The hysteria in the news about Donald Trump continues to amuse beyond anything I have seen in my lifetime. Anyone who has read my blog for any amount of time should know that I am a liberal and not a conservative supporter. There are a lot of pundits writing about why they believe people support Trump and none of them seem to get it. Now the media has gone as far as to compare Trump to Hitler, that is irrational hysteria and demonstrates their fear of Trump; but, more importantly their fear of American opinion.
The term that is frequently used to classify Trump is "populist"; but, what does the term mean. It means unrestrained by political party, it means representing the views of the public rather than shaping them. He is more an outgrowth of the Occupy Wall Street movement and the Tea Party then he is a representative of any political party or corporate interest and neither the media or the parties can accept that.
When the Occupy movement was going on a politician asked me what it meant and when would it end. After the Occupy movement was removed from public spaces across the nation I said it would only return in some new form. When the Tea Party was co-opted and destroyed, I said it would come back in a new form. Trump, and to a lesser extent Sanders, are the re-emergence of this frustration. The frustration with the fact that the opinions of most Americans are being ignored by business and politics.
Lets consider what Trump said when the Occupy Movement was going on.
Yahoo - Daily Ticker - Trump: Occupy Wall Street Indicates “There Is Something Wrong With This Country”. Here is a line from the article, "The movement, he believes, is a symptom of an unfair and unjust system that favors certain interests at the expense of ordinary Americans."
You may not understand why the media refuses to publicly recognize where his support is coming from; but, the reality is that through focus groups and interviews with Trump supporters, they do understand as the following article demonstrates.
Valuewalk - Donald Trump Channels Both Tea Party And Occupy Wall Street.
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." - Mahatma Gandhi
At first Trump was ignored as not a serious candidate, they he was ridiculed for everything including his hair, now for awhile they have been attacking him and it doesn't seem to be working either. Guess what comes next?
I have some Republican friends who support Trump and believe he might be assassinated to keep him from winning office. 68% of his supporters said they would vote for him even if he left the Republican party. The Republican party establishment itself has done everything they can think of to replace him as the front runner and nothing has worked. The options for getting rid of Trump are limited. If the Republican party removes him from the party, it will lose it's support and be incapable of getting a Republican elected. If the party fails to support him; but, he wins the primaries, he will run as a third party candidate and again the Republican party will be unable to elect the President. If it comes down to Trump versus Clinton people will join him from both parties because the hatred of Clinton is even worse.
Here is the real threat to the establishment and it is not Trump, it is why he has support. People are still angry that the country only seems to benefit others. People do not believe this country is fighting for it's own citizens. The elimination of the Tea Party and Occupy movements did not make the anger or distrust go away, it is merely expressing itself in a new way and will continue to until people believe the establishment has the best interest of Americans at heart in reality and not just more rhetoric.
As a side note, we have kept people out from other countries before. Asians were kept out during the 1800s, we all know about the Japanese being kept in internment camps during World War II and in the 1980s President Carter wouldn't allow Iranians in the country.
The Harvard Crimson - Carter Cuts Ties With Iran.
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1 comment:
That was an excellent piece of blogging bud !
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