DONALD TRUMP—AMERICAN ‘HERO’ FOR THE TIMES

I find the mainstream media and politicians’ response to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and the recent widening of his lead (pdf) above his clown car of fellow Republican opponents odd. Well, sort of.

It’s not surprising that Trump’s campaign was initially met with dismissal, before it was treated with forecasts of his ephemeral potency — where there’s no amount of blue pills The Donald’s billions can afford which could prop-up his limp candidacy after it reaches its fast climax.

But Trump’s ascent now has the media and Beltway types more than confused — they are almost apologetic for the phenomenon.

The same headscratchers say that Trump’s inflammatory remarks about immigrants and other groups “don’t represent America’s values” or those of the Party of No Brains.

Meanwhile, Trump is widening his lead over the primary field of this party. In America.

I have no idea of what will happen with Trump’s candidacy, but I know three things.

First — the press has no clue about Trump’s future either. They’ve proven over and over that their job is to report the news given to them, not to analyze events for accurate insight.

Second — Trump represents a large chunk of Americans’ sentiments.

Third—if Americans saw a President in a man known more for his acting ability than his public policy chops in 1980, then Trump’s shot at being nominated by his party isn’t so far-fetched. The enabling assumption here is that Trump doesn’t push his luck and do something extraordinarily dumb.

Look at what happened during the 1970s: America departed Vietnam with a torn backside; Iran’s Islamic fundamentalist revolution, a state of affairs ostensibly made in the USA, was in the process of tearing another hole for America by using the embassy hostage crisis as lever; the US economy appeared to be in free-fall; plus the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan further raised the spectre of a threat to America’s superpower status. Americans saw all of these events, freaked the hell out and concluded their country’s best days were behind it — unless a hero came along to rescue them from their cultural pessimism.

Enter Ronald Reagan — the Hollywood luminary who acted like the Governor of California (peace be unto Brother GSH), but wanted to act like the Leader of the Free World in 1980 and restore lost hope.

Americans were so convinced by Reagan that that let him act like a President for eight years!

Yeah, I said “act.” You know that man was not running the White House …

So here’s my point for 2015. Americans view fighting Islamic terrorism as the top priority for President Obama to address; Russia has been portrayed by the press as Soviet Union 2.0 on a quest to conquer Europe; the economic turnaround from the Great Recession is widely viewed as the Barista Recovery and likely contributes to why many still feel the economy is standing on shaky ground; 65 percent of Americans don’t  like the direction their country is headed; there’s a growing distrust of establishment candidates; and the current President being of African descent adds to the misery of many.

Trump, by positioning himself as the anti-establishment billionaire savior, has plenty of ears pointed his way.

Kinda like 1980.

But remember my comment about Trump doing something extraordinarily dumb?

Well, let’s wait and see…

song currently stuck in my head: “sharpie writing” – bus crates 16-bit ensemble