In his Monday New York Times column, Paul Krugman wondered why, exactly, it is that the Republican Party is so susceptible to the appeals of con men like Donald Trump.
The answer, he argued, is that "there something structural about the modern Republican Party that makes it unable to confront grifters." Krugman noted that sometimes this grift is blatant, such as Ron Paul selling his courses or Glenn Beck hawking gold. Other times, it's hidden behind activism, such as Sarah Palin's SarahPAC.
But in the end, Republicans are just ideologically inclined to favor get-rich quick schemes:
If your fundamental premise is that the profit motive is always good and government is the root of all evil, if you treat any suggestion that, say, some bankers misbehaved in the run-up to the financial crisis as proof that the speaker is anti-business if not a full-blown socialist, how can you condemn anyone’s business practices...
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