The Trump Phenomenon

“Do I think that Trump should be president? No. Do I think he can be the badly needed match that burns down the status quo? Yes.”

-- Matthew Dowd, Republican strategist

Maureen Dowd is on a Trump roll. I think this is her third column in a row on Trump, and they have been good ones. This one picks up the perspective of Matthew Dowd, who sees the success of the Trump campaign as a popular reaction to the re-assertion of the Clinton and Bush dynasties.

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“The prospect of Hillary and Jeb as the nominees created a huge opening for something like this,” said former W. strategist Matthew Dowd. “The American public looked at it and said, ‘I do not want that.’ ”

Dowd said Friday that everyone should stop being in denial and start accepting that Trump could be the nominee.

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Trump’s “gusto,” as he likes to call it, has thrown into sharper relief the grinding-it-out, impatient entitlement, the overthinking and overcorrecting of Jeb and Hillary.

Both campaign like they are owed, not because of their great national achievements, but because of their byzantine family dynamics.

Jeb feels he is owed because his brother sneaked in and snatched the presidency that his parents had designated for the Good Son, and because he was pressured to help W. purloin Florida in 2000.

And Hillary feels she is owed because she moved to Arkansas and then stuck it out with Bill through an anachronistic first lady job and Monica; because she was a team player and bided her time in the Senate and as secretary of state; because a whippersnapper named Barack sneaked in and snatched the presidency that should have been hers.

-- Maureen Dowd at The New York Times

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