How To Judge A Candidate, Donald Trump

[From article]
You can tell a lot about a man by his enemies, and Donald Trump has those aplenty. I’m not referring to people who may merely disagree with him on certain issues, or even those on the far Left – like Democrats – who will hate anybody who is not a progressive loonie toon. Instead, I’m talking about the folks in Trump’s own party and on Trump’s own side, broadly speaking, of the ideological divide. The Republican establishment, as well as a large subset of the conservative (loosely defined) commentariat, seem to have visceral hatred for the man – and for his supporters in the GOP base.
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Last week, I took some time to explain why so many folks are supporting Donald Trump. This week, I’d like to take the opportunity to explain why so many other folks are going so overboard in their weird, obsessive dislike for him. And again, as I said last week, I am not a Trump supporter - I am on board with Ted Cruz. However, I am still positive toward Trump’s contribution to the debate (especially on immigration) and I definitely do not share the hatred for him that the GOP establishment does.
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There is an astounding amount of groupthink among the Washington set – the journalists, pundits, lobbyists, consultants, politicians, and dealmakers. These types of folks – the George Wills and the Steve Schmidts and the Karl Roves and the rest – don’t like new ideas. They don’t want anybody rocking the boat. As a result, anyone who threatens to do so, who seek to inject fresh perspectives into the ossified mold of Washington political society, will be viewed with fear and mistrust, and will be demonized and ostracized. This is especially the case when the ideas being injected happen to be popular with the masses (such as ending illegal immigration) but unpopular with the “elites.” In part, what we see going on with the response to Donald Trump is nothing but good old fashioned cliqueishness.
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Just as the “elites” know that a successful Trump insurgency could topple their carefully constructed house of cards, so the “respectability wannabes” also know that Trump threatens their meal ticket. If he wins, or even if he gains a clear and significant following that doesn’t go away after a couple of months, they could end up on the outside – and they don’t want that. So they have a vested interested in playing toady to the “elites.”
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Steve Schmidt managed John McCain to a glorious defeat in 2008 as he muzzled Sarah Palin, while Matt Rhoades succeeded in getting Mitt Romney to bumble his way upwards a couple of percentage points to an even more glorious defeat in 2012. For a bunch of people who take it upon themselves to school the rest of us about what will work and what won’t, they don’t seem to know what they’re talking about.

http://canadafreepress.com/article/74616

Desperation carries a scent about it – it may be time for folks who aren’t anti-Trump to invest in a pair of nose plugs
Explaining Donald Trump’s Enemies
By Tim Dunkin
August 18, 2015