The last few months have left me dazed and confused as to why the American people love Donald Trump. I’ve written about it, I’ve unfriended Facebook friends who asked me to endorse him, and I’ll admit I have even learned a few marketing tricks from his campaign.
By anyone’s playbook, Trump is a bully, a narcissist, a misogynist, and a racist. Plus, he’s attracting dangerous followers like members of the Ku Klux Klan. Even his right-hand salute was compared to Hitler’s hand gesture. Despite his politically incorrect behavior and self-bravado, again and again Trump comes out on top.
American people are loving Trump in record numbers. Why?
What we are seeing now is a passionate rift between those who like Trump for his brashness, and those who fear what could happen to our country with a man like him in power. This is what prompted me to take a deeper look at what exactly Trump says that resonates with Americans. It didn’t click until I read Thomas Frank’s article, which you can find here.
At the very bottom of this election sits a deep-rooted dissatisfaction with our systems. Let’s go through the list of what wiped out the American middle class and the hard-working, blue collar employee who used to be able to support his family.
- We were told our children need college degrees. With rising tuition, shorter classes, more requirements, and schedules that keep our kids in school an average of one year longer, the stress of such an education puts families in debt, often for life.
- The promised land of gainful employment that a college degree guarantees may as well be Shangri-La. In my daughter’s circle of friends, the picture is dire. They are disillusioned, unemployed or working less than part time, living at home, and fighting over minimum wage jobs just to stay afloat. One friend shares a single waitressing job with a woman who used to be a manager until her company laid off their middle-aged women.
- Parents put a second mortgage on their homes to support their kids. If they were able to hold on to their houses during the big recession, they still have a long way to being mortgage-free. Many will die in debt. Parents used to be able to lean on their children for financial support in their later years, but now their children don’t have any money to spare. The slide into poverty seems inevitable.
- Healthcare is out of control. How is it possible that an outpatient procedure like an Epidural that lasts 10 minutes can put you back $15-25,000? Insane deductibles and co-pays add to the issues. Can anyone actually afford to get sick? If you do, you could be paying back those expenses for the rest of your life.
- Corporations are under pressure. Americans can’t afford to buy as much now that production jobs have been outsourced to cheap labor countries like China, Vietnam, and the Philippines. Fewer jobs at home means less disposable income for Americans. Suddenly, organizations are in trouble and the middle class is wiped out. Right now you want to be either young with a great, sexy idea that disrupts the market, or already financially set for life. If you are anywhere in the middle, you are screwed.
- When this country was doing well we opened the borders, as Reagan did, to invite farm workers. It made sense because we needed cheap laborers to do the less desirable jobs that we don’t want to do. We are college educated, after all. This works great when things are good. It falls apart when there are no jobs in the middle for Americans; the top and the bottom are already occupied.
And this is where Trump comes in.
People are tired of losing. They are afraid the little they have left could be lost at any moment. And who isn’t disgusted when a CEO gets fired and is given a multi-million dollar parting gift bonus? Trump nails these pains and fears and dissatisfaction. He promises to be the bully who will shake things up. He has no problem blackmailing, negotiating, or forcing the other side to relent to his wishes. And why wouldn’t they? He’s the Almighty Trump and this is his track record. Truly, he has no plan other than to “change it.”
The American people support Trump because they want to send a message to the system. This is his appeal. Trump will tell the establishments what we want to tell them ourselves, and Americans believe the establishments will listen to a bully.
The bank bailout did nothing for the people, or so we believe. Of course, we didn’t live through the outcome of not providing the bailout, so we don’t really know how bad it could have been if banks were allowed to fold. What we now witness is the effect on our lives and the people around us. Like my girlfriend who lost her house at 62-years-old after battling with the bank for five years. The refinancing they offered was merely an extension of her debt. Total fail. She can’t get back on her feet financially, is such an emotional mess that she can’t focus on work, and the stress of her fight for survival has literally paralyzed her—she awoke one morning unable to move her left arm. There are millions of stories like my friend’s.
That is why Trump is so popular—he promises to be strong enough, independent enough, and crazy enough to take the system on. He will send a message to anyone, anywhere.
Who wouldn’t want that? In some ways I do, too. Let’s shake things up.
But then…
On the flipside, those among us who look into the future and carefully examine the past know this type of populism comes with great danger.
History shows that great fear based leaders who understand pain-point marketing can rise to unprecedented heights when people are unhappy. And once they are in power, they keep manipulating the system, like Putin, Hitler, Castro and many other dictators have done before. In the long run they can cause irreparable harm to a country and its people. And that worries me more than anything else.
And as we are beginning to see in unsettling images of violent clashes during preliminary elections we need to wake up, because we have much to worry about.
Totally agree with you. I can’t imagine having Trump as our leader. He’s already stated that those of us who are against him are “bad people” and one of his supporters yelled out that all of those who are against him “we need to get rid of them”.
Agree totally with you! This man is a populists who insites racist actions and furor.all with a lese faerie attitude. He is the antithesis of an open mind.
I enjoyed your article here and I would like to share some of my thoughts on this. This cycle of events has to do with our core elements as human beings. Looking back through our history, this cycle has been repeated a great number of times. The cycle begins when a silent majority of people discover a person who refuses to remain silent any more, they are drawn to the person’s ability to openly say or express what so many people are feeling about their lives. This of course is created when people have been suppressed or controlled though the idea of being accepted in society or by being politically correct. Mr. Trump simply represents a means to release this undercurrent of discontent and frustration that the silent majority feel about their lives and their world around them. As I do agree that you have the right to “unfriend” anyone that you feel do not meet your expectations, by doing so, the act itself reinforces Mr. Trump’s message. The stronger the attempts to silence their message, the stronger they become in getting their message out. The main reason for my thoughts here is to hopefully inspire other people to change the typical responses to this type of event. If we all can be more understanding of why this happens, we could all be more empowered to break this kind of cycle of fear and prevent repeating the same mistakes of the past. This proactive approach would go a long way in preventing the damages that can be inflicted by individuals like Mr. Trump. In the eyes of the silent majority, the more that people try to make him look bad, the better he looks to be the their best choice.
And what if this was a plot from the other Republicans to make him and Bernie Sanders look bad? Who pays whom?
That is a great question that becomes extremely difficult to answer. Typically, we have been taught to look at who benefits the most from an act or event to arrive at the answer. Due to the complexity of our societies, this method no longer works. For example, look into the Opium Wars. On the surface it appeared that it was due to the conflict between China and the Western world over trade rights, which it was. Sadly, when you look deeper, it’s underlying dark side was about the drug trade and the ability to destabilize a country’s workforce, therefore weakening the country’s ability to be strong. You see terroristic events are not only perpetrated by individuals, they are also perpetrated by various governments to alter various outcomes to meet their needs. There are many examples that I can point to throughout mankind’s history. To give you an answer to your question, look past the obvious answer and look at the underlying purpose for an event. You see, the people that you asked about are usually just puppets on the public stage.
My opinion is this an continuation of Donald Trump from last President Election. He started the Birther Movement when he said Obama was not born in the US. He said “I have proof that will blow you away”. Trump never shown his proof. He was never called in question by the Republican leadership that he was making false claims about the president. Why? Because Donald Trump’s false statements was a benefit to gin up the based of the Republican party. The Republicans did this kind of tactics with Willie Horton political ads. They did it again in the Midwest of the country with gay rights during Bush election. The did it again questioning that Obama is not a Christian, but Muslim. How many time I have heard the Republican leaders say “Well Obama does he is a Christian” . Or how about Obama does not love his country like we Republicans do.
The Republican party leadership has created their Frankenstein monster with Donald Trump. Not calling him out years ago when he lied and play the race card with the first Black President. Now Donald Trump has triple down this the actions and the Republican leadership cannot stop him.
In 2012 election, I was disgusted seeing Donald Trump run for the office of the president because the tactics he used on a Grandma who refused to sell her property to him. He used his money and influence to rig the system in his favor:
http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/10/trumps_eminent_domain_comments_recall_1990s_atlantic_city_property_battle.html
We seized people property to build a parking lot? A parking lot for “rich” people to use!
The reason why I bring this up because of if Donald Trump wants to build a fence along the entire Mexico border. He going to have to seize a lot ranchers land and Native American land too, along the border to build his wall. His supporters think the Mexico is going to pay to do this, because Donald Trump is going to force Mexico government to pay. My question for me is Mexico going to pay every year the cost to maintain this wall? It is so laughable that Donald Trump supporters do not even think that far.
I never would have thought I would have seen at a political rally where a protester is punch in the face and the police arrested the protester but they do not also arrest the guy that through the punch at the protester in police custody. It does not stop here, he goes on and threatens to kill protester next time he show up like he has nothing to be ashamed about. Of course not, he at a Donald Trump rally where he feels safe among like minded people.
But I think that this kind of behavior has been playing out in the Republican party for a while. A while back one Florida House of Representatives claimed he had a list of 30 Congress people that were members of the communist party. Or another Republican at his town hall, on person stood up and ask where are they going to shoot the president. The Congressman just laugh.
I quit the Republican party because it is turn crazy and it leadership by it silence, has given its blessing to these extreme opinions and actions we are seeing now. If Donald Trump wins then then extremism wins and every political race will be like we have now. If Donald Trump loses and because of the weak leadership of the Republican party we will see it play out again 2020.
Bill, today it has become very difficult to know the whole truth about an issue or a subject. I would implore you to look closer at your presumed fact that Mr. Trump started the birther movement. It was in 2007 when Mrs. Clinton’s Cheif Stratigest suggested that Mr. Obama’s record of birth could be a weakness that the campaign could use against him. There are times when certain individuals within either party will resort to any means necessary to win the race. Yes, that does mean that the opposite party will latch on in hopes to discredit their opponents. All political party are guilty of supporting any information that will support their position, even if it is not the whole truth, the is the nature of politics. Thankfully, you have a right to your beliefs and opinions, this freedom was established by this Country’s Founding Farthers. The one aspect of our freedoms that appears to be overlooked, is the responsibilities that come with this freedom. As you have so clearly expressed here, other people are not fulfilling their responsibilities to being accurate in their understanding of the truth. Therefore, a great number of people are being mislead into believing that what they hear is the whole truth. In most cases, it is just a part of the truth that is used to persuade you into taking one side or the other or to manipulate your opinion. I hope that you will continue to challenge the information that you are told, this allows you to be an independent thinker, not a victim of misinformation or misdirection.
Excuse me, but aren’t the problems you brought up reasons to vote for Bernie Sanders? How would Trump’s ideas make that work at all???
Barb, you pose a good question. The reality is that no one really knows what a presidential candidate will or will not accomplish until they are elected into that position and we watch them from the comfort of our homes. We will never really know what happens behind those close doors or what was the real contributing factor for their actions or inactions. All we do know for sure is that the candidates will always tell us what we want to hear in order to gain our votes, this is the nature of politics. Hopefully some day, we as a society can find a way to remind the political candidates that they are accountable to us the voters and that they must earn our precious vote.
I was surprised to receive your accidental political email through your marketing company, then apology. I decided to answer you and sent you a link to an Ann Coulter article posted through Breitbart online news. I hope you will read it and get a better idea of why our political mess has come to this. I have been a conservative my entire life, not sure why, but to me it just made sense early on. I served in the army, stationed in Nurnberg in the 80’s, met people from communist countries, which only confirmed my beliefs and gratitude for being American. I became a Christian before having my 4, now grown children, and am absolutely devastated at what has become of our once great country. I walked local precincts in 2008 because I knew the evil that Obama was. He is the one who has caused the racial divide in our country, along with the rest of his rabble rousers in the Democratic party, Al Sharpton and the others. In 2012, once again I walked precincts, answered phones, only this time not in my home state of CA, but out of state. I wasn’t crazy about Romney, but I was done with what Obama had begun. If you haven’t seen Dinesh D’Souza movies, I highly recommend them. He has detailed what has been done to our once free country. I believe that the reason so many Americans are voting for Trump is that we(Republican, conservatives) have supported financially and with our votes candidates that we believed were going to put a stop to the out of control spending, Common Core(DC dictating) education, Obamacare disaster, illegals getting free college tuition here in CA while our kids are having to go out of state or take out huge loans to get an education. It is a mess. The Republicans have lied, are sold out to big corporations, who then are bringing in foreigners to train then take their jobs,(happening locally at Qualcomm). I certainly won’t vote for Hillary. She should be in jail for Benghazi and her classified emails, not to mention her misogynist rapist husband who she has covered for. I won’t vote for socialist Sanders. Look at the mess in Germany and Sweden and what open borders for young male Muslim immigrants have done there! Sweden is the rape capital of the western world, Germany most likely soon to follow. It breaks my heart because I have friends and family who live there. I do not want that happening here too. I want a president that has a back bone, and if people call him a bully, so be it. He is, I believe, concerned about the stability of our country, not sold out to Goldman Sachs or owned by any other large corporations. I pray he really is going to do the things he says he is. I do want a pause in immigration, especially for Muslims. I want ISIS defeated. I want jobs brought back to this country so my children have a future. I want entitlements cut to corporations and those who choose not to work. I want to see our middle class thrive once again. I pray that the American people will stop buying all the garbage that is being put out on our mainstream news outlets and search for the truth, and most of all pray for God to restore our country, put Him back in our schools, marketplace and homes.
Lee, first I would like to thank you for all of your personal sacrifices that you made when you joined the Army. As always, I am very proud to hear the stories from Veterns such as yourself. If possible, try not to allow a few individuals in a political party to cause you to question your own personal beliefs. I do believe that there are a great number of people in this Country that feel the same as you do about the role and responsibility that the Office of the President of the United States has to this Nation. Over the years, both political parties have faltered in doing what is right for the citizens of this country, this is due to the complexities of our society. I believe that as long as this Country has a majority of caring individuals, we as a Country will overcome the mistakes that our politicians make. The strength of this country lies with it’s citizens, not the few weak minded politicians that forget who they are responsible to, the people of this Country.
Beate, thank you for such an interesting and thought provoking article. I have been thinking about this article and have read all the entries thus far. All that have contributed have excellent points to ponder and decide how to act upon. Steve makes a very important point, “The reality is that no one really knows what a presidential candidate will or will not accomplish until they are elected into that position and we watch them from the comfort of our homes.” and I agree. I must confess that politics is a real hot button for me and I have very little tolerance for the direction this country is headed given the last few Presidential administrations. What are my prejudices? Intolerance and stupidity.
I am a U.S. Marine who served on active duty from 1979-1991. In some ways, I am still serving and will always be a Marine; a title I am proud to have earned. my job was to preserve democracy, not practice democracy and did my best to do so. I also had the privilege of serving with some of the finest people I will ever know; a wide variety of ethnic and religious backgrounds working towards common goals, unit and mission effectiveness. My life has been rewarded for that. The Oath of Enlistment into the Armed Forces of the United States includes one vital statement, “…I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic…”, an oath that does not end after one’s active duty service. It is a life force for me. In that spirit, I cannot in good faith support Donald Trump, as I view him as an enemy of the United States insofar as his actions and words. All politicians lie to the degree they need to in order to push their agenda and win elections. Trump is no different. If Trumps feels he, as POTUS, can make America great again, he is deluded. As a veteran of one of the finest fighting forces on earth, I believe Donald Trump will bring terror and more war to our doorstep and that, above all other things, we cannot afford. I would be ashamed to call him my Commander-in-Chief.
Donald Trump is a bully. Trump is used to getting his own way, by whatever means he deems necessary and if he doesn’t like it, he’ll purchase it and change it anyway. I, like many, see Trump as a dictator in the classic sense. Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, and those who have used pain-point marketing to their advantage and the result? Leaving in their wake, a path of destruction and without a sense of national identity. Hitler was a master of rallying his people for the purpose of national unity, only to wig out and have destroyed the very things he tried to instill. Stalin’s death left the former Soviet Union a fearful, paranoid nation with no real sense of Identity to speak of, leaving Kruschev to clean up the mess. I don’t believe, nor can I abide Donald Trump, or any Presidential candidate who embraces the kind of rhetoric Trump espouses to be allowed to serve in the the highest office in the Land.
Donald Trump has to his credit, stirred the political pot and made a lot of Americans voice their displeasure towards the current practices in our country’s government. I applaud him for that. A wake up call has been needed for quite some time. Sadly, political rallies that have Trump’s name or presence associated with them are becoming increasingly violent and have video clips and news articles that show Trump’s true colors as a bigot and racist. America does not need more walls, physically or metaphorically. America needs to revisit and effectively update old policies to reflect the needs of the current environment we live in. Alienation has never worked and I will tell you, as a human being, my basis for judging character remains on the strength of character and soulfulness each of us is imbued with, and have been fascinated with each one’s ethnic background and religious beliefs that have enriched my life. I still believe we take people as they come, one at a time. It has worked well for me as a person, it has worked well for me as a leader of Marines.
We all know and have allowed history to be repeated multiple times, and not necessarily for the better. I am so weary of this behavior. I, like many of you are looking for a strong and effective leader to has the qualities to be the leader we need in oder to get our house as a nation in order. I do not believe Donald Trump is that leader. I do believe that true leader of the United States will see to it that America’s government is less polarized and more compliant in acting on the issues we currently face as a nation that will continue to cripple us if not handled properly. If that involves some bullying or beating the crap out of congress to come together in unity, so be it, as long as it is for the betterment of the United States first. I am left feeling disheartened that person may not exist and yet, I still remain hopeful.
Semper Fidelis
Excellent points and very well spoken. Today confirmed that Trump will have enough delegates for the candidacy.
Donald, this Nation has been very fortunate to have had such a great number of individuals such as yourself who are willing to sacrifice themselves to defend the people, freedoms and beliefs that has contributed to this Nation’s existence. Thank you for being a great part of this Nation’s ability to stand strong. Your observations about the complexities of politics and the impact on the general population throughout history is accurate, this has been and always will be the nature of politics. All Politicians will start out with good intentions, it is the underlying human motives and desires that causes the politicians to become nothing more then public puppets. Even our Nation’s founding fathers struggled with many of the same basic elements of uniting this nation, they still exist today.