CONSERVATIVES: IT'S ALL ABOUT US

Charles Blow in The New York Times today on Ben Carson's response to questions about his biography:

Carson has pushed back on the biographical charges with more verve that he has exhibited at any of the debates. That is because the biographical charges don’t simply threaten the Carson campaign, they threaten Carson the corporation -- the former I have always contended was simply a vehicle for the latter. Has no one else wondered why Carson’s chief media surrogate isn’t his campaign manager or communications director, but his business manager, Armstrong Williams?

Yes, maybe Carson's just protecting the grift. But I think that helps the presidential campaign immensely, because it resonates with conservative voters, even though those voters aren't running for president themselves or monetizing their own life stories.

Conservatives always feel personally disrespected. They're incessantly told by the right-wing media that coastal liberal sophisticates hate not just their politics but their guns, their religion, their clothes, their taste in music, their unironic patriotism. So if Ben Carson defends his biographical narrative more passionately than he defends his positions on issues, it feels to conservative voters as if he's defending them. Conservatism these days is less about issues (see: Donald Trump's deviations from the party line) than it is about being personally disrespected by the liberal fascists. To the conservative electorate, Carson seems to be fighting back against precisely that sort of disrespect.

So Carson may as well make this all about himself. The voters he's trying to reach think it's all about themselves, too.