America

The photo above is of a reader of this blog, “celebrating” Trump’s South Carolina victory (though I’m pretty sure he did so tongue-in-cheek, because he cannot get over how insane this campaign is). I can’t stop thinking about the semiotics of that image. That’s expensive French Champagne the dude is drinking. The reference on the t-shirt is to this Key & Peele skit. America!

So, what do you think? I think if I were a Republican Party official, I would have to be kept away from sharp objects, and have my belt and shoelaces confiscated for my own safety.

Submitted by Jeffrey Snider via Alhambra Investment Partners,

Ross Douthat finds that Pope Francis and Donald Trump have a lot in common:

Neoliberalism needs critics, as the Republican Party needs reinvention and the Catholic Church needs reform. At the same time, as Schmitz notes, what both Trump and Francis promise — deliverance “from inconvenient and unresponsive institutions, with all their strictures and corruptions” — downplays the value of rules, customs, and traditions in protecting people from the rule of novelty and whim.

Live coverage of the Nevada caucus and South Carolina primary

Donald Trump has no filter - and that’s served him well.

Much to the chagrin of the GOP establishment and much to the horror of voters who believe America’s commander-in-chief should aspire to some modicum of political correctness, an endless stream vitriol emanates from Trump’s mouth and none of it, no matter how inflammatory, dents his poll numbers.