![]() ![]() ![]() He’s promised to build a wall along the border and make Mexico pay for it. soil after terror attacks or feuding with Fox News star Megyn Kelly after a debate in which he received middling reviews.Īgain and again, Trump has managed to make it impossible for conservatives to get to his right by adopting an extreme approach on some of the party’s most emotive issues. Trump shrewdly recognized that a party primed for rebellion – that seems to hate its own leaders even more than it despises Obama – would warmly welcome a rabble-rouser like himself.Īnd every time it looks like he’s fading or one of his rivals is getting good press, he simply ignites a new outrage that steals attention from them and buys another couple of days of free media, be it by a call to ban Muslims from U.S. READ: Trump dominates GOP field heading into 2016 They also view Obama as the most partisan and polarizing president of their lifetime, even as Obama complains that Republicans have tried to thwart him at every turn and make compromise impossible. His hard-line position on immigration – one contrary to the desire of GOP leaders who want to reach out to Hispanic voters – hit a sweet spot among the GOP’s rank and file.Īnd late in the second term of Democrat Barack Obama’s presidency, rooted in nuance, cultural sensitivity and professorial rhetoric – conservatives would say obsessive political correctness – many Republicans have been hungering for someone from outside the political mainstream to tell it like it is. Trump has already proved that he possesses one of the most valuable political attributes: the ability to sense something stirring in the electorate before anyone else. ![]() The year Donald Trump took politics by storm ![]() “He is a unique political animal who knows his audience and uses controversy as a political weapon better than anyone we have almost ever seen,” said Republican political strategist Ford O’Connell. Trump frequently insists he is not a politician at all and his image as a novice outsider unbeholden to GOP elites is crucial to his appeal.īut for all his inexperience and risk-taking, Trump was the most accomplished politician in the Republican field for much of 2015. He’s also well positioned in early voting states, meaning a headache-filled start to the year for GOP elites who fear his co-opting of their party could doom it to defeat next November.Īs his campaign girds for new tests in the new year, it’s a good time to assess how far Trump’s political movement has come, what it has taught us about the state of American politics as 2016 dawns, and what we have learned about the man himself.Īsk those at a Trump rally why the billionaire businessman is their hero and you will hear a common refrain: He’s not like the normal Washington crowd because he says things most people are afraid to. Yet the billionaire has topped national polls since he entered the race, and in the latest CNN/ORC poll last week he was at 39%, double his nearest challenger. In a riotous six-month carnival of political incorrectness, Donald Trump has fused his message to the mood of his seething supporters like no other candidate and defied the conventions of a political game under whose rules he should have faded long ago.įew in Republican Party politics believed when Trump launched his improbable White House bid in June that he’d still be a factor – much less the factor – at the end of the year. He’s churned up torrents of insults, incited grass-roots Republican fury, fearlessly flouted taboos on gender, race and religion and confounded the pundits again and again. ![]()
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