....proving that anybody can do it - which up until now has never been considered a strength in a presidential frontrunner:
Senator Rand Paul says Donald Trump, the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination, is a "fake conservative" and someone must stand up to him.
"I think it's time someone does stand up and really calls nonsense nonsense," the Kentucky senator, who also is seeking the Republican nomination, said during a Monday afternoon conference call with reporters. "Are we going to fix the country simply through bombastics and empty blather? I think it is time someone challenges him. I'm happy to do it."
Paul noted that he first ran for Senate as a tea party conservative during the 2010 tea party wave.
The tea party was unhappy with the Washington machine where "politicians are bought and sold," Paul said.....
"I think if most tea party Republicans knew that Donald Trump had said that he gives to politicians so they'll do whatever the hell he tells them to do, that sort of crass nature, I think, is not something that the vast majority of the tea party conservatives are for," Paul said.....
"So I think it's a valid question to ask whether we can believe the sincerity of Mr. Trump, who's been both for the bank bailouts, been for Democrats running government, thinks they run the economy better, been for gun control before he was against gun control, been for a single-payer system before he was against a single-payer system, for ObamaCare before he was against ObamaCare."
So, Tea Party Trumpsters, are you willing to "Stand with Rand" on telling the truth about your hero? I certainly am. I don't know how much overlap there is between TPers and Paulnuts - the general, perpetually blithering anger levels are generally comparable - but here is one more at least one-time Tea Party stalwart calling BS on Donald Trump's attempted hijacking of the Republican Party on behalf of La Clinton Nostra. Are you TPTers out there now going to start reflexively and ritualistically savaging Senator Paul as "establishment" and a "RINO" and a "squish" and a "sellout"?
Trump was certainly paying attention:
Truly weird Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky reminds me of a spoiled brat without a properly functioning brain. He was terrible at DEBATE!
Yes, he was, as a matter of fact - Chris Christie cleaned his clock on the counterterrorism/national security question - but then nobody ever accused Rand Paul of being a strong debater, at least in the modern media sense of the term. But Senator Paul was able to get an instant rise out of Trump simply by telling the truth about him, complete with trademark juvenile insult. It seems that anybody can activate that Pavlovian, thin-skinned reflex. Which means, in turn, that anybody can manipulate Trump into politically self-destructing at their leisure. Again I ask, Tea Party Trumpsters, why do you see this as a strength instead of the perilous liability it actually is?
Although I do have a separate theory about Trump's hyper-vigilant social media instant response reflex: He doesn't want to allow any time for his hypnotized supporters to have a chance to reflect upon the entirely reasonable, logical, and rational criticisms of him by that portion of the conservative movement that, well, "has properly functioning brains". Think about it: Trump has zoomed to the top of the primary pile so far by what? His big mouth, aimed at everybody the Tea Party can't stand. The dynamic has become so maniacally pervasive that he's been able to turn some TPers against their "own" news network, in much the same way that they were already willing and eager to burn down their own party. Trump's is less a presidential campaign than it is a quasi-religious cult in which all his followers are willing to drink whatever he pours into their cups. But in order to keep them hooked, he has to keep that "FU" schtick going at full throttle; otherwise their brains might resume functioning, and that would be crippling for the Clinton-Trump conspiracy.
It's also exhausting - to watch and chronicle, and I would think, to experience as well.
I wish I was confident enough of that to predict it. But time will tell.
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