Matthew Yglesias: “Trump has managed to convince huge numbers of conservatives that all of his negative attributes are actually positive because they signal ruthlessness, and ruthlessness is what Republicans need.”
Jonathan Chait: “In recent years, the Republican Party’s long rightward march on policy has ground to a halt, and it has instead radicalized on a different dimension: ruthlessness. Attributing their political travails to weakness, Republicans converged on the belief that their only chance to pull back from the precipice of final defeat is to discard their scruples. A willingness to do or say anything to win was the essence of Trump’s appeal, an amorality some Republicans embraced gleefully and others reluctantly.”
