Of Dog Whistles And Monsters Of Their Own Creation

There seems to be a theme developing this morning.  Something about "reaping what you sow."

Paul Krugman:

The story is quite different in America [than France], because the Republican Party hasn’t tried to freeze out the kind of people who vote National Front in France. Instead, it has tried to exploit them, mobilizing their resentment via dog whistles to win elections. This was the essence of Richard Nixon’s “southern strategy,” and explains why the G.O.P. gets the overwhelming majority of Southern white votes. 

But there is a strong element of bait-and-switch to this strategy. Whatever dog whistles get sent during the campaign, once in power the G.O.P. has made serving the interests of a small, wealthy economic elite, especially through big tax cuts, its main priority — a priority that remains intact, as you can see if you look at the tax plans of the establishment presidential candidates this cycle.

Sooner or later the angry whites who make up a large fraction, maybe even a majority, of the G.O.P. base were bound to rebel — especially because these days much of the party’s leadership seems inbred and out of touch. They seem, for example, to imagine that the base supports cuts to Social Security and Medicare, an elite priority that has nothing to do with the reasons working-class whites vote Republican. [snip]

What I am saying, however, is that this ugliness has been empowered by the very establishments that now act so horrified at the seemingly sudden turn of events. In Europe the problem is the arrogance and rigidity of elite figures who refuse to learn from economic failure; in the U.S. it’s the cynicism of Republicans who summoned up prejudice to support their electoral prospects. And now both are facing the monsters they helped create. (our emphasis)

Catherine Rampell:

Donald Trump isn’t that extremist, unserious or bigoted.

At least not when you look at the supposedly more reasonable candidates he’s up against. Trump has merely brought the dog whistle down a few octaves, making it audible to most humans.  [snip]

Americans have just been so distracted by the carnival-barker craziness of Trump that we’ve been ignoring the slightly less colorful craziness of the other candidates.

In fact, despite constant Republican- establishment bellyaching that their party and primary have been hijacked by an unserious candidate, Trump’s campaign has in a way been helpful to the likes of Rubio, Cruz, Christie and Bush. By comparison, their own far-right, unserious, unreasonable ideas start to look moderate, serious and reasonable, and their own xenophobic rhetoric sounds a little more mannerly. Not to mention that Trump’s bombast and self-obsession make just about any other politician look grounded, polished and temperamentally tame (no small feat if you’re Chris “sit down and shut up” Christie).  (our emphasis)

Now let's see how a media obsessed with deeming both "outsider" and "establishment" Republicans as merely "conservative" (but perfectly acceptable in our horse race narrative!!) analyzes, adjusts and responds to this reality.  =crickets=   Hahano.