In his Monday New York Times column, economist Paul Krugman argued that the reason Republicans ended up with the candidate that they deserve -- Donald Trump -- is simply because they're ideologically bankrupt and do, in fact, deserve him.
He noted that "[w]hen Mr. Bush and Mr. Rubio dutifully repeated the usual conservative clichés, you could see that there was no sense of conviction behind their recitations -- all it took was the huffing and puffing of a loud-mouthed showman to blow their houses down." And "a loud-mouthed showman" is exactly what they got in the person of Donald Trump.
Fortunately, Krugman argued, the very nature of the Democratic coalition guarantees that its chosen candidate will be far more robust:
As some political scientists are now acknowledging, America’s two major parties are not at all symmetric. The G.O.P. is, or was until Mr. Trump arrived, a top-down hierarchical structure enforcing a strict, ideologically pure party line. The Democrats, by contrast, are a “coalition of social groups,” from teachers’ unions to Planned Parenthood, seeking specific benefits from government action...
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