More and more I find
myself understanding the appeal of Donald Trump primarily to those who feel most
powerless in this country. If I might generalize, I believe The Powerless have
lost all faith in the politicians we keep electing and re-electing. It isn't
just a matter of Throw the Bums Out. If the proposed solutions involve
politicians, they just won't believe it’s possible. "They're all
crooks." Blanket dismissal without any need to consider their victim. And no one is really going to
help them feel any sense of power in their lives unless it is someone
they see as willing and able to redefine what it is to be a politician, and
first and foremost that means a candidate that talks like them. Not like what
you hear 24/7 from politicians invited to blather with the cable provocateurs of
your...and their choice. The policies aren’t even important. It’s the messenger. Not the
message but the way the message is conveyed.
I’ve said for 20 years that the most successful politician will be the one who talks like a human –
my examples were always John McCain, Ed Rendell and Joe Biden. Sadly, John
McCain stopped doing that when he ran for President the first time and, as he
admitted later, didn’t have the courage to call for the removal of the
confederate flag over South Carolina’s Capitol Building. He had thus jumped off
his Straight Talk Express and try as he might to jump back on, the best he
could do was to bring on Sarah Palin to play the role for him. And to occasionally
tweak President Trump up to his final days.
Even more sadly,
like his pal Ed Rendell who now has Parkinson’s, Joe Biden has lost the ability
to talk like a human for a different reason. To be blunt, he’s practically lost
the ability to speak at all, God love him (as he likes to say.)
So who are we
left with to talk like us…and by us, I sure don’t mean like anyone I would want
to hang out with…but Donald J. Trump. For all he does so so wrong, he gets it.
He knows he can say anything he wants, the more outrageous the better. Hell, he
can call dead war veterans suckers and losers. It’s oh-so appealing to his
Powerless People. It doesn’t matter what his policies are – people don’t even
know what he stands for besides being against abortion, for guns and apparently
for Bibles best displayed, so appropriately and symbolically, upside down.
And other than
what a truly awful human being he is, the worst American I’ve ever known of,
what bothers me most? That we Dems didn’t bring forth the same kind of person. Not
the person who personally bankrupts blue collar workers with his shady business
practices. Not the person who makes fun of the disabled or who separates kids
from their parents and puts them in cages.
No, my fantasy Dem candidate is kind to small animals and works and plays well with others. S/He’s not snooty and highbrow like Barack and Hillary. S/He’s an intellectual but you would never know it by the way s/he converses with us.
And he or she is the kind of person who gets blue collar voters to think that he is one of them. And actually is.
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