Republican Party

Two views of Trump and his supporters, from conservatives who hate Trumpism:

1. From Martin Cothran, the view that Trump and his followers are anti-intellectual morons who are destroying intellectually serious conservatism:

What can you say about a movement of people that stands and applauds the incoherent babbling of Sarah Palin in her endorsement of Donald Trump and then blindly dismisses the serious and reasoned arguments of twenty-two veteran conservative thinkers writing in the flagship conservative magazine without even addressing what they said?

If you enjoy the circus, then this presidential campaign is for you.

In the last nine months, we’ve witnessed the unlikely rise of not one, but two dark horse candidates to the top of the polls and we’ve also had the pleasure of looking on as a dizzying array of GOP candidates engaged in a series of soapbox free-for-all debates that at times devolved into pure comedy.

Matt Welch of Reason says something interesting about National Review’s bull of excommunication of Donald Trump:

Here’s a link to National Review‘s big “Standing Athwart Trump Yelling ‘Stop!'” symposium.  Here are excerpts from the short pieces I found most effective. R.R. Reno writes:

This morning, I was on CNN’s “New Day” with Alisyn Camerota talking about Donald Trump’s chances to “run the table.” You can see a slightly truncated clip of the interview here.

Where the clip cuts off, I was saying that in this cycle, it feels like Republican voters seem much more interested in someone who stands against the existing GOP power structure than in ideological litmus tests.