opposed to in-your-face and working class.

The thing is, we had that movement. It was the Tea Party movement. . . .

Yet the tea party movement was smeared as racist, denounced as fascist, harassed with impunity by the IRS and generally treated with contempt by the political establishment — and by pundits like Brooks, who declared “I’m not a fan of this movement.” After handing the GOP big legislative victories in 2010 and 2014, it was largely betrayed by the Republicans in Congress, who broke their promises to shrink government and block Obama’s initiatives.

So now we have Trump instead, who tells people to punch counterprotesters instead of picking up their trash.

When politeness and orderliness are met with contempt and betrayal, do not be surprised if the response is something less polite, and less orderly. Brooks closes his Trump column with Psalm 73, but a more appropriate verse is Hosea 8:7 “For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.” Trump’s ascendance is a symptom of a colossal failure among America’s political leaders, of which Brooks’ mean-spirited insularity is only a tiny part. God help us all.

The column has held up surprisingly well precisely because the media ignored the reasons behind the Trump phenomenon and continue to do so today. So I ask, as I’ve asked before,  “Want more Trump? Because this:

this,

this,

and this,

is how you get more Trump.

And my message to the ruling class and the talking head class is this: keep up the good work. We need another 6 more years to MAGA.