George Will: Donald Trump Is ‘A Bloviating Ignoramus With A Very Low IQ’
George Will pretty much says everything that needs to be said about the Romney campaign’s bizarre embrace of Donald Trump:
Conservative columnist George Will criticized Donald Trump with colorful language on Sunday when asked on ABC’s “This Week” whether it helps Mitt Romney to ally with the billionaire real estate mogul.
“I do not understand the cost-benefit here,” Will said. “The costs are clear. The benefits – what voter is going to vote for him because he’s seen with Donald Trump? The cost of appearing with this bloviating ignoramus is obvious, it seems to me. Donald Trump is redundant evidence that if your net worth is high enough, your IQ can be very low, and you can still intrude into American politics.”
“But again – I don’t understand the benefit. What is Romney seeking?” he added.
Trump’s money perhaps? A Trump-funded SuperPAC that savages Obama for the next five months? What exactly would Romney do about such a SuperPAC running birther ads between now and November 6th?
Here’s the video via Mediaite:
Romney seems to be a weak man.
There was a Romney person, an assistant communications director I believe, on MSNBC on Friday and when they were asked why the campaign was cozying up to Trump even while he continued to make these idiotic statements, he could not come up with a rational answer.
As one of the commentators in the video notes, this kind of thing has the potential to hurt the campaign with mainline Republican businessmen and such, and that’s where the donations tend to come from. I honestly don’t understand what they are thinking here.
Is Mitt the Donald’s dressage pony?
Is Donald Trump really more of a bloviating ignoramus than a score of other political figures on the right?
Mike
@MBunge: Well, being a birther gives an indication of someone who has no sense of reality. You might as well cuddle up to a moon-landing-was-faked nitwit
Unless we find out that Trump has photos of Romney wearing lipstick and a dress and isn’t afraid to use them, we should probably assume the simple answer: Romney for some reason believes that hanging out with Trump helps him electorally.
It’s kind of sad that a guy who should be cruising to victory on his assets – business background! good family values! looks great in a suit (seriously has anyone since Kennedy so completely looked the part?)! – feels compelled to go slumming like this.
If I were on Romney’s campaign, I’d be prepared to risk it with the photos of the lipstick and dress.
@DRS: Hell, might help him out with certain groups.
Romney and too many other Republicans are terrified of the lunatics of the base. For Romney this is complicated by his lack of “conservative” credentials. Every time Trump speaks everyone will be talking about birthers and not the economy.
@Ron Beasley nails it Doug.
Romney’s support of trump has everything to do with proving his bonafides with the base via the talkers. Regardless of what Will thinks, as long as Trump remains one of Hannity’s “Great Americans” then Romney needs to cozy up to him.
And the sad part is, the decision to do this is not stupid on Romney’s part. He saw what happened to McCain and he knows that if the base isn’t with him, then he can’t win.
@DRS:
If that is the case, then Romney is about to run a worse campaign than John McCain did. And I honestly didn’t think that was possible
@mattb: Talk radio and FOX “news” are now officially in charge of the Republican Party. The problem for the Republicans the right wing media is all about making money. Winning elections is just a pleasant side affect.
I hope that Romney and Trump are inseparable from now until the election.
Well, seriously Doug, for what other reason could he be doing it? To show that he’s got over his teenage aversion for guys who had swishy hair and doesn’t mind palling around with them now?
Sorry Doug – I didn’t mean to make that sound like a smackdown on you. It’s just that there’s nothing about Romney I dislike more than this sucking up to freaks like Trump. We’re supposed to believe he’s going to smack Iran around and make the world jump when America barks, yet he can’t man up enough to do a “Sister Soulja” on Trump. There’s really nobody he won’t pander to.
@Ron Beasley:
Actually, I’d take in a slightly different direction.
Currently the Tea-Party/Rural Conservative/Populist base is “in charge” of the Republican Party — in that everyone is doing everything possible to keep them as a unified voting block. That means that they powers that be had to take folks like Cain and Gingrich seriously while all the while actually knowing that Romney was ultimately going to be the candidate.
FOX News and Talk Radio are not in charge — they can’t change the conversation, they can’t command the base to change their direction. But you are right in that both those groups are only concerned about making money, and because of that, they’re going to continue to feed the base the cheap red meat that it’s currently craving.
The problem is that this entire thing is a house of cards which will sooner or later come tumbling down. That will almost surely happen with an Obama win this fall. Otherwise it may be a few more years of this.
BTW: I also fear that an Obama loss may end up triggering much the same effect on the Democratic party.
@Doug Mataconis:
I don’t understand why the commenter or you believe this. Mainline businessmen like this Ricketts guy? There’s no reason to think the GOP’s business elite are less crazed about the President than what passes for its mass base.
As opposed to a blovator with medium intelligence.
That’s an astute observation, but it might be worse than that. Arguably, Fox et al make more money when Rs lose elections. A base that’s riled up and angry during the next 4 years of Obama is arguably worth more to Fox et al, as compared with a base that would prefer to ignore politics for a while because it won’t be that much fun to face the reality of how weak and worthless Mitt is. (Especially because a Romney win will also sweep Rs into Congress. So there will be no one to blame but Rs, and blaming Ds is much easier and much more fun.)
No, I think it will just be more of the same. They’ll blame the loss on the media and ACORN. The GOP will just keep rolling along as a clown car. Waking up from this era of nuttiness is going to take them longer than you think. First a lot of old people have to die, and that will be a slow process.
This is Romney’s defining characteristic, in a word: cowardice.
I have a more extreme hope: Romney/Trump. Is that too much to ask for? It’s possible, right? Keep hope alive. After all, who else wants the job? Romney is a small, weak man, and he will be afraid to pick a running mate who is more of a man than he is. (In a way, this is what McCain did; he was overshadowed by Palin.) So from this perspective, Trump is a natural choice.
Your lips to God’s ears.
I don’t see much difference between Obama and Trump except that Trump does not race bate,or gender bate,or perversion bate,or class bate or infanticide bate or fornicate bate. And the fact that Trump has better hair and is full white devil….
G.A. – hopefully, that was snark.
There is a bit in there but not much:)
Obama at least hasn’t gone through bankruptcy as many times Trump has. And you know that if Obama had, the barking crowds on the right would bring it up at every point as a reason why Obama Can’t Be President.
Maybe those pushing for Trump could explain how a many-time bankrupt is supposedly “good business sense” for the country?
Yeah, we’ll default on the National Debt, that’ll solve all our problems….