A viral video that caused outrage a few years ago had Donald Trump body-slamming the cable network CNN personified as a professional wrestler. This “MAGA” fantasy was all but made a reality at a CNN townhall with the former president in New Hampshire the other night. If Trump wins the Republican nomination next year, it will be partly because Republicans are once again drawn to what they consider his distinctive and unmatched sense of personal power. Trump makes up for it with what my National Review colleague Michael Brendan Dougherty calls “willfulness,” a deep-seated, near-primal drive to impose what he wants, whether on a political narrative, a negotiation, a set of rules or, at the CNN townhall, an interviewer. This points to the way that Trump can out-MAGA Florida Gov.

Source: CNN May 13, 2023 07:29 UTC