Gerson: “What Trump is appealing to has more of a feel of European right-wing politics, ok, UKIP or the National Front — highly nationalistic, resentment of foreigners, we’ve been betrayed by our leaders. There’s some deep and disturbing things that are being appealed to here…”
Gerson also predicts that Trump “could damage the Republican Party for decades to come” with his immigrant/Latino bashing. On another note, Gerson rips Trump wannabe Scott Walker as “not thoughtful,” “not prepared,” and “not playing in the big leagues.”
For his part, Mark Shields notes that Trump is appealing to an extremely angry Republican electorate, a “mean-spiritedness in the electorate he’s appealing to…anti-immigrant…[a position which is] devastating the Republican Party in the long run.”
Finally, Shields raises a great point that’s well worth quoting: “What [Bush and Rubio] risk [by not condemning Trump strongly now] is that what Trump is doing and saying becomes so odious and so offensive that it almost will be seen as a moral surrender on your part, ultimately in the general election, that you didn’t stand up to him…that’s a real risk that anybody runs by not confronting him at this point.”
The problem, of course, is that large swaths of the Republican primary electorate really IS xenophobic, ultra-nationalist, etc., etc. And that’s the truly horrifying part of all this…
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