Faced with existential threats from the right, the Democratic leadership remains timid; faced with demands for justice from the left, it goes on the attack.
I don’t contest that Trump is an oligarch. Whether he is part of the establishment is (or rather was) a matter of definition. If, by establishment, we mean the specific cliques that run the two party system, then he was an outsider. He had the cash to run in their circles, but they despised him. Thus came Hillary’s “pied Piper” strategy to encourage the media to pay attention to Trump in the Republican primary. She never even dreamed he could beat her in the general.
If we are being more general and referring to both the moneyed and political establishment then, yeah, he has always been establishment. He might not have been allowed to sit at the establishment cool-kids table, but he was one of them.
Still, none of that is relevant to his brand. He successfully positioned himself as an outsider breaking through the walls of power. That’s what has made him so politically invulnerable. The more the political establishment and their talking heads talk about how bad Trump is, the more voters liked him. The list of things that Trump did or said that would have destroyed an establishment politician is a mile long but, in every case, it helped him.
I don’t contest that Trump is an oligarch. Whether he is part of the establishment is (or rather was) a matter of definition. If, by establishment, we mean the specific cliques that run the two party system, then he was an outsider. He had the cash to run in their circles, but they despised him. Thus came Hillary’s “pied Piper” strategy to encourage the media to pay attention to Trump in the Republican primary. She never even dreamed he could beat her in the general.
If we are being more general and referring to both the moneyed and political establishment then, yeah, he has always been establishment. He might not have been allowed to sit at the establishment cool-kids table, but he was one of them.
Still, none of that is relevant to his brand. He successfully positioned himself as an outsider breaking through the walls of power. That’s what has made him so politically invulnerable. The more the political establishment and their talking heads talk about how bad Trump is, the more voters liked him. The list of things that Trump did or said that would have destroyed an establishment politician is a mile long but, in every case, it helped him.