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Mollie Hemingway does not like The Donald. Neither (above) does Uncle Sam the eagle.

We’re now in month eight or so of Trumpmania. He has a core of support, and the media can’t get enough of him. The effect he has on people is fascinating. But it’s also remarkably annoying. Every casual utterance by Trump leads the news cycle until the subsequent outrage. And everyone flips out. Trump flips out. His fans flip out. His enemies flip out. The media flip out.

It’s enough to make you hate everyone. In fact, it does make me hate everyone. That probably includes you. …

I admire Donald Trump’s ability to singlehandedly control national conversations, expose the media as corrupt, and generate popular support through sheer force of entertainment will. I am serious. I think he’s an absolutely brilliant communicator operating at levels we’ve not seen before. He is the closest thing to the physical incarnation of the Sweet Meteor of Death 2016 that some have been praying for. Oh, and as someone who truly loathes the Republican Party for its incompetence and impotence, I sometimes love that he’s destroying it with such efficiency.

But he’s a demagogue with no real solutions for anything at all. He’s a narcissist who takes no responsibility for the negative consequences of his ill-conceived and incoherent verbal spews. He flip-flops incessantly. He is not honest when called to account for previous things he’s said. He insults individuals and groups of people gratuitously. His ideas always involve an expansion in the size and scope of government. And his blow-ups seem perfectly timed to help people in the party he’s not running in.

Read the whole thing.

Donald Trump was sinking slowly in the polls and a number of pundits were predicting his candidacy was in terminal decline, but The Donald yesterday stopped whining about Fox News and actually produced a substantive policy proposal: a dramatic revision of the tax code.

Tax Prof Blog

Trump’s plan is simple, but it would certainly be a revolutionary change, eliminating scads of special interest deductions, freeing less well-off Americans entirely from federal taxation (except for Social Security), and giving US businesses a major shot-in-the-arm by making our business tax much more competitive. Trump’s plan is simple, but it is intelligent and possesses enormous potential voter appeal. In one fell swoop, Donald Trump has revived his candidacy and made himself again the man to beat.

Gavin MacInnes explains why Donald Trump’s candidacy, no matter how you look at it, is a Good Thing.

I still believe Trump is a snowplow who is paving the way for Ted Cruz. At the last second, he endorses Cruz and we get all the bravado of the former with the brains of the latter. However, it’s possible Trump goes to the finish line. I ain’t mad at that, either. The Democrats, the mainstream media, neocons, liberals, and college kids are all part of the same hive. They want to fight but they don’t want to win. They’re like that crazy Latina girlfriend in a screaming panic who won’t shut up until you grab her by the wrists and say, “Shut the fuck up. I got this.” We need to throw her onto the couch, grab a beer, and get back to work. That’s ultimately what she wants too. She just doesn’t realize it yet.

Hat tip to Vanderleun.

Joshua Green notes that last night’s debate finally found an effective way to make Donald Trump shut up, just start a serious discussion about policy.

The broad and beleaguered field of Republican presidential candidates, all but ignored during the raucous Summer of Trump, finally found a way to silence the GOP front-runner: they talked about policy. Wednesday’s CNN debate at the Ronald Reagan presidential library began with all the bluster and histrionics we’ve come to expect from Donald Trump. He sucker-punched Rand Paul right out of the gate. He bickered with Jeb Bush. He mugged, squinted, and brooded. And then he did something no one anticipated. He fell silent.

In a wild melee that moderators struggled to control, the 11 candidates jockeyed and sparred throughout. But unlike the low-calorie Fox News debate in Cleveland, CNN’s torturous three-hour affair veered into policy issues for long stretches—stretches during which Trump entirely disappeared.

While his more polished and policy-fluent opponents delved deeply into discussions about issues ranging from how best to fight Islamic terrorism to their assessment of Supreme Court judges to marijuana legalization, Trump barely participated. When he did chime in, he had little to contribute beyond insults and boasts about how his own personal toughness and negotiating prowess would reshape the geopolitical order. Asked how, for instance, he would get the Russians out of Syria, Trump replied, “I would get along with a lot of the world leaders that this country is not getting along with.”

Trump didn’t exactly flop. His bluster and showmanship carried him through, for the most part. And the crush of candidates straining for attention filled the awkward pauses and silences left by his inability to speak in any meaningful depth about subjects besides immigration and his own wealth.

Read the whole thing.

Establishmentarian James Lileks finds himself tempted to remove his JEB BUSH button and start rooting for The Donald.

The Donald, laid out the skyscraper’s blueprints, and said, “We’ve got a problem. The geological surveys were wrong, and there’s just not enough bedrock to support 95 stories. We’ll have to scale it back.”

I don’t doubt that at that moment, Trump narrows his eyes, lets the tension build, keeps his tongue as the the clock on the wall ticks — a beautiful, 19th-century clock made by one of Europe’s finest clock makers, finest pearl on the face and ivory on the sweep hand. Not that he supports killing elephants; he’s a big fan of elephants, he had a statue of one outside the Atlantic City casino, which, by the way, made more money its first year than any casino in history, the people loved it . . . Anyway, the moment builds, the clock ticks, sweat starts on the brows of the engineers.

Trump nods. Then he speaks. “Find a way.”

“You mean — double the footings and cross-brace the structure?”

“If that’s what it takes.”

Quick looks among the engineers: The legends are true. Another clears his throat: “We need an inertial dampening mechanism at the top of the structure, or it will sway in high winds. Right now, the design just has penthouses.”

Trump nods. “The views will be tremendous.”

“But people will be sickened by the motion of the structure.”

“The problem with America today is too many people are throwing up. I can change that.”

A sigh of relief around the table.

I imagine that’s how it goes, right? That’s why I know this man is such a threat. He gets things done. I look at the rest of the candidates, and I’m pretty sure not one of them ever went on-site with a hard-hat and solved the problem of weak water pressure on the 82nd floor. If Donald Trump can built a 95-story skyscraper and have a heckler ejected in a news conference, of course he can build a wall and find every illegal and put them on a bus to wherever. He’d do it by decree, right? I am so waiting for someone to do the decree thing for stuff I secretly want.

He’ll ride a horse up Pennsylvania Avenue on Inauguration Day, right? Say he’ll ride a horse and I am off Jeb’s team in a second.

Hat tip to Robert Laird.