Quote of the day … month … year … century:
This year’s Republican field is the most impressive since 1980, and perhaps the most talent-rich since the party first had a presidential nominee, in 1856.
— George F. Will, 12 Aug. 2015
Even by the hyperbole-rich standards of the impressively paleo-sniffish Mr. Will, that is one helluva knee-slapper.
Immediately subsequent to its first presidential nomination, in 1856, the Republican Party fielded Abraham Lincoln, William Seward and Salmon P. Chase — apostolic giants of the party's genesis. Jesus! More than a century later, even the terminably dull Thomas E. Dewey possessed weighty credentials. Now come the likes of Jeb Bush, DNA doppelgänger of the intellectually dwarfish George W.; Marco Rubio, the magnificent Keinwunderkind; Ted Cruz, a living brain nurtured by bile, not oxygen; and Carly Fiorina, see: preceding entry.
These are but a few among the "talent-rich" assemblage on which Mr. Will comments, having banished the truest and fairest Republican of them all, Donald Trump. The columnist dismisses him as "no conservative." Yes indeedy. But that's what makes Mr. Trump the truest of all these Republicans.
Conservatism decamped from the GOP long ago. The party has been ideologically foraging and pillaging ever since, and Trump is but its most splendid climax: a makeshift bundle of demagogic theatrics, fantastically absurd policies, rhetorical malevolence, and absolute insincerity.
Donald Trump is no more a true conservative than Scott Walker is; the latter of whom employs Will's wife; the husband of whom is therefore compelled to characterize nearly the entire Republican field as preternaturally "talent-rich," so that the Mrs.' boss is included, ahem, without apparent favoritism. It's more an editorially embarrassed whisper than a "Disclosure: This columnist’s wife, Mari Will, works for Scott Walker."
But enough of George Will and Willian sidewinding. Back to Trump, about whom I bear thee dark speculation.
He made his first big mistake this week, or, I should say, his first mistake, which I hope he doesn't repeat, but fear he will: With gracelessness aforethought, he pandered to a significant bloc of GOP primary base. "You know what my favorite [book] is? The Bible! Nothing beats the Bible, not even The Art of the Deal. Not even close."
That remark was designed to appeal to thumper-rich Iowa, where he currently holds an 8-point advantage over his closest competitor. Yet Trump's greatest and broadest appeal has been that he is utterly without design.
In elevating God and the Bible-as-inspiration over Himself and The Art of the Deal, the Donald was untrue to himself. He consciously pandered to social conservatives, and pandering is what everyone else is doing. In addition, his was an apology, of sorts, for his earlier "cracker" remark in reference to his non-transubtantiation.
Trump's rabble-rousing fortes are stream of consciousness, not premeditation; obstinance, not apologies; verbal abuse, not pandering. If Trump has now decided to travel that once-rebuffed road of political regularity and targeted enlightenment, then he is condemned to no political differentiation. He will have surrendered his superior "positioning" and he'll become but another forager in the GOP's talentless-rich pack.
Let us pray … let us pray that Donald Trump rediscovers himself — his true, divinely insane, enormously heretical self — and that he never makes the above mistake, or anything like it, again. The demons of political consultancy are having at him, and I'm afraid he's listening to their siren songs. Let us pray.
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Note: See updated, revised opinion on Trump's stream of consciousness.