Krugman on Trump

Paul Krugman's latest is titled "Trump is Right on Economics." Trump, he notes, is leading the Republican field despite his adherence to certain policy ideas -- universal health care, raising taxes on the rich -- that are supposed to be anathema to "the base." Maybe, says Krugman, they are really only anathema to the donor class:

So am I saying that Mr. Trump is better and more serious than he’s given credit for being? Not at all — he is exactly the ignorant blowhard he seems to be. It’s when it comes to his rivals that appearances can be deceiving. Some of them may come across as reasonable and thoughtful, but in reality they are anything but.

Mr. Bush, in particular, may pose as a reasonable, thoughtful type — credulous reporters even describe him as a policy wonk — but his actual economic platform, which relies on the magic of tax cuts to deliver a doubling of America’s growth rate, is pure supply-side voodoo.

And here’s what’s interesting: all indications are that Mr. Bush’s attacks on Mr. Trump are falling flat, because the Republican base doesn’t actually share the Republican establishment’s economic delusions.

The thing is, we didn’t really know that until Mr. Trump came along. The influence of big-money donors meant that nobody could make a serious play for the G.O.P. nomination without pledging allegiance to supply-side doctrine, and this allowed the establishment to imagine that ordinary voters shared its antipopulist creed. Indeed, Mr. Bush’s hapless attempt at a takedown suggests that his political team still doesn’t get it, and thinks that pointing out The Donald’s heresies will be enough to doom his campaign.

But Mr. Trump, who is self-financing, didn’t need to genuflect to the big money, and it turns out that the base doesn’t mind his heresies. This is a real revelation, which may have a lasting impact on our politics.

I doubt it will have any long-term impact, actually; the donor class is too important within the Republican Party for them to be sidelined in this debate.

But maybe Trump's campaign instead has a different lesson, on the ability of billionaire egotists to defy conventional wisdom in a way that party men cannot. Maybe the power of such people to act outside the usual rules, and thus to shake up moribund systems, goes at least a little way toward justifying their existence.