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The Guardian view on Donald Trump’s early lead in the race for the Republican nomination

The hot air balloon that is Donald Trump’s campaign for the Republican nomination continues to head for the stratosphere, with one weekend poll showing that he is not only the leading contender but has nearly doubled his support among Republican voters in the past two weeks. It is tempting to say that Mr Trump’s policies are as lacking in substance as his hairdo. That is true in the sense that he seems to have absolutely no idea how he would execute them were he to achieve office. But, aside from that defect, the proposals he has been putting forward either do not greatly differ from those of his more mainstream rivals, or tend to be somewhat more liberal than they are. He does not differ in essence from most of the rest of the field on immigration, global warming, or equal marriage. He does differ from most in that he opposes cuts in social security, Medicare and Medicaid, and although he wants Obamacare repealed, he believes in some form of universal healthcare. He continues to forthrightly describe the Iraq war as a disaster, while most of the other contenders have tried to avoid or obfuscate that issue.

If this were all, Mr Trump could be described as average in the field and better than some. But it is his coruscating style that has propelled him into the spotlight. He insults his party rivals with abandon. He slaps meanly at a Republican elder such as Senator John McCain. He describes Mexican immigrants as rapists and criminals. He makes up tall stories about facing physical danger on the border with Mexico. He repeatedly fails to explain his views in any coherent way or fluffs his lines at press conferences. And yet bluster carries him through, and the great ego trip rolls on, seemingly delighting a significant number of core Republican voters, although it alienates others and his appeal outside the party is limited.

He celebrates his own wealth, his alleged appeal to beautiful women, and his years throwing up mediocre buildings in American cities as if these were unalloyed credentials for running a great nation facing great problems. In so doing he has tapped into a section of the electorate that is fearful of demographic and cultural change, sees the America it thinks it knows slipping away, and has lost faith in conventional politics. It looks for scapegoats, wants its prejudices confirmed and yearns for a Mr Fixit who can make everything right again. Whether it thinks Mr Trump could ever actually be the president is uncertain. But in the meantime he satisfies certain emotional needs.

Unfortunately for the Republican party, and to the advantage of the Democrats, there are other effects. In the highly unlikely event of him winning the nomination, he would be almost bound to lose the election, because the “silent majority” that he claims to represent has dwindled in size in the days since Richard Nixon coined the term to refer to the then much larger number of white working-class and lower-middle-class voters. But, if spurned, Mr Trump might run as a third-party candidate, splitting the Republican vote as Ross Perot did in 1992 and 1996.

At a more fundamental level, he threatens to show up the central weakness of the modern Republican party, which is that it needs to draw on two contradictory constituencies – that older one, anxious about immigration, sexual matters, abortion, and “ordinary” jobs; and a new, younger, and more ethnically diverse population, familiar with the altered economic landscape of recent years. The difficulty is clearest when the party tries to appeal both to voters who want immigration cut and to recent immigrants themselves.

That is why Republican politicians usually speak with forked tongue as they deal with these issues. But Mr Trump does not speak with a forked tongue. For every voter he pleases with his uncomplicated rhetoric, he is likely to lose one who might otherwise have rallied to the Republican cause. These problems have not much impeded Republicans in local or state fights, because they can tailor their campaigning to particular circumstances. But they are disabling when they have to craft a national message in a presidential contest. That contributes to the American political gridlock, pitting an activist president against obstinate Republican lawmakers. The only way out of this impasse would be for the Republican party to make its peace with the new America. A contender like Donald Trump can only hinder such a development, leaving the party stranded in the contradictions from which it must escape if American politics is ever to work properly again.
source:http://www.theguardian.com