WALL STREET JOURNAL EDITORIAL: …The summer Trump polling spurt has nonetheless been instructive in exposing a growing problem on the political right. All too many conservatives, including some magazine editors, have been willing to overlook his hucksterism as he’s risen in the polls. They pretend that he deserves respect because he’s giving voice to some deep disquiet or anger in the American electorate.
But America has rarely lacked for demagogues willing to exploit public discontents. William Jennings Bryan won three Democratic presidential nominations running against eastern elites. In 1948 Henry Wallace ran as a Soviet sympathizer while Strom Thurmond won 39 electoral votes running as a segregationist. Either one would have been a disaster as President.
As a standard-bearer for conservative ideas, Mr. Trump would likewise be a catastrophe. His only discernible principle is the promotion of his personal brand. His main message seems to be that because he’s rich and doesn’t care what anyone thinks, he can afford to tell everyone to go to hell. Some Americans may find it satisfying 16 months from Election Day to tell pollsters they’d vote for him, but that doesn’t mean conservative elites should validate this nonsense… (more)
NEWSLANC EDITOR: This is the first time that we can recall publishing an opinion piece from the WSJ. It could have just as likely have been printed in the New York Times.
Trump is a demagogue and the other sleazy pack of liars running in the Republican primaries aren’t? The WSJ have been lubing us up for another Bush presidency and they don’t like anything that could change that. Go Trump! I will vote for him; he is no more crazy than the idiots running in both parties. He is certainly no more a demagogue than Reagan was and everyone lionizes his crazy presidency like it was a gift from heaven.
As far as McCain goes I agree with Trump; the guy isn’t a hero. Of course he won’t release his POW records but a guy that left POW camp weighing what he went in; it’s pretty clear what he did, it is called collaboration. The Vietnamese saved his life and extracted as much information about the war effort they could from him and they knew he was the son of an Admiral. He received special treatment and he knows it and has always hidden behind what he did and wants everyone to believe he was tortured even letting people believe that his injuries stem from torture when in fact they were from the ejection from his jet. That said, his war record stands above George W. Bush’s because at least he has one to defend.