Donald Trump gives his victory speech the night of the Indiana Republican primary on Tuesday May 3 at Trump Tower in New York. (Photo: Mary Altaffer/Associated Press)
Donald Trump became the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party with his win in Indiana on Tuesday by a margin most polling firms missed. Here are the winners and losers.
Mr. Trump defeated his closest rival Texas Sen. Ted Cruz by a 16.6% margin, or 53.3% to 36.7%. He won nearly every county with the exception of five concentrated mainly in the Northeast; two of which, notably the more voter-rich Allen County, he barely won by a 0.8% margin.
Nevertheless, Indiana was the eighth consecutive state–and, ninth in the last ten to vote–where the polls underestimated Mr. Trump’s support, a trend we had been trying to highlight for readers. In addition to updating our pollster scorecard to reflect polling accuracy, we would again like to point out who did a good job and who missed the mark.
The top pollster in the Indiana Republican Primary was Gravis Marketing, a nonpartisan polling firm based out of the Sunshine State. A [content_tooltip id=”39612″ title=”Gravis Marketing”] conducted from April 28 to April 29 pegged Mr. Trump’s margin almost exactly–17%. While they underestimated the exact vote share for both Mr. Trump and Sen. Cruz, they nailed the percentage when you proportionately add undecided voters and adjust for the increase.
Well done Gravis Marketing! Worth noting, Gravis was also among the two top pollsters in the New York primary, as well. Following the Empire State, they also accurately polled the Northeastern five-state primary and, more interesting to our senior political analyst, identified a trend that hurt Sen. Cruz all the way across the country in Indiana.
“While we focus on the evangelical vote in a Republican Primary, we fail to underscore the growing importance of the Catholic vote,” said PPD’s senior political analyst Richard Baris. “Gravis Marketing was a canary in the mine regarding Sen. Cruz’s weakness among Catholics. While Mr. Trump carried evangelicals on Tuesday, he crushed him among Catholic voters.”
We also wanted to highlight and give credit to the [content_tooltip id=”39829″ title=”NBC/WSJ/Marist”], who performed rather poorly from Iowa to recent contests. They were penalized on the PPD Pollster Scorecard for consistently underestimated Mr. Trump’s support this cycle and overestimating Sen. Cruz. However, Marist clearly made much-need adjustments to their model.
In the Hoosier State, they missed the margin of victory by only 2 points, which will have a positive impact on their overall grade. Mr. Trump led by roughly 10 points on the PPD average of Indiana Republican Primary polls and it was only due to these two pollsters increasing the average.
Now, here comes the shaming.
The Mike Downs Center for Indiana Politics released what was clearly an outlier in this contest, but they did so at a time that makes us more than a little suspicious of them moving forward. The results were not weighed, the interviews began on April 13, yet the poll was released only a few days before the primary without explanation. For the record, a disclaimer at the bottom of the page and an appearance on Fox News the morning of the vote–only after days of allowing your flawed survey to be used as propaganda–is not particularly honest or ethical.
In future projections, ratings and contests, this survey will be significantly offset until it proves itself to be a reputable poll.
[brid video=”36721″ player=”2077″ title=”Gingrich Speaker Ryan Made “Big Mistake” Not Supporting Trump”]
May. 05, 2016 : 11:47 — Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said on “Hannity Thursday that Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., made a “big mistake” hesitating to support Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee. On Thursday, Speaker Ryan told CNN he was “not ready” to support Mr. Trump.
The presumptive Republican nominee fired back in a statement saying he wasn’t ready to support Speaker Ryan’s agenda, stating that the American people “have been treated so poorly for so long it is about time politicians put them first.”
NEW YORK, NY – MAY 03: Republican presidential front runner Donald Trump, flanked by his wife Melania, speaks to supporters and the media at Trump Tower in Manhattan following his victory in the Indiana primary on May 03, 2016 in New York City. Trump beat rival Ted Cruz decisively in a contest that many analysts believe was the last chance for any other Republican candidate to catch Trump in the delegate count. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Where am I with the #NeverTrump movement? Well, I almost never say “never.” Notice I qualified that “never” with “almost.”
I have said consistently throughout this campaign that I would support the Republican Party’s nominee. As the campaign has progressed, I’ve also said it would be increasingly difficult to honor that pledge.
This has nothing to do with sour grapes. Though I supported Rick Santorum in 2012, I full-throatedly endorsed Mitt Romney when he captured the nomination, realizing he is a decent man and light years better than Obama. In 2008 I ended up holding my nose for John McCain.
This year is different. Not only was I supporting the best Reagan conservative since Ronald Reagan, but his primary opponent is more objectionable than most GOP candidates in my lifetime.
Admittedly, Hillary Clinton is the worst Democratic nominee since Obama and could be a worse president. She could complete Obama’s fundamental transformation of America.
So, this should be an easy choice — Donald Trump can’t be as bad as Hillary Clinton, so it’s a no-brainer, right? It’s not that simple.
I am extremely bothered by the way Trump conducted himself during this campaign. There’s no point in ticking off the list of offenses, but they are legion, culminating in his endless “Lyin’ Ted” mantra and his suggestion that Ted’s father, Rafael Cruz, was involved in JFK’s assassination. There are just no words.
As much as I’m concerned with Trump’s fitness for office, character, temperament, integrity and common decency, there are other considerations that might end up being more determinative.
Beyond a few issues, I don’t believe Trump is a conservative — many of his instincts are liberal — and many of his supporters are disgusted with mainstream conservatism and fools like me who persist in clinging to it.
Trump is not ideological. But he’s struck a chord with many people on the right, or the “alt-right,” as they proudly call themselves, on certain core issues, primarily immigration and trade — oh, yes, and he’s an outsider and successful businessman “who knows how to get things done.”
I understand consumer taxes, aka tariffs, appeal to those who’ve lost their jobs, though I disagree they are the remedy. But I am a bit surprised that he’s been as effective as he has been on the immigration issue, given his flip-flops and vacillation. I also understand the people’s desire for an outsider, but I don’t think it’s an outsider we need. Rather, we need someone who actually will take on the establishment (and has a proven track record of doing so).
For the sake of argument, let’s concede Trump will build the wall and even make Mexico pay for it. That he’ll protect us against illegal immigration in necessary ways beyond just the wall. Let’s assume he’ll take a no-nonsense approach to leading and will really fight to accomplish his goals.
Is that enough to tip the scales in his favor in the eyes of Reagan conservatives?
That should be an easy “yes” when compared to Clinton in the short term, but what about the long term?
I fear that Trump’s ascendancy could result in serious damage to real conservatism, which could have devastating long-term consequences for the United States. (If it were not possible for Clinton to complete Obama’s destruction of America in the short run, I probably would just stay home in November.) I also seriously worry about Trump’s propensity toward authoritarianism — let’s call it “dictatorship-lite,” a concern exacerbated by observing the unlimited capacity of his supporters to excuse anything he does. That is scary to me.
Conservatism is not just a set of ideas, but a philosophy toward governance. It is grounded in a belief in unalienable rights from God that are enshrined in the Constitution and its scheme of limited government that guarantees our liberties like no other nation in world history.
Our nation’s main problems are a direct result of the left’s ravaging our constitutional scheme and destroying our liberties, not to mention its assault on our ability to defend ourselves as a sovereign nation.
I doubt that Trump has given much thought to the idea of liberty and to the Constitution’s role in establishing and preserving it. He might be effective on certain limited areas and he may love America as he says, but he appears to have little understanding of or allegiance to the principles that actually made America great and unique in the first place.
Even this might not be so bad if his supporters weren’t fed up with the niceties of constitutional conservatism and committed to the notion that a president’s only philosophy should be to kick rear end, protect our borders, start trade wars and stand up to political correctness — loosely defined.
If Trump wins, does Trumpism also prevail going forward? This matters greatly, because while Trump might implement certain conservative policies, he will very likely dilute and subordinate constitutional conservatism. Henceforth the right wing will be the alt-right. Those who truly believe that constitutional, Reagan conservatism is the only long-term salvation for this nation will be relegated to the back seat. The left will always fight us on this, but do we have to cede the right, as well?
America’s founding ideas are not an abstract, utopian myth. They are what have made America unique, and if we abandon them, we will have conspired to surrender America’s uniqueness.
I understand the argument that we don’t have the luxury of waiting until we can win an election on purely conservative principles and if we don’t close our borders we might lose the nation. But that is a false choice, considering we had a candidate in Ted Cruz who would have protected our borders and jealously guarded our founding ideas.
It would be bad enough if Trump supporters would agree to support Trump as a stop-gap measure — to save the country in times of urgency — and honor their pledge to thereafter return their emphasis to constitutional principles once things have settled down.. But too many of them are feeling their oats and basking in their triumph, with no intention of returning to conservatism — ever. Most intend for their nationalism and populism to replace constitutional conservatism forever, and many intend for authoritarianism to replace limited government, which means America may never be the same again.
Even RINOs are on the same continuum as constitutional conservatives. They are to the left of us, but they are ideologically oriented and decidedly to the right of the left. Trumpists don’t even seem to be on the ideological continuum, and they have no patience for discussing it. People who do discuss it — such as our Founding Fathers — are obstructionist relics and need to be dispatched (figuratively, I suppose).
So as a die-hard constitutional conservative I believe my position should be that though my candidate lost, there are still millions of us who believe in constitutional conservatism. If Trump wants our support (and sometimes he implies he doesn’t), he should have to convince us that he will not move toward authoritarianism; that he will honor the Constitution; that he will not take steps to use the Republican Party (or any other party) to permanently undermine constitutional conservatism; and that he won’t cater to those in his movement who want to cast constitutional conservatism into the burning dumpster.
I am not “NeverTrump” — I recognize how bad Clinton is — but I think conservatives should now use what leverage they have to hold Trump’s feet to the fire so that we don’t lose either way.
[mybooktable book=”the-emmaus-code-finding-jesus-in-the-old-testament” display=”summary” buybutton_shadowbox=”true”]
Trump to Ryan: Oh Yeah? Well I’m Not Ready to Support You, Either!
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., left, and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, right. (Photos: AP/Getty Images)
Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, responded to House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., saying on CNN Thursday he “not ready” to support him. In a statement released a few hours after the speaker’s remarks, Mr. Trump responded to the House speaker.
“I am not ready to support Speaker Ryan’s agenda,” Mr. Trump said in a statement released a few hours after the remarks. “Perhaps in the future we can work together and come to an agreement about what is best for the American people. They have been treated so badly for so long that it is about time for politicians to put them first.”
Speaker Ryan, who will serve as chairman of the Republican convention in Cleveland indicated he first wanted Mr. Trump to do more to unify the party and said he is not endorsing the all-but-certain nominee just yet. He at least acknowledge him as the party’s presumptive nominee.
“I hope to [support him]” and “want to,” Speaker Ryan said.
Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Reince Priebus, a close friend of the speaker and fellow-Wisconsinite, confirmed he had spoken with both Mr. Ryan and Mr. Trump later Thursday afternoon and brokered a meeting between them. While no further details were released, the meeting is allegedly going to take place sometime next week. Following his overwhelming win in Indiana on Tuesday, Chairman Priebus tweeted out that Mr. Trump was “going to be the presumptive @GOP nominee” and urged the party to unify behind #NeverHillary.
Speaker Ryan, the 2012 Republican vice presidential nominee, has several times joined along with his good friend and 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney in being a vocal critic of Mr. Trump. When the soon-to-be leader of the Republican Party called for a temporary ban on non-U.S. Muslim immigration last December, shortly after the Islamic terror attack in San Bernardino, he took the unprecedented step for a speaker by condemning the then-frontrunner.
“This is not conservatism,” Speaker Ryan said.
Yet, data from one exit poll after another, which was preceded by public polling, have all conclusively demonstrated that the voters agreed with Mr. Trump over Speaker Ryan, who also voted in favor of funding the president’s executive order on immigration. In fact, Speaker Ryan refused to defund sanctuary cities and has come out in strong support of the leftwing version of immigration reform, something Mr. Trump adamantly opposes.
But he has worked to outline a legislative agenda the Republican majority can take to the American people and offer it up as a choice in November. The simple truth is that Mr. Trump’s success is largely a result of the voters not believing promises from the Republican majority anymore. In fact, almost immediately following the interview, the hashtag #DumpRyan began trending on Twitter.
That aside, Mr. Trump previously criticized Speaker Ryan’s budget reform efforts, expressing support instead for a version of the One Cent Solution, also known in D.C. as “The Penny Plan.”
The Penny plan, legislation introduced by former Rep. Connie Mack, R-Fla., and Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wy., mandates the federal government cut one cent out of every dollar of its total spending each year for five years, and caps overall spending at 18% of national income.
While those cuts exclude interest payments and Congress is permitted to determine that some programs are too critical to cut, the target is to reduce federal spending by $7.5 trillion over 10 years and balance the federal budget by 2019.
The mandated cuts exclude interest payments and not all programs must be cut by one percent. Congress is permitted to determine some programs that are too critical to cut, but that would require other programs to be impacted more so that the total amount cut is equal to one cent for every dollar each year for six years.
Donald Trump, left, and Hillary Clinton, right, give thumbs up to the crowd after their victory speeches in Palm Beach, Florida, on March 15, 2016. (Photos: Win McNamee/Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
A year ago it was revealed, through an unauthorized leak from a former employee, that the Kremlin had set up a shadowy business arrangement through which an army of trolls countered adverse information and spread the regime’s propaganda via social media worldwide. The effort was particularly focused on the West and its push for sanctions against Russia in response to the annexation of Crimea and Russia’s involvement in eastern Ukraine. The drive of former Soviet satellites to move closer to the European Union was also targeted. The Kremlin needed to put an end to political pressure against it and foster its own agenda and explanation of events in Ukraine and elsewhere.
Since I write a great deal about Russia and former Soviet issues, I experienced this troll army firsthand. Before the revelation about the organized social media effort came out, I marveled at how quickly pro-Russian social media accounts would pounce if I wrote anything negative about the Kremlin. These interactions were complete with threats, insults and abusive language, sometimes with the intention to intimidate. An old Soviet tactic is to marginalize the messenger when you don’t like the message. I realized at the time something coordinated was going on, and the published account of the troll army was one of those “aha” moments.
Based on my experience with these Kremlin trolls, it’s so obvious to me that much of #NeverTrump is really #ImWithHer in sheep’s clothing.
In addition to geopolitical issues, I write a lot about U.S. politics from a conservative view. I have not denigrated any of this cycle’s crop of GOP presidential candidates. I’ve put out good and bad information about Donald Trump’s campaign. I have also pointed out the similarities between the establishment’s reaction to the Trump campaign and to Ronald Reagan’s in the late 1970s, such as this statement of then-GOP Sen. Chuck Percy: “A Reagan nomination and the crushing defeat likely to follow could signal the beginning of the end of our party.”
In concern for my children’s future, I have asked the party to unite behind the GOP nominee because I believe a Hillary Clinton presidency would be the end of the America I once knew.
The response to these online postings has been eerily similar to my experience with Russian trolls. The pushback has been instant. It has been vicious and won’t let go — #NEVERTrump, even if he were reincarnated into The Gipper himself. There is no discussion, there is no debate. I guess in their eyes, “the science is settled.” It has come from multiple accounts and social media channels. Many of the accounts were newly created. Hillary has taken a page from the Kremlin’s playbook, which, understanding the left’s penchant for control, is not surprising. However, the experience is disturbing. It’s Orwellian. It’s scary. I expect this from Russia. I don’t expect it from Americans.
This is why I ask the Republican Party to unite behind our nominee. There is no other choice. Hillary will do anything, say anything, sell anything of ours for money and power. The third and fourth Obama terms will obliterate freedom in this country. Conservatives won’t be able to practice conservatism. The media will be controlled. Tyranny will have arrived. These are the stakes. A write-in vote for Ted Cruz or not voting at all is a vote for the end of the American dream of freedom. I’m sorry, but that is the reality.
Isn’t it interesting that the establishment is fighting so hard against Mr. Trump but won’t lift a finger against President Obama and his agenda? Why is that? Are their agendas really in sync? There’s an adage: Follow the money. There is money and power behind the #NeverTrump movement. They are trying to fool many unknowing conservatives to follow along and be duped into giving Hillary the White House.
Yes, maybe conservatism has morphed somewhat into pro-Americanism. But how is all that compassionate conservatism working out for you as we rack up $21 trillion in debt and thousands of bodies come home from the Middle East with nothing to show for it?
I say it’s time to take care of Joey Bag o’ Donuts.
[brid video=”36656″ player=”2077″ title=”Speaker Paul Ryan I’m “Not Ready” to Support Donald Trump”]
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said he is “not ready” to support presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump and says it’s up to Mr. Trump to unify the party. The speaker and former 2012 vice presidential nominee made the remarks while appearing on CNN with Jake Tapper Thursday.
“I hope to [support him]” and “want to,” Speaker Ryan said.
Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Reince Priebus, a close friend of the speaker and fellow-Wisconsinite, confirmed he had spoken with both Mr. Ryan and Mr. Trump later Thursday afternoon and brokered a meeting between them. While no further details were released, the meeting is allegedly going to take place sometime next week. Following his overwhelming win in Indiana on Tuesday, Chairman Priebus tweeted out that Mr. Trump was “going to be the presumptive @GOP nominee” and urged the party to unify behind #NeverHillary.
NEW YORK, NY – MAY 03: Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump speaks to supporters and the media at Trump Tower in Manhattan following his victory in the Indiana primary on May 03, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, said Thursday that “there’s a good 40% chance” his vice presidential pick will be one of his former rivals. Mr. Trump, who now enjoys the field all to himself and is well on his way to clinching the nomination, said he has become friends with many of them over the last several weeks.
“Well I would say probably a 40% chance within the group,” Mr. Trump said during an interview on “Squawk Box” Thursday on CNBC. “I’ve gotten to be friends with a lot of those people and I guess perhaps enemies with a couple, but I’ve got to be friends with quite a few and I would say there’s a good 40% chance.”
The Trump campaign confirmed on Wednesday that all of his former rivals vying for the nomination–with the exception of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham–are being vetted for a potential vice presidential running mate. Including Mr. Trump, a whopping 17 candidates ran for the Republican nomination, offering up the deepest bench of talent in modern American politics.
Imagine if you had the chance to play basketball against a superstar from the NBA like Stephen Curry. No matter how hard you practiced beforehand, you surely would lose.
For most people, that would be fine. We would console ourselves with the knowledge that we tried our best and relish he fact that we even got the chance to be on the same court as a professional player.
But some people would want to cheat to make things “equal” and “fair.” So they would say that the NBA player should have to play blindfolded, or while wearing high-heeled shoes.
And perhaps they could impose enough restrictions on the NBA player that they could prevail in a contest.
But most of us wouldn’t feel good about “winning” that kind of battle. We would be ashamed that our “victory” only occurred because we curtailed the talents of our opponent.
Now let’s think about this unseemly tactic in the context of corporate taxation and international competitiveness.
This greatly undermines the ability of U.S.-domiciled companies to compete in world markets and it’s the main reason why so many companies feel the need to engage in inversions.
So how does the Obama Administration want to address these problems? What’s their plan to reform the system to that American-based firms can better compete with companies from other countries?
Unfortunately, there’s no desire to make the tax code more competitive. Instead, the Obama Administration wants to change the laws to make it less attractive to do business in other nations. Sort of the tax version of hobbling the NBA basketball player in the above example.
The Administration proposes to supplement the existing subpart F regime with a per-country minimum tax on the foreign earnings of entities taxed as domestic C corporations (U.S. corporations) and their CFCs. …Under the proposal, the foreign earnings of a CFC or branch or from the performance of services would be subject to current U.S. taxation at a rate (not below zero) of 19 percent less 85 percent of the per-country foreign effective tax rate (the residual minimum tax rate). …The minimum tax would be imposed on current foreign earnings regardless of whether they are repatriated to the United States.
There’s a lot of jargon in those passages, and even more if you click on the underlying link.
So let’s augment by excerpting some of the remarks, at a recent Brookings Institution event, by the Treasury Department’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Tax Affairs. Robert Stack was pushing the President’s agenda, which would undermine American companies by making it difficult for them to benefit from good tax policy in other jurisdictions.
He actually argued, for instance, that business tax reform should be “more than a cry to join the race to the bottom.”
In other words, he doesn’t (or, to be more accurate, his boss doesn’t) want to fix what’s wrong with the American tax code.
So he doesn’t seem to care that other nations are achieving good results with lower corporate tax rates.
I do not buy into the notion that the U.S. must willy-nilly do what everyone else is doing.
And he also criticizes the policy of “deferral,” which is a provision of the tax code that enables American-based companies to delay the second layer of tax that the IRS imposes on income that is earned (and already subject to tax) in other jurisdictions.
I don’t think it’s open to debate that the ability of US multinationals to defer income has been a dramatic contributor to global tax instability.
He doesn’t really explain why it is destabilizing for companies to protect themselves against a second layer of tax that shouldn’t exist.
But he does acknowledge that there are big supply-side responses to high tax rates.
…large disparity in income tax rates…will inevitably drive behavior.
Too bad he doesn’t draw the obvious lesson about the benefits of low tax rates.
Anyhow, here’s what he says about the President’s tax scheme.
The President’s global minimum tax proposal…permits tax-free repatriation of amounts earned in countries taxed at rates above the global minimum rate. …the global minimum tax plan also takes the benefit out of shifting income into low and no-tax jurisdictions by requiring that the multinational pay to the US the difference between the tax haven rate and the U.S. rate.
The bottom line is that American companies would be taxed by the IRS for doing business in low-tax jurisdictions such as Ireland, Hong Kong, Switzerland, and Bermuda.
But if they do business in high-tax nations such as France, there’s no extra layer of tax.
The bottom line is that the U.S. tax code would be used to encourage bad policy in other countries.
Though Mr. Stack sees that as a feature rather than a bug, based on thepreposterous assertion that other counties will grow faster if the burden of government spending is increased.
…the global minimum tax concept has an added benefit as well…protecting developing and low-income countries…so they can mobilize the necessary resources to grow their economies.
At a recent IMF symposium, the minimum tax was identified as something that could be of great help.
The bottom line is that the White House and the Treasury Department are fixated at hobbling competitors by encouraging higher tax rates around the world and making sure that American-based companies are penalized with an extra layer of tax if they do business in low-tax jurisdictions
For what it’s worth, the right approach, both ethically and economically, is for American policy makers to focus on fixing what’s wrong with the American tax system.
P.S. When I debunked Jeffrey Sachs on the “race to the bottom,” I showed that lower tax rates do not mean lower tax revenue.
Weekly jobless claims, or first-time claims for unemployment benefits reported by the Labor Department.
The Labor Department said Thursday that weekly jobless claims rose by 17,000 to 274,000 for the week ending April 30, higher than the median forecast for 260,000. The prior week was unchanged at 257,000.
A Labor Department analyst said there were no special factors impacting this week’s initial claims and no state was triggered “on” the Extended Benefits program during the week ending April 16.
The four-week moving average–which is widely considered a better gauge, as it irons out volatility–was 258,000, an increase of 2,000 from the previous week’s unrevised average of 256,000. However, the report marks 61 consecutive weeks of initial claims coming in below 300,000, the longest streak since 1973. That threshold is typically associated with a firming labor market, but chronic long-term unemployment and weak labor force participation impacts the number on the surface.
Simply put, the more workers stay out of the labor force the smaller and fewer pool of workers eligible for unemployment insurance becomes.
The highest insured unemployment rates in the week ending April 16 were in Alaska (3.9), Wyoming (3.1), New Jersey (2.6), West Virginia (2.6), California (2.5), Connecticut (2.5), Puerto Rico (2.5), Pennsylvania (2.4), Illinois (2.2), and Massachusetts (2.2).
The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending April 23 were in Illinois (+4,989), Massachusetts (+3,173), Rhode Island (+1,724), Kansas (+597), and Iowa (+488), while the largest decreases were in California (-3,546), New Jersey (-1,288), Pennsylvania (-1,020), Puerto Rico (-685), and Washington (-674).
PHOENIX, AZ – JULY 11: Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump addresses supporters during a political rally at the Phoenix Convention Center on July 11, 2015 in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo: Charlie Leight/Getty Images)
Days before the Indiana primary, Ted Cruz paraded his two young daughters in matching pink dresses and spoke darkly of “putting little girls alone in a bathroom with grown men.”
This was a visual that, frankly, we could have done without. Thankfully, Donald Trump locked it in Ripley’s museum of the politically bizarre by trouncing Cruz in that conservative state’s primary.
It was Trump who had said that transgender people should use “whatever bathroom they feel is appropriate.” It was he who noted that there have been “very few problems” with transgender people using ladies’ rooms. Trump didn’t say — but could have — that men presenting themselves as women have been using women’s facilities for a long time, with the other occupants none the wiser or unconcerned.
So has Trump deep-sixed the culture war gambit in Republican politics? The formula is to draw votes by pounding on some controversy of little consequence to most people, preferably with a sex angle attached. The 2004 presidential election in Ohio was a textbook case. Placing a measure to ban gay marriage on the ballot probably gave George W. Bush — whose main game was tax cuts — a narrow victory.
Our friends the Koch brothers routinely give money to socially conservative groups to win over middle- or working-class followers otherwise not served by the family’s economic agenda. The brothers themselves have shrugged at gay marriage, saying they have no problem with it.
Perhaps, just perhaps, the working-class whites targeted by culture warriors don’t really care all that much about these issues — or care a lot less about them than they do about their falling incomes. Perhaps they’ve been voting all these years for an attitude, hitting back at the “liberal elites” who they feel rap them on the knuckles when they speak their mind.
Trump’s magic potion involves adding attitude while subtracting threats to Social Security, Medicare and other government programs average folks depend on.
Trump has stomped on so many of the right wing’s most cherished wedge issues — while winning majorities among the Republican base — it gets you wondering how big that tide of moral umbrage really was. How much of it was a mirage pulled off with talk radio’s smoke and mirrors?
Abortion is a truly difficult issue. Your writer believes an abortion should be easy (and free) to obtain early in a pregnancy and limited later on. Others oppose abortion altogether, and it is this group’s genuine concerns that the right seeks to stoke.
As a result, it’s the rare Republican who will put in a good word for Planned Parenthood, a nonprofit that provides a variety of women’s health services in addition to abortions. But Trump praised the organization for doing the former without apology. And he won races in the heart of value-voter America — including the entire Deep South.
For liberals and moderates alike, Trump deserves gratitude for putting away Cruz. (Too bad about John Kasich, though.) It spared us from having to hear his running mate, Carly Fiorina, go on about Planned Parenthood’s harvesting “body parts” from a kicking fetus, a complete fiction.
Making things up happens to be a Trump specialty, so there’s some poetic justice in his volleying back some outright fabrications. His suggestion that Cruz’s father helped John Kennedy’s assassin is a classic of the genre.
Putting an end to culture warmongering as a political strategy — or at least dialing it back — could go down as Trump’s second-best contribution to the quality of America’s civic life. His best contribution would be to lose badly in November. Luckily, on getting himself not elected in the general, Trump has made a strong start.
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