Though we’ve never actually met, I consider Michael Brendan Dougherty a friend and fellow traveler. I think he has written a very important column about the Trump phenomenon, one that’s especially so because he’s a paleocon who doesn’t have much use for the Republican Party. Excerpt:
There’s another election happening today, over on the other side of the aisle – but it’s a much less-interesting one, in my opinion. Bernie Sanders has successfully demonstrated the lack of enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton among young voters, very-liberal voters, and working-class white voters. The last is going to be a problem for Democrats in a Clinton-Trump contest. The second shouldn’t be a problem at all. The first . . . is an interesting question, since both Clinton and Trump appeal more to older voters than to young ones.
Last week, Larry Summers took on the $100 bill.
Now, he’s taking aim at the man who, if it were up to him, would be on that banknote. In a new Op-Ed for The Washington Post, Summers calls Donald Trump “the greatest present threat to the prosperity and security of the United States.”
Whether or not Donald Trump ultimately succeeds in winning the White House, historians are likely to rank him as the most consequential presidential candidate of at least the past half-century. He has already transformed the tone and temper of American political life. If he becomes the Republican nominee, he will demolish its structural underpinnings as well. Should he prevail in November, his election will alter its very fabric in ways likely to prove irreversible.
Britain says it has sent troops to Tunisia to help stop ISIS from crossing the border from neighboring Libya.