Norm Ornstein, of the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, explains the rise of Donald Trump:
When you look at populism over the longer course of both American history and other countries that have suffered economic traumas as a result of financial collapse, you’re gonna get the emergence of some leaders who exploit nativism, protectionism, and isolationism. They’re components — sometimes greater, sometimes lesser — that are baked into the process. So you’ve got a bit of that.
But if you forced me to pick one factor explaining what’s happened, I would say this is a self-inflicted wound by Republican leaders.
Over many years, they’ve adopted strategies that have trivialized and delegitimized government. They were willing to play to a nativist element. And they tried to use, instead of stand up to, the apocalyptic visions and extremism of some cable television, talk radio, and other media outlets on the right.
And add to that, they’ve delegitimized President Obama, but they’ve failed to succeed with any of the promises they’ve made to their rank and file voters, or Tea Party adherents. So when I looked at that, my view was, “what makes you think, after all of these failures, that you’re going to have a group of compliant people who are just going to fall in line behind an establishment figure?”
Related post from last month: Michael Barone: ‘Trump Can’t Break the Republican Party.’.
To which Mr. Ornstein might reply: It’s already broken, and that’s why Trump’s the Republican nominee.