My friend Wayne Lively (a committed political junkie who pretty much unfailingly puts forward intriguing views) commented today on the collective that is backing the most extreme candidates in the GOP primaries, Trump and Cruz.
“These folks,” he noted, “are the same people who would have supported the monarchy.”
Now THAT’S an interesting insight. I think Wayne’s hit on something here. A lot of folks are frustrated, think the status quo sucks, are worried about the economy, immigration, terrorism. They want something to happen but haven’t a clue what it is or who could pull whatever it is off. They look at “traditional” candidates, like Kasich, Christie and Rubio, who stand for “classic conservatism” (most of the time anyway) and think that this won’t help, these guys will just bring us more of the same.
So they flail about snatching at eccentric people like Cruz and his weird quasi-Dominionist Christianity, Trump and his empty, unworkable promises, even Carson and his magic scalpel.
It does, in fact, appear that they are looking for a King — someone to be in charge, someone who acts like he knows what he’s doing and will just fucking do it.
Oddly, they don’t seem to care much about how “it” gets done or what “it” actually is.
Very weird, eerie even. Will this social pathology resolve? Will people return to their senses? I honestly do not know. We’ve never gone down this road before.