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Donald Trump is now fashioning himself the darling of the Tea Party crowd:

TRUMP: I think the people of the Tea Party like me, because I represent a lot of the ingredients of the Tea Party. What I represent very much, I think, represents the Tea Party.

In this segment, Fox's Bret Baier mentions that Trump once sent a nice note to Nancy Pelosi, which is certain to get him into hot water with the Tea Partiers -- though even then, he probably managed to score points with them with his sexist dismissal of the question. Far more likely to get him in trouble both with Tea Partiers as well as with rank-and-file Republicans is his 2008 declaration that George W. Bush should have been impeached by Pelosi.

But in reality, Trump may be right. Bill O'Reilly has taken to identifying Trump as a "populist," which might seem absurd on its face -- for one of the world's richest men to claim to be a man of the people is like Colonel Sanders claiming to be a man of the chickens.

However, they're actually right, insofar as Trump is clearly a right-wing populist -- which means he's a manifestation of all their wildest Randian fantasies and the mythology attached thereupon. This might explain why Trump has been doing so well in Republican polls lately.

As we explained awhile back:

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One of the real wonders of modern conservatism -- as Thomas Frank explored in some depth in What's the Matter With Kansas -- is the way it manages to convince working- and middle-class people that looking out for the interests of America's wealthy, in lieu of their own, is really their most important political undertaking. Their chief method for doing this is propaganda that convinces large numbers of people, mostly through culture-war-type appeals, to vote against their own interests.

Glenn Beck put on a really perfect display of this Tuesday on his Fox News show, when he spent the first half telling his audience that the poor in America don't have it so bad because they have TVs and microwaves, compared to what folks looked like back during the Depression.

Then he came back with a segment extolling the virtues of Depression-era poverty, when people canned their own food and made their own clothes. Then he said:

Beck: We think of poverty now as not having enough money for cable or high-speed Internet.

So saith one of the country's richest men -- a guy who has never canned his own food or raised his own garden or even worked an honest day in his life. A guy who knows NOTHING about the conditions of Americans living in poverty today, let alone yesterday or any other day. But he sure can stand back and admire the character of people living in poverty from afar.

FWIW, here's a site, Poverty in America, dedicated to standing up for people living in poverty today. Their main concern today isn't getting cable TV -- it is, indeed, making sure there's food on the table for their children. Just like in the old days.

But Glenn Beck wants us to think there's some nobility in all this -- as in: "Get used to it, suckers! This is how you're gonna live now!" Sounds about right for a rich guy.

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What hath Republicans wrought?

Sure, they believed, as John noted the other day, that when they were unleashing what Bill Kristol likes to call "guided populism", they were in fact opening the gates for right-wing populism. And now they're looking not only at a a phenomenon much more popular than the standard Republican brand, but a movement that is about to swallow them whole.

And the Tea Party organizers -- notably the Astroturf outfits that originated the Parties, such as FreedomWorks and Americans For Prosperity -- are making that perfectly clear. Two spokesmen for those groups -- Matt Kibbe of FreedomWorks and the AFP's Tim Phillips, went on Hardball yesterday and made this explicit:

MATTHEWS: Matt, how about third party? What about the Tea Party? Sarah Palin is kind of hard to read. She is fascinating. Let‘s face it, we‘re all fascinated with her, because she‘s exciting as a political figure right now. But she‘s talking third party. I mean, she answered the question of Lars Larson. Maybe it just came to mind, but she said, yeah, I might go third party, something like that. Would you guys knock off an incumbent Republican by going third party? You know how the vote splits. Split the right, the Dem wins.

KIBBE: The better way to do it is to take over the Republican party. Frankly, that‘s what our goal is. We need to replace the Republican establishment with fiscal conservatives that are actually willing to cut spending.

All this talk about a "third party" is just so much smokescreen. What's actually happening is that the GOP is fast becoming a full-fledged right-wing-populist entity. Which means that the latent extremism lurking out on the right's fringes for so many years is becoming its new lifeblood, such as it is.

Funny thing is, as Matthews managed to point out early in the segment, not even the Tea Partiers' supposed hero -- Ronald Reagan -- can live up to their standards:

MATTHEWS: Has there ever been a strong conservative president, for example, in your lifetime or anybody—your grandfather‘s lifetime? Who do you look to as a good role model for the tea party people?

KIBBE: Well, obviously, Ronald Reagan is the closest thing we have.

MATTHEWS: What did he do in terms of fiscal policy?

KIBBE: Oh, he—he said that we shouldn't spend money we don‘t have, and he said that the government shouldn't get involved in things that it‘s not very good at doing.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Yes. Have you ever checked the numbers with Reagan?

KIBBE: Well, I understand. I understand...

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: The national debt went from under $1 trillion to $3 trillion. He did more to increase exponentially the size of the debt of any president in history.

And he's your role model.

KIBBE: Well, President Obama is...

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: No, I'm asking you. I have asked you one president that you can look up to who was good at tea party politics and ideology.

KIBBE: Right. Right.

MATTHEWS: If it's not Reagan, because he clearly didn't do it, who do you look to? Coolidge? How far do you have to look back?

KIBBE: I think we need to find somebody that can meet that standard.

MATTHEWS: So, nobody has recently?

KIBBE: No, certainly not.

Ah well. Blowing off cognitive dissonance is a special teabagger trait. It just adds to their "insane" mystique.

Republicans may have thought these guys had their backs. But now they're looking with increasing worry back over their shoulders. Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind, dudes.

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Quick! Somebody alert the RedState Army Strike Force! Some serious Sarah Palin dissage is happening on Aisles 8, 9, and 12!!!

Bill O'Reilly's Fox News show last night featured a couple of Republican women -- A.B. Stoddard of The Hill, and "pro family" advocate Rebecca Hagelin -- discussing Sarah Palin's political future. Stoddard makes it clear that, inside the Beltway, Palin's star is rapidly dimming:

O'Reilly: There's no doubt that Governor Palin wants to run for president in 2012. I mean, there's just no doubt. She does. Does she have a legitimate chance:

Stoddard: I don't think so. I think she is a real political star, and I think that, would that it was just sincerity and passions and principle that got you there, she might have a chance. I think if you coupled her competence during the presidential campaign in 2008, the kind of competence that she showed, with the signals she has sent since that election these last couple of months in Alaska, I don't see her becoming a viable candidate in 2012. She's not endearing herself to the apparatus of the national Republican Party, as someone like Mitt Romney is, doing the hard work behind the scenes to help other candidates, members of Congress, et cetera, people in statehouses across the country.

Back in Alaska, I think she's also working hard to imperil her chances of getting reelected there next year in 2010, making Democrats and Republicans in the state Legislature mad.

O'Reilly: By not accepting the stimulus money from D.C. Right? That's the big issue up there right now.

Stoddard: And not being there during the -- the Legislature closes up its business today, and in these last hours she went for a speaking engagement.

Of course, Hagelin sturdily denied that any of this was a problem. But these rumblings are becoming widespread:

"She's just not ready for prime time," said a party strategist who has worked for former President Bush. "I mean, she's starting to look like she's having trouble being governor of Alaska." At issue is her weak debut, hampered by the mishandling of her by Sen. John McCain's campaign, and subsequent family issues such as the most recent tiff with Levi Johnston, the father of her first grandchild and ex-fiancé of her daughter Bristol.

Since running for vice president with McCain, Palin has made efforts to be a national figure, starting a political action committee and speaking at national events in Washington. But she has also blown other chances, backed out of speech commitments, and allowed herself to be caught in a fight between state and national aides who have different roles for her in mind. While some Republican officials say that there is time for her to recover, many are already looking to others to carry the GOP flag, such as Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich, in the 2010 and 2012 elections.

Mind you, her right-wing populism will continue to make her a major player in the GOP, especially now that the populists have taken over the conservative movement.

Indeed, Palin may become the candidate of choice for the populists -- who are nothing if not bellicose in their ostensible hatred for the Beltway Republicans -- in the coming months, considering that their main favorite, Ron Paul, is getting a tad long in the tooth. Which will mean they'll be openly pitted against the establishment GOP.

Palin vs. Romney. Pop some popcorn.

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Now that the Right has had its little Tea Tantrum, will we hear from them again? Michelle Malkin and all the progenitors of the Tantrums assured us that they were "here to stay," but it's hard to figure out exactly what they're going to do next.

Will the Tea Tantrums just fade like a three-year-old's when you just let her throw it and ignore her? One can't help suspect.

Still, watching yesterday's daylong Tea Party Propagandafest on Fox News -- through Neil Cavuto and Glenn Beck and finally finishing with Sean Hannity, one thing was perfectly clear: this was right-wing populism in action -- indeed, in the process of taking the reins of the leaderless conservative movement.

There was a lot of talk throughout the day about how "this wasn't about Republicans and Democrats," this was about "the people vs. politicians," "right and wrong," "socialism vs. capitalism," etc. etc. There was also a lot of talk about those parasites who feed off the producers. There were the "Atlas Is Shrugging" and "Ayn Rand Was Right" signs at all the rallies.

It's all populism -- and despite the token Democrats they trotted out from time to time, it was distinctly right-wing populism.

And they are clearly leading the conservative movement now. Indeed, Fox's broadcast itself was a clear signal of the movement's embrace of its populist wing.

A giveaway moment came during Hannity's evening broadcast from Atlanta, when he brought in a live feed from the Rick and Bubba Tea Tantrum in Alabama:

Hannity: And I'm going to tell you one other thing: When did we ever get to a point in America where, we're nearly at the point where fifty percent of Americans don't pay anything in taxes! Nothing!

[Crowd boos]

Rick: The numbers out are just astounding that, that, how much that the very top taxpayers actually pay. I feel like these taxpayers are disenfranchised. I want them to have a share of the burden just like they have a share of the vote.

That's right -- it's the wealthy top percentage of the country that needs a tax break. After all, they are the one Obama's targeting, right? So at least they're being upfront about just who "the taxpayers" are whose interests they're out marching to defend.

That brings to mind David Horsey's cartoon in this morning's Online P-I:

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Barack Obama wants to burn Joe Q. Public alive -- and all because he wants to fix the immigration mess.

That was pretty much what Glenn Beck told his Fox News audience yesterday. Actually, it was more blatant than that:

Beck: And President Obama apparently feeling like -- ah, I'm pretty much done, not a lot more to do, you know? I got all those things done. You know what? Why don't I work on immigration reform? Later this year he hopes to create a path for the estimated 12 million illegal aliens here in America to become legal. But yet, we haven't fixed the border and shut the water off! What a sweet, sensitive guy he really is.

Here's one thing I think the media is missing. I don't know about you, but when I saw that story last night, I did this: Wha-? You've gotta be kidding me! Let me, let me just ask you a question. Maybe I'm alone, but I think it would just be faster if he just shot me in the head! You know what I mean? How much more -- how much more can he disenfranchise all of us?

We have Bill Schultz here, he's from Red Eye. And I'm just going to demonstrate at least how I feel, all right? I feel, when I read this story last night, I don't know about you -- let's say Bill is the average American here, and I'm President Obama. This is the way I feel. I feel like President Obama is just saying, 'You know what, I've got that $3.5 trillion budget here ...'

He then proceeds to douse Schultz with a clear liquid from a gas can (he promises it's actually water) and then hold up a lit match in his general vicinity.

And then he wonders why people think he's promoting a violent and paranoid right-wing worldview that is bereft of anything approaching reality.

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Wait! Glenn Beck isn't a populist! He says. Today.

Beck brought on his best Wingnut Super Friends, Michelle Malkin and Jonah Goldberg, to whinge on Beck's Fox News show about the horrible torch-bearing mob that has been unleashed in the direction of those poor AIG executives.

Mind you, it only seems peripherally to have come to their attention that the leading pitchfork-bearers are Republicans. The guy who wanted the execs to commit suppuku? Chuck Grassley, a Republican. Indeed, most of the violent populist rhetoric directed at AIG seems to be coming from the right.

And of course, it's obvious that this is all just a pose, a bit of demagogic opportunism for Beck and Friends. What makes it obvious? That the Friends are Malkin and Goldberg.

The ironies of Michelle Malkin in particular decrying others for targeting individuals and holding them up to public ridicule, exposing them to threats in the process, are so rich you almost have to savor it. As you watch her in action in this clip, recall that this is the woman who:

1. Sent her flying-monkey readers after a pair of student protesters in California.
2. Indulged in a long and phony "investigation" into the supposed "nonexistence" of an Iraqi police captain named Jamil Hussein who was reporting news she didn't approve of -- in the process endangering Hussein's life.
3. Harrassed a 12-year-old boy and his family for having the audacity to publicly advocate a liberal policy proposal.
4. More recently, she pulled a similar stunt on a poor black woman who had the audacity to ask a liberal question of President Obama.

Indeed, we're wondering when she's just going to start up her own radio station and call it Radio Rmalkin.

Then there's Jonah Goldberg, author of a book whose entire thesis is that liberals are innately totalitarian fascists who inevitably want to enslave us all. He's also previously written that Joe McCarthy was right.

Beck's Super Friends are in fact the people Most Likely to Lead A Right-Wing Lynch Mob in the wingnutosphere. Obviously, they're just put out that this particular mob isn't one they assembled.

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You knew Jonah Goldberg had to be somewhere on the set the other day when Glenn Beck opened his Fox program with this:

If you believe this country is great, but progressive fascists are trying to destroy it, this is your wake-up call!

Before explaining exactly what this means, he offers a bit of emotional instability he'd indulged earlier that day: "This morning I kind of lost my mind on Fox and Friends." And he runs the clip, a shoutfest with Steve Doocy:

Doocy: But Glenn, the foundation of our country is our financial services industry. If that goes kaput, we are all screwed.

Beck: No, no. The backbone of our country is not our financial institutions.

Doocy: Yes it is!

Beck: It is not! It is the American people! I do not believe in the government, I do not believe in the banks! I believe in the people! Let the people fix the problem!

Dang, Beck did a nice Huey Long imitation there, minus the twang. He's already made clear that he's a right-wing populist, and now he's indulging it at will. (For what it's worth, the ascendance of the financial-services sector in the American economy, largely at the expense of the manufacturing sector, is in fact one of the problems Obama needs to fix. But I don't think that's what Beck is on about here; he's just posturing.)

But all this was just an intro to Beck's paranoia about the potential nationalizing of some of the nation's largest banks -- because it all means socialism. Which, evidently, means liberal fascism. Or something.

In any event, putting a patina on this kind of incoherence is what Jonah Goldberg is always handy for. Sure enough.

Beck: When I said, I opened up the show, and I know people were like, 'Oh my gosh, progressive fascism, liberal fascism, what are you talking about?' Blah blah blah blah blah ... It is really what George Carlin was talking about -- that fascism will come to America with a happy face. Is there any way that this ends well in nationalization?

Goldberg: Well, the good news is is that the market selloff yesterday, which was a direct referendum on what was coming out of Washington, scared the bejeezus out of most of Washington today, and you're now seeing the congressional Democrats, Steny Hoyer, people from the White House, Ben Bernanke today saying, 'Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa. Who said anything about nationalization?' Well, they did.

Beck is a fan of Liberal Fascism. I am not. Indeed, whenever I watch right-wing populists like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin operate, I'm reminded that nearly every far-right organization in America is right-wing populist.

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It's no wonder that Fox's newest conserva-star addition to its Angry White Men lineup, Glenn Beck, has such an emotional affinity for Sarah Palin. Because like Palin, Beck is not just a conservative; he's actually a good old-fashioned right-wing populist.

For those who follow such phenomena, Beck made it explicit Thursday on his Fox News show when he launched into a segment seemingly devoted to the thesis that the whole problem with the economy lies not with capitalism, but boils down to the fact that we rely on a central banking system:

Beck: I don't believe we're the infection here. Look around the world. I got together with the Heritage Foundation and looked at all of the -- where is this crisis hitting? It's hitting capitalist, socialist, communist, totalitarian governments, all of them, and everything in between.

At some point -- if you're the doctor again in the emergency room -- and you really want to get all these people healthy, you gotta rule out -- OK, well, it's not capitalism. OK, what is it? You need to stop to ask the question that a doctor would ask in that situation: 'OK, everybody, where did you eat? What have you had to eat?' All of these countries all have that in common. They've all eaten at the same restaurant -- the restaurant of Central Banking.

It is a system that no one is accountable to. No one. The brilliant geniuses that are supposed to be protecting us -- that's why central banks are around -- 'We'll stop it, we'll make sure there's no recession, there's no depression, we'll just keep these bubbles from happening.' They never at one point -- if we were Patient Zero -- at one point in no country did they say -- 'Hey, what -- what -- don't follow the United States. Don't do that.' Never? They've had their hands in all of the food and that's what's making us sick. Will anyone look at the Central Banking system?

Hmmm. It's kind of hard to decipher Beck's inchoate jumble, but we'll try. He seems to think people are blaming capitalism itself -- but what I think has taken far more of the blame has been laissez-faire capitalism, especially as practiced by movement conservatives, who never saw a deregulation scheme they didn't love. Rather than cope with the mountain of evidence supporting this reality, right-wingers like Beck flee to the comfort of reliable old conspiracist anomie.

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Glenn Beck's shows have become so full of wingnuttery these days that it's really becoming hard to keep up (though Media Matters does a great job of that anyway). It's such a constant barrage of right-wing extremism that the bigger picture gets lost in the onslaught.

The kind of wingnuttery Beck is embracing -- and promoting -- is a product of the kind of politics that now has conservative America in its thrall: right-wing populism. And it's not just Beck -- it's Sarah Palin, the Tea Parties, and the broad mainstream of the American Right who are careering down this path.

Take this prime moment in yesterday's Beck show as an example. Beck -- being our Fearmonger in Chief, as usual, with handy chalkboard in hand -- told the audience that we have three potential economic outcomes facing the USA: Recession, Depression, or Collapse. In other words, Disaster, Doom, or Total Annihilation. It was, as always, an uplifting scenario. He also described how we normal folks respond at each step. Paying off our debts, building fruit cellars, that sort of thing.

Then he got to the third one:

Beck: The third one is Collapse. That's 'Get out of debt and save,' plus, 'Have a fruit cellar,' plus -- I like to call the "three G system" here for this -- it's, uh, God, Gold, and Guns.

Now personally, you might take God and put him as an umbrella over the whole thing. And then you got your gun and your gold down here too. But that's your choice.

"God, Gold and Guns" has quite the ring to it, doesn't it? And the thing about it is, it could stand in all three aspects as the Battle Cry of Right-Wing Populism -- not just now, but as we've known it for most of the past thirty years and more. Before Beck, there was the Posse Comitatus, and the militias, and the Ron Paul wing of the GOP -- all right-wing populists, and all focused largely on the mythology of right-wing "constitutionalism", whose three great appeals to the masses have revolved around embracing the notion of a "Christian nation," returning the U.S. to the gold standard, and defending gun rights.

The third segment of Sarah Palin's interview with Bill O'Reilly also aired last night, and the subject, indeed, was right-wing populism:

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Palin: If there is a threat at all that perhaps I represent, it is that the average, everyday, hard-working American, that their voice is going to be heard, and their -- what our voice is saying right now is, we're telling the federal government, and we're telling the elites who think that they are -- can and should call all the shots for all the rest of us. Trust us in that we know what our federal government's role is supposed to be in our lives, it's supposed to be minimal.

O'Reilly: But that sounds logical. That doesn't offend me.

Palin: That's why it's perplexing as to why I would be, you know, kinda clobbered left and right --

O'Reilly: You don't know -- really. You're sincere about you don't know why you're the lightning rod, you don't know why?

Palin: Only if it is because I'm representing a normal American who is --

O'Reilly: Well, why don't they like normal Americans? Why don't the New York Times like normal Americans, or NBC News? Why should they have disdain for the regular folks?

Palin: Because I think that, obviously they wanting so much control over our lives, I think perhaps there is a little bit of threat there, that the average American is gonna rise up and our voice is going to be louder and louder, and we're going to tell our government, 'No, we expect you to work for us, we're not going to work for you, we expect things to turn around here quite quickly,' even if that means the elites are not gonna be in control anymore.

I'm talking about the media, I'm talking about those that are in bureaucracy that are calling the shots for us -- I -- that's why the Tea Party movement, I think is beautiful. And I think that it is, it is empowering for so many of us to be watching what's going on with the Tea Party movement where we saying -- 'That's -- that's me!' I think it's beautiful what's going on right now. And perhaps that is threatening to some who don't want to cede any control.

O'Reilly: I think that's a good analysis, but what I get from talking to you for the past hour is that you, Sarah Palin, want to lead that movement. You want to lead it.

Palin: I do not need a title, and I do not necessarily be the one to lead it, I don't -- need to --

O'Reilly: You -- no spin. You want to lead that populist movement. I can see it in your eyes. You want it.

Palin: I'm willing to assist. I know in my heart and soul that the experiences that I have gone through -- I believe that's all been kind of put together in my life -- can benefit the average, everyday, hard-working American because I have been where they are. I'm experiencing what they're experiencing. And I'm willing to assist, but again, I don't have to be the top dog.

This is all fitting, of course, because the the April 15 Tea Parties really signaled the takeover of the American Right by its populist wing. And Palin, of course, had established herself as a right-wing populist well before the parties began, during the 2008 campaign.

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