Pundits occasionally opine that someone or other is the face of a given political party. Paul Waldman of The Week implies that Donald Trump would be a fitting choice as the Republican party’s face, presumably drawn by a cartoonist, since Trump is “a walking caricature…created from everything Republicans believe” about matters such as money and patriotism. “Trump is the essence of contemporary Republicanism,” wrote Waldman. “From his jingoism to his willingness to present all kinds of weird ideas as facts…to his relentless oversimplification of complex issues…[it's] what you get when you take a typical Republican politician and make him a little dumber and more extreme — but just a little.”

The American Prospect’s Waldman sympathizes with conservatives who are “unfairly accused of racism,” but says that overall he doesn’t feel too sorry for them given that right-wingers routinely condone actual bigotry from their leaders. Addressing his conservative readers, Waldman admits that sometimes “liberals are too quick to see racist intent in a comment that may be innocuous or at worst unintentionally provocative. But you make heroes out of people like [Rudy] Giuliani, [Rush] Limbaugh, and [Erick] Erickson…and when other people occasionally notice the caustic hairballs of bile they spit onto waiting microphones, the most you can say is, ‘Well, I wouldn't go that far.’ So you have nothing to complain about.”

The American Prospect’s Paul Waldman claims that right-wingers’ “belief in tax cuts doesn't rest on the practical effects. That's an argument that's meant to appeal to everyone, since it concerns something (growth) that just about everyone thinks is good. But the real source of the conservative support for tax cuts is moral, not practical. They believe that taxes are inherently immoral.”

Waldman says the Fox audience believes the world “is going [to] hell,” and that the channel’s frequent airing of sexually oriented stories and images helps to reinforce that belief. "Fox is a channel for the conservative id, where you can have your darkest thoughts and worst fears nurtured and validated. And of course, there's nothing the id likes better than looking at half-naked girls."

The Trotskyist-turned-conservative writer James Burnham said that where there’s no solution, there’s no problem. In a Thursday post, American Prospect blogger Paul Waldman analyzed what he considers one such situation: the Republican party’s ongoing shortfall with female voters.

Waldman doesn’t see how the GOP can overcome both its ideas and its tone on women’s issues. He asserted that when Republicans discuss their opposition to abortion and the contraceptive mandate, many of them “can't keep themselves from doing so in the most hostile, contemptuous ways imaginable.”