There's an element of clowning and entertainment to Trump, that makes it surreal and hard to understand to what extent he is pretending to be a fascist or an authoritarian. Jonathan Chait More Quotes by Jonathan Chait More Quotes From Jonathan Chait Trump is what Obama critics think Obama is: Someone who's focused on symbolism rather than substance. Jonathan Chait substance symbolism thinking Everything on Twitter is true. Jonathan Chait At best, Trumpism will be a more right-wing version of the same old Republican Party. Jonathan Chait republican party wings Barack Obama is a very impressive human being. Jonathan Chait barack impressive humans Barack Obama knows a lot about a lot of things. Jonathan Chait barack knows Barack Obama is pretty similar to the person you see in public, at press conferences. He's a little saltier, a little more sarcastic and cutting. Jonathan Chait cutting sarcastic littles In public, Barack Obama's giving the simple version of his beliefs for the mass public. In private, he can discuss it at a really high level. Jonathan Chait levels simple giving Barack Obama is an intellectual. Jonathan Chait barack intellectual Republicans fighting back against changes Obama made means those changes are important, as with most of the major progress in American history. Jonathan Chait progress fighting mean On Obamacare, every day that goes by I have more evidence that I wish I could put in my book, on how difficult it is for the Republicans to eliminate this law. They have no real alternative. They're afraid to take away health care from the 20 million people who now have it. Jonathan Chait real law book Conservatives are much more comfortable supporting the leader who's in power than liberals. Jonathan Chait comfortable leader It's absolutely true that people who believed Hillary Clinton would be a decent or even strong nominee need to think why that got that wrong. Laying the entire blame at the feet of Russia and the FBI is not sufficient. The biggest reason things went wrong were her own choices and her own weaknesses. Jonathan Chait russia strong thinking I never thought Hillary Clinton was a very good politician. Jonathan Chait very-good clinton politician I don't think the Democrats need a silver bullet. Jonathan Chait bullets needs thinking It's pretty clear that Hillary Clinton was a deeply, deeply flawed alternative. She had the wrong combination of the internal political chops to muscle out all the mainstream nominations from the field, leaving only Bernie Sanders, who was unacceptable to the Democrats' party establishment. But she also had a real lack of political skill that would enable her to win the general election. Jonathan Chait party real winning In some ways, Trump is just going to continue the trend: by continuing the norm-smashing behaviour that Republicans used in opposition. Jonathan Chait trends behaviour way Obama took 20 million people from the category of ignorables and put them into the category of unignorables. No one had to do anything for these 20 million people because they were outside the system. Now they're inside the system. Taking away their health care imposes all kind of political pain. We don't know the outcome, but every passing day it show how difficult it is for Trump to deprive them of what they now have. Jonathan Chait political pain people Because many people remembered a time when the Republican Party was not so extreme, and hadn't full grasped how much it had changed, people blamed Obama for his failure to get Republicans to agree with him. That blame coloured so much of how the public saw Obama during his presidency. The public thought he was dealing with a brand of Republican leader that just didn't exist any more. Jonathan Chait party leader people The Republicans' response to Obama confused a lot of people. I really think there's been a measure of clarity at the end, with Trump's election, that was not present during the Obama presidency. Jonathan Chait confused people thinking Trump was the logical outcome of the Republican's irrational, racialized backlash to Obama that had utterly come to dominate the party's thinking. Jonathan Chait outcomes party thinking
