Posted on 07/23/2016 11:34:41 AM PDT by rickmichaels
In a democracy, the people get the government they deserve. And in America, they deserve Donald Trump.
The old adage comes from Alexis de Tocqueville, a French historian and writer who studied early American democracy. Tocqueville’s book, Democracy in America, examined how and why the political system worked so well in the U.S., whereas it tended towards corruption and abuse in much of Europe.
Tocqueville admired democracy in America, which was built upon strong traditions of individual liberty, religious freedoms and tight-knit communities.
If you landed in the U.S. in the 1830s, you would have been more impressed by the booming economy and strong civil society than merely just the voting system.
In the two centuries since, America became the global super power; the world’s largest economy, military, cultural exporter and soft power. It helped accomplish the global peace and stability we’ve enjoyed over the last 70 years.
But something has changed in the past few decades. America has changed.
Today, the U.S. is a deeply divided country. It’s divided by race, by class and by political affiliation. Everywhere you look, Americans are angry, and they seem determined to pit people against one another.
It’s easy to see why there is so much frustration in America. The economy has changed. The type of jobs available have changed, and will continue to change. Immigration, free trade deals and the incredible growth of new technologies has made life better for many people, especially for well-educated and middle class Americans. But these advances also left many people behind.
The people of Ferguson, Missouri or Flint, Michigan do not feel better off. They may have amazing smart phones and government health care, but they don’t have meaningful jobs or the self-respect and confidence that comes with providing for your family.
Immigration, likewise, helps grow the economy and makes our culture more diverse and interesting. It’s great for urbanites looking for new food options or a cheap nanny. But it isn’t so great for residents of Tucson, Arizona who have to deal with the disproportionate crime as the Mexican drug war spills into their community.
Rather than trying to understand these complex social problems, and working with the people of these communities to find palpable solutions, the issues were largely ignored. Worse than ignored, in many cases, the people raising these valid concerns were ridiculed.
And far from the robust communities that used to unite Americans, today, Democrats and Republicans barely interact. When they do, on cable news shows, they digress into shouting matches and name-calling.
America has changed. It’s lost many of the advantages Tocqueville admired.
Rather than addressing the real issues facing the country, American political discourse revolves around distractions and fake culture wars.
Rather than trying to understand voters with lower education and different cultural values, it’s become fashionable to simply call them stupid and make fun of them. But the more media elites like Jon Stewart – or his unfunny successor on the Daily Show, Trevor Noah – belittle Donald Trump and his supporters, the more divided American becomes. The angrier it becomes.
Donald Trump embodies this anger. And that’s why we shouldn’t underestimate his appeal to the American voter.
Despite drastically negative news coverage, sneering elites and fear-mongering from across the political spectrum over how bad a Trump presidency would be, Trump is still a viable contender.
If he wins in November, despite all the naysayers, it’ll be what America deserves.
Canada deserves Trudeau.
And Canada deserves statist Justin Trudeau.
Like we deserved Ahmed Hussein Obola.
Well, I certainly didn’t deserve 8 years of caliphate Barack!
What is this Marxist Canuck trying to say? Rhetorical question. We all know what Marxists want.
This is actually complimentary of Trump.
You guys beat me to it.
Pretty much all that needs to be said.
"Americans are simply tired of what their country has become."
This isn't anger. It isn't divisiveness. It isn't even political partisanship. Americans are tired of what their country has become, and Donald Trump seems like the kind of guy who can make it a great country again.
It's really that simple.
I'm still not 100% sold on the guy, but one observation from my high school years really sticks out in my mind. I visited New York City back in the "bad old days" of the 1980s when NYC was a complete sh!t-hole. The one building I visited that stood out as a gem back then -- and hasn't changed a bit to this day -- was Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue.
The author straddles the fence between the elites and the dying American middle class, but in the statements above, he is siding with the elites in describing the Trump movement as angry and nothing else.
He is missing the larger and more stronger aspect of the Trump movement: optimism and confidence.
I guess Mencken was doing a riff on de Toqueville when he said, “People deserve to get what they vote for. And they deserve to get it good and hard.”
We sure didn’t deserve Obama.
America’s not a democracy. It’s a Constitutional Republic.
“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”
Canada, the country with penis envy infesting its chattering class.
He’s missing everything. The leftist press is not only scraping the bottom of the barrel for negative things to say about Trump, they are scraping the bottoms of many barrels that say contradictory things. Nothing they say makes any sense at all anymore.
The only thing you can come away with when you read one of these pieces is “The guy hates Trump and feels superior to Trump and his supporters.”
One rather large group of people wants to be left to hell alone.
Another rather large group of people won’t leave the first
group to hell alone.
I reside in the first group.
I’m pretty sure nobody deserves Ebola. At least not if any of it gets on me.
They're not mutually exclusive. We are a democracy too, in that the people elect the leaders with a democratic process.
As happens in all democracies, the takers have found that they can vote freebies for themselves, and it's they who have been winning as of late. Repeating that we're a Constitutional Republic isn't going to change that.
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