Donald Trump, Man of the Right?

Nothing makes us more pessimistic about the state of the Fusionism project than the current success of Donald Trump. As a non-conservative, non-libertarian candidate, his current lead in polls for the GOP nomination is equal parts head-scratching and infuriating. But more concerning by far is that a plurality of self-described "libertarians" in the GOP are currently supporting Trump and self-described "conservatives" also make up a healthy share of his GOP support. We can only hope that this is because the media--even the "conservative media" (if anyone ever thought Sean Hannity and/or Ann Coulter were serious conservatives or serious intellectuals, their embarrassing sycophancy of this "Democrat in Democrat's clothing" should permanently disabuse one of that notion)--have given him a free pass on his support for Hillary in '08 and his long-time support for single payer to name but a few of his standard liberal positions. Perhaps, as the CW has it, The Donald is merely a protest candidate, a lightening rod for a movement fed up with it's party leaders and lusting for a brash, tell-it-like-it-is type. But even so, we fail to understand how Donald Trump, with his liberal, statist baggage, could be that man. We are unfortunately left with the conclusion that our base is not really paying attention. We sincerely hope that this is only because it's early, and that as the calendar moves on to 2016, the sleeping Fusionist majority in the GOP wakes up.