That's how former Nixon speech writer and all around funny man (if you are a GOPer) describes Donald Trump:
On an appearance on Newsmax TV, the former Nixon speechwriter said Trump's politics made him this generation's George Wallace.
"But without George Wallace's charm," Stein said. "I think he does captures a lot of anger and frustration that the ordinary citizen feels."
Stein said Trump's political solutions were "crude."
"I can't see him doing anything but damage to the Republican Party," he said.
Talking Points Memo
Of course, what Stein seems to miss, is his underscoring the obvious opens up a whole host of equally damning questions such as:
1. Why does "George Wallace without the Charm" appeal to huge swaths of the GOP?
2. Why does a former Nixon aide think of George Wallace when he thinks of politicians who appeal to racists?
3. Why does a former Nixon aide find it necessary to sound the alarm about Donald Trump?
The answer to the first question is rather obvious - the GOP has a huge contingent of racists within its base.
The answer to the third question is, too - Stein fears Trump's naked embrace of George Wallace-like racism will expose the GOP for the Dixiecrat revival meeting that much of it has become.
The answer to the second question, however, is the most interesting.
Stein, as a Nixon speech writer, must have been aware of the infamous Southern Strategy that Nixon employed to capture the vote of the former George Wallace led Dixiecrats in 1968, who got some 13 percent of the Presidential vote in the deep South:
Although the phrase "Southern strategy" is often attributed to Nixon's political strategist Kevin Phillips, he did not originate it but popularized it. In an interview included in a 1970 New York Times article, Phillips stated his analysis based on studies of ethnic voting:
From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don't need any more than that...but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats.
While Phillips sought to increase Republican power by polarizing ethnic voting in general, and not just to win the white South, the South was by far the biggest prize yielded by his approach. Its success began at the presidential level. Gradually southern voters began to elect Republicans to Congress, and finally to statewide and local offices, particularly as some legacy segregationist Democrats retired or switched to the GOP. In addition, the Republican Party worked for years to develop grassroots political organizations across the South, supporting candidates for local school boards and city and county offices, as examples.
Now, if anyone knows what George Wallace and his Dixiecrats meant to the GOP, Ben Stein is one of them. And, if anyone knows what being "George Wallace without the Charm" in the year 2015 can do to the GOP, Ben Stein also is probably one of them.
So, can we say that Ben Stein's characterization is a massive case of Freudian slipping projection?
Perhaps someone should ask Ben Stein what exactly he meant by this comment, and how well did he know George Wallace and his Dixiecrats?
How did Nixon approach those former Dixiecrats in the 1972 race - did they try to do as George Wallace did and "charm" them into voting GOP?
Should Trump stop being so nakedly racist and instead use the ol' George Wallace charm?
Fascinating description former Nixon speech writer Ben Stein offers us on Trump - George Wallace without the Charm.
1:39 PM PT: A few more questions for Ben Stein prompted from the comments - if Trump is George Wallace WITHOUT the charm and there is a group in the GOP that likes that message, would that same segment also vote for George Wallace WITH the charm, and if so, who is the GOP's George Wallace WITH the charm?
1:46 PM PT: Another question for Mr. Stein: did he know Lee Atwater, and if so, did he agree with his opinion of how to go about "charming" the former Dixiecrat voters: http://www.thenation.com/...