Must-Read: As I said yesterday, President-elect Trump is probably a Schwarzenegger--in which case the next four years will see for the most part a loss of opportunity to make America greater, which is a disappointment but not a total disaster. Trump is perhaps a Berlusconi--which would be a disaster: think of the damage Berlusconi's bunga-bunga rent-seeking rule did to Italy. And Trump is highly unlikely to be a Mussolini.
But there are Mussolinis out there, and worse. And, as Ezra Klein notes, the rise of Trump reveals that our political system is frighteningly vulnerable to them:
Ezra Klein: Donald Trump’s Success Reveals a Frightening Weakness in American Democracy: "The belief that Trump is a predictable reaction to acute economic duress crumbled before the finding that his primary voters had a median household income of $72,000 — well above both the national average and that of Clinton supporters...
...The idea that Trumpism arose as a response to a stalled economy collapsed as America experienced its longest sustained run of private sector job growth, and the highest single-year jump in median incomes, in modern history. The idea that Trump was a reaction to failed trade deals and heavy competition from immigrants slammed into data showing support for him showed no relationship to lost manufacturing jobs and was strongest in areas without immigrant labor. The idea that Trump is a reaction to historic disgust with American elites is at war with President Barack Obama’s approval ratings, which have risen above 50 percent and now match Ronald Reagan’s at this point in his presidency.... The lesson of Trumpism becomes much scarier: We are more vulnerable than we thought to reactionary strongmen. It can happen here.
To Americans of another era — particularly the founding era — it would seem bizarre that we are reaching so far, and straining so hard, to explain the popular appeal of a charismatic demagogue. As former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson wrote:
The founders had little patience for “pure democracy,” which they found particularly vulnerable to demagogues. Men of factious tempers, of local prejudices, or of sinister designs,’ says Federalist 10, “may, by intrigue, by corruption, or by other means, first obtain the suffrages, and then betray the interests, of the people.” A representative government is designed to frustrate sinister majorities (or committed pluralities), by mediating public views through “a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country.”
The American political system is structured the way it is in part due to the founders’ fear of demagogues. It’s a reason why the American presidency is so weak, why the executive is checked by other branches, why the Senate’s members were originally selected by state legislators. It is a credit to the long success of our political institutions that we think dangerous men can only win elections in far-off lands. And so it is the weakening of those institutions that demands our attention now.
Donald Trump’... rests on two separate... institutional failure... his victory in the Republican Party’s presidential primaries. The second is his consolidation of elite Republicans, and of the Republican-leaning electorate. Trump won the GOP primaries with 13.8 million votes. The distance between those 13.8 million voters and the more than 60 million votes... is vast, and was far from assured. In 1972, for instance, George McGovern won the Democratic primary even though much of the Democratic Party viewed him with suspicion and even fear. Major Democratic interest groups, like the AFL-CIO, refused to endorse him in the general election, and top Democrats, including former governors of Florida, Texas, and Virginia, organized “Democrats for Nixon.” McGovern went on to lose with less than 40 percent of the vote, a dismal showing driven by Democrats who abandoned a nominee they considered unacceptable.
A similar path was possible for Trump. Elites within the Republican Party viewed him with horror. His primary opponents spoke of him in apocalyptic terms. Ted Cruz called Trump a "pathological liar," "utterly amoral," and "a narcissist at a level I don't think this country's ever seen." Rick Perry said Trump’s candidacy was "a cancer on conservatism, and it must be clearly diagnosed, excised, and discarded." Rand Paul said Trump is "a delusional narcissist and an orange-faced windbag. A speck of dirt is way more qualified to be president." Marco Rubio called him “dangerous,” and warned that we should not hand "the nuclear codes of the United States to an erratic individual."
And then every single one of those Republicans endorsed Trump.
Ted Cruz told Americans to vote for the pathological liar. Rick Perry urged people to elect the cancer on conservatism. Rand Paul backed the delusional narcissist. Marco Rubio campaigned to hand the nuclear codes of the United States to an erratic individual. The list goes on. Paul Ryan, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, has endorsed Trump, as has Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, and Reince Priebus, the head of the Republican National Committee. Mike Pence, the governor of Indiana, commiserated with Dan Senor, a former Bush appointee, over the fact that Trump was “unacceptable” — and then became his vice president. With this kind of elite consolidation, it’s little wonder that Trump has managed to consolidate Republican-leaning voters behind him....
Here is the problem, in short: Parties, and particularly the Republican Party, can no longer control whom they nominate. But once they nominate someone — once they nominate anyone — that person is guaranteed the support of both the party’s elites and its voters.... Political parties, and political party primaries, were traditionally bulwarks against demagogues rising in American politics — they were controlled by gatekeepers who acted as checks against charismatic demagogues.... But in recent decades, we have slowly destroyed the ability of party officials to drive party primaries. What’s more, we have come to see party officials exercising influence as fundamentally illegitimate.... The results have been stark....
This is not to say Republicans will always, or even routinely, nominate candidates as dangerous as Trump. Much had to go wrong for him to be nominated. But having been nominated, much will have to go right for the country not to elect him.... The world also produces clever, disciplined demagogues. And they are the ones who truly threaten republics.
