Who is This Guy?

Ross Douthat -- I hope he gets bought out by the New York Times.

Graduating from an Ivy, I cannot figure out what qualifies this person to make political predictions or analysis. He's worse than David Brooks, in the out-of-touch department:

What Trump benefits most from, I suspect, is a more limited sense that things are out of control — a feeling of anxiety about the world that pulses through your TV set or your computer screen but hasn’t yet hit your neighborhood or family or bank account directly.

Exactly the opposite, I'd say...

It's the people who live closest to reality, who are voting Donald Trump.

I'd like to see Mr. Douthat fired, or "bought out", by The Times. Then -- armed with only his Ivy undergrad degree; no further education despite his professed expertise on legal, political and economic issues -- I'd like to see him start looking fresh for a job, as a white man today armed with only his undergrad papers...

I think he'd get it better, then.
This muck is laughable, and it's offensive too.

Who would a terrorist attack on foreign soil benefit most? Seriously? What's the deadliest way you can think of to stop Donald Trump supporters? Come on New York TImes! You are better than that to print this piece...

Where are the thinking editors?

Thus the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., and the entire Syrian refugee crisis were ideal for Trump’s appeal...

If this theory is right, then in the fall campaign Trump would benefit more from economic jitters... He would benefit more from another spate of Islamic State beheadings... and more from a continuing sense of immigration-driven instability in Europe than from, say, a real confrontation with Vladimir Putin over the Baltics.

His ideal summer and fall would feature a new form of chaos with every news cycle: Zika in the summer months, a child migration crisis when the weather cooled, a European capital in lockdown every other week.

None of these imagined crises and scandals are at all implausible.

Thing is: Donald Trump is not running to be the Biggest Loser. He does not need to exploit public school students in bathrooms to build his popularity. He does not need to pretend that the war of Boys v. Girls helps anyone advance in this country. He doesn't think that black youth need to be dragged down with the "education is bad" or the "white people make you people slaves!" narrative is a positive one.

Men like Douthat are sore, because he thought-- as an upstanding husband and father and moderately educated white man -- he was entitled to greater voice in society than he's been able to persuade himself. He's no longer looked to, his types, as experts or leaders or more knowing on worldly issues: he is simply riding the crest created by past white men who performed. Talking out his ass, you might say.

He should go, and be replaced with a fresher voice, someone who is wiser, more experienced, and more knowing about American society. He could always qualify as a consultant somewhere to feed his family, right?

But that’s probably what he needs: not a black swan, you might say, but a flock of gray ones, startling enough to make his fearmongering seem like wisdom, but never quite so frightening that they dissuade voters from taking a flyer on a man who by rights should instill a different, deeper sort of fear.

I fear the sun has set on Ross Douthat's journalism career. That's what I'd fear, were I him today.