By Quin Hillyer at NRO’s The Corner:
It was one year ago today that Donald Trump rode down an escalator and unfooted the entire American political order. Much of what he did to that order is extremely lamentable: He has obliterated standards of acceptable political discourse; incited violence; legitimized the use of the vilest smears as mere parts of the game; and tacitly encouraged bigots and haters to be bolder, less furtive, in spewing their bile. But other things Trump has done would, or at least could, be seen as salutary if they had not been accompanied by the smears, the mainstreaming of conspiracy nuttery, and the other extreme violations of any sense of decorum. The most important of these achievements of Trump is his success in finally busting the elites upside the head with the message many of us have tried, without success, to argue for years — namely, that American laborers have been too often ignored, their concerns belittled or trampled, and their sometimes-justifiable anger at “the system” too readily dismissed.
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
For years some of us have argued that a vast number of people that roughly fit the description of “1992 Perot voters” had been treated as if they were voiceless, and that they needed to be romanced into the Republican/conservative coalition. We’ve also openly criticized the Republican National Committee and its slavishness to the “donor class” while creating rules meant to advantage insiders, and we’ve called for a greater sense of populism (although nothing like demagoguery) in the Republican/conservative ethos. Trump drove home those lessons with the force of a huge, over-amped electric sledgehammer…..
[much later in the piece]: If Trump leaves the campaign now, he still exits as a colossus. ….
Please read the whole blog post here.
