Why Republicans Are Suckers for Trumpism

The Catch of the Day goes to my View colleague Megan McArdle for her essay on voters' desire for a government of cartoon heroes, and the hard reality that government is slow, difficult and frustrating even when we get our way.

She’s writing specifically about Trumpism and the impulse to seek easy solutions to difficult problems. But she’s absolutely correct that it’s a broadly-shared impulse in democracies, and hardly exclusive to conservatives. After all, at least some of Barack Obama's support in 2008 was tied to notions that he was new, different and might somehow break the old ways and reconfigure politics. It's probably no accident that the first tier of Democratic presidential contenders in 2008 -- Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Obama -- had a lot less experience than also-rans Joe Biden, Chris Dodd and Bill Richardson.