ON DONALD TRUMP AND RIGHT-WING VOLUNTEERED SERFDOM

So Politico actually thinks Trump is serious about running:

Trump is making the "types of moves that one makes if they're actually running," said one top Republican consultant familiar with his efforts.

The real estate mogul has spoken to pollster Tony Fabrizio as well as members of Larry Weitzner's Jamestown Associates, sources said. Three Republicans said that Florida-based media consultant Rick Wilson had been recommended to Trump as a potential hire. (Wilson declined to comment on whether he’d been approached or spoken with Trump).

He recently called pollster and strategist Kellyanne Conway, who agreed to set him up with some evangelical leaders.

"I would not discount his viability because he crosses the first threshold," said Conway, citing his name recognition and ability to put money toward a race.

I'm not sure this proves anything, except the fact that he's willing to go to elaborate, Roger Stone-ian lengths, and throw around what's probably (for him) a relatively small amount of money, to make the publicity stunt look convincing.

But let's imagine that it's true. Could he actually compete? Politico again:

"I don't see Donald Trump trudging around in the snows of Iowa wearing ear flaps and trudging around the country fair," said a top official at the Southern Baptist Convention, Richard Land.

But can't you see him magisterially propelling himself into an Iowa state fair, or down a main street in small-town New Hampshire, in a motorcade of Escalades? And are we really sure that couldn't work -- winning the nomination, by being the macher, the mack, the big pimp?

Last week, mistermix at Balloon Juice posted a video in which the Green candidate for a congressional seat in upstate New York encountered a tea party voter:

I set up the video to start when he encounters a tea partier who's extremely concerned that raising taxes on the rich will make them move away, thus wrecking the economy.

I may just be in a nutpicking mood this morning, but this is the rawest example of pure serfdom I've seen in a long time. If the king moves away, how will the peasants eat?

Here's the video (the key part starts around 1:36 -- I don't know how to get it to start there) (cued up -- thanks, roshan):



There it is. Isn't that what a lot of wingnuts -- at least enough to give Trump early plurality wins in states with big fields -- really want? The folks who moan that we're on "the road to serfdom" -- don't they really want to be the serfs of rich guys like Trump?

I just don't know. I've always heard that campaigning in the early states was an exercise in humility -- the pigshit on your Gucci loafers at the Iowa state fair and all that. But is it different now on the right? Does the base want to prostrate itself before a plutocrat overlord, and not hold him to the same standards as mere mortals?