Daniel Larison points out that Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio have foreign policy positions that pretty much come down to: The U.S. should invade everywhere. Bush, Larison says, wants the U.S. to go back into Iraq and double-down (maybe even triple-down) on his brother's policies there.
Meanwhile: Rubio, Larison says, insists we can contain Iran's nuclear program by rescinding the agreement to stop it and then…and then…well, he doesn't seem to have a plan what to do at that point. But once we get rid of that deal to stop their nuclear program, it will be stopped…somehow.
The other day, I mentioned here that Kevin Drum was trying to figure out what Scott Walker meant when he claimed that an abortion is never necessary to protect the life of a mother. It turns out that what he and others are doing is redefining the word "abortion" to dance their way around that inconvenient situation.
Walker, by the way, seems to be a clear "loser" (to use Mr. Trump's favorite word) in the Republican Debate. I suppose one could argue that those who are polling under 3% and whose numbers didn't change were losers because they needed desperately to do something to raise that number. Carly Fiorina had the greatest "win" but she's not really really running for president, is she? At best, she's running for vice-president and I think even that's a longshot. If John McCain proved nothing, he proved that you can't run based on experience when your running mate has almost none — and Fiorina has even less than Palin did.
Getting back to Mr. Drum: He offers an interesting explanation of what it is that Donald Trump boosters like about Donald Trump: They like him leading them in a war against Political Correctness, especially the part where they don't get to express their fears and hatred over minorities.
Someone wrote and asked me what I think about Political Correctness. I think some Political Correctness is correct and some isn't. I had a friend years ago who used to rail on about the evils of condemning "politically incorrect" speech and to insist that as a commitment to the First Amendment, we had to shout all those things from the rooftops and laud those who refused to be intimidated by the P.C. movement.
And it all sounded very heroic and patriotic and he was right that some of it is inane. But I also realized that what this guy believed was that he should be able to say stupid, bigoted things and be praised for speaking his mind instead of being condemned as stupid or bigoted. He wanted to limit the Free Speech of others to say that. I think Trump may be tapping into a lot of votes with that mindset.