Comparison:
‘Trump came down in June of 2015, and for 10 years there’s been no real work done to even begin to understand populism, except that the deplorables are an exotic species like at the San Diego Zoo.‘
David French finds a quotation from S. Bannon a doorway as he seeks understanding of an elusive political dynamic wherein a group of citizen-voter have proved challenging to understand and forecast. Somebody alert H. Clinton.
Context:
Steve Bannon made me laugh out loud.
I was listening to my colleague Ross Douthat’s excellent, informative interview with President Trump’s former chief strategist, and Bannon said this: “Trump came down in June of 2015, and for 10 years there’s been no real work done to even begin to understand populism, except that the deplorables are an exotic species like at the San Diego Zoo.”
I’m sorry, but that’s hilarious. Ever since Trump began winning Republican primaries in 2016, there has been a desperate effort to understand populism. JD Vance is the vice president in part because of that effort. His book, “Hillbilly Elegy,” which came out shortly after Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee, was a monumental best seller because so many Americans — including liberal Americans — wanted to understand the culture and ideas that brought us Trump.
Citation:
French, David. “The Populist Cure Is Worse Than the Elite Disease.“ New York Times, 09 February 2025. Web.
(Image courtesy of Bing Feb. 2025.)
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