Posted on 07/26/2015 4:57:56 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
It isn't hard to figure out what's driving the so-called Donald Trump phenomenon that just prompted one-quarter of America's likely Republican voters to say in a poll he's the one they want to be our commander-in-chief.
What's harder to figure out is why the Trump phenomenon blindsided the Republican Party's presidential pack, the working press and the parasitic punditocracy. And why we keep being surprised every time this happens.
After all, this political driving force isn't really about The Donald or his billions; and it is as old as politics itself. It's about the way things happen -- and often collide -- at the campaign trail intersection of populism and pandering. As we've noted here before, it's no phenomenon, just a fact that was documented way back in 1968, by a young Newsday Washington correspondent covering an independent presidential candidate who seemed to have just a regional appeal -- Alabama's segregationist Gov. George Wallace.
Earlier, in 1963, Wallace famously declared "Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!" and tried to block the integration of the University of Alabama. But President John F. Kennedy and Attorney General Robert Kennedy sent federal officials and 100 Alabama National Guard troops who escorted two African-American students peacefully to school. Five months later, President Kennedy was assassinated. Five years later, in 1968, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in April. And then, then-Sen. Robert Kennedy was assassinated on the June night he won California's Democratic presidential primary. In September, Wallace took his anti-big government crusade up North -- and drew big crowds.
Northerners cheered Wallace's jabs against "pointy-headed intellectuals who can't even park a bicycle straight," federal bureaucrats whose briefcases contained "nothing but peanut butter sandwiches!"
Folks whooped every time he told anti-war protesters he had two four-letter words for them: "work" and "soap."
So Newsday's correspondent began asking Wallace rally-goers one question: Which candidate did they like before Wallace came north? Many answered: "Bobby Kennedy." It sounded mind-boggling to 1968 ears. So the correspondent asked: Why did you shift from a big-government, pro-integration, liberal Vietnam War dove to a small-government, state's rights, pro-segregation, Vietnam War hawk? Folks replied they never thought of it that way.
"Sure I voted for Bobby," in New Jersey's springtime primary, said a Newark postman proudly wearing a Wallace button (and proud of his Bobby Kennedy autograph back home). "He had the same thing Wallace has got that none of the other politicians have: guts. Bobby was a good man because he was not afraid. Now Wallace is the only guy who isn't talking out of both sides of his mouth at the same time trying to please everyone at once."
Mrs. Clifford Dupree, an Edison, N.J., housewife saw her shift from Kennedy to Wallace as a consistency, not a contradiction, because: "They say what they mean and they don't beat around the bush."
Fast-forward to 2015: Those 1968 answers should seem familiar to you. That's what today's voters say they like about Trump, what 1992 and 1996 voters said they liked about billionaire presidential candidate Ross Perot -- and what many say about statewide tea party candidates.
People are drawn to candidates who make things sound simple and make promises people want to hear. Even when candidates offer no actual plan. If you can't trust a man who made billions to make good things happen, who can you trust?
Still, you can also trust Trump will go too far. Hours after his shameful Saturday belittling of Sen. John McCain's Vietnam prisoner of war heroism, the Washington Post/ABC News poll showing Trump at 24 percent also showed his support was dropping.
Millions who watch reality TV believe they are watching reality. The Donald knows reality is like sincerity -- if you can fake it, you've got it made. So Trump's believers aren't bothered by his birther blasphemies and reality distortions. The reality they know is it's harder than ever for middle class people to pay their bills, while only the rich are getting richer.
Trump's believers are our reality. That's why it was wrong, but understandable, for a fed-up McCain to call Trump's audiences "crazies." They are America's fed-up voters of 2015. They desperately want to be led and are easily misled.
They are drawn to Trumps, Perots and tea party fulminators for the same reason they might heed the impassioned command of filmdom's iconic Howard Beale -- if that truth-talking anchor in "Network" (played by actor Peter Finch) implored them on today's reality TV, as he did in that 1976 film classic:
"I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell: 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!'"
If you hear those words echoing through America's swing-voting cul du sac suburbs on election night 2016, you will know America's fed-up, mad-as-hell voters just chose your next president.
Nice input-—thanks.
You just described the skills needed to be a good negotiator. That's Trump's bread-and-butter.
Who is your preference?
“It isn’t hard to figure out what’s driving the so-called Donald Trump phenomenon”
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, to give an inadequate paraphrase, that oftentimes the arrival of a single, unexpected, extraordinary individual, changes the world.
“They probably have already located a number of such former employees who probably deserved to b fired and who Trump may not even know about to blindside him at the opportune moment.”
I don’t think it’s possible to blindside Trump. He doesn’t play by the same rules. He (I think) accidentally said something wrong about not liking people who were captured, and ended up turning it into a win for him by concentrating on vets and opening a hotline. He will come right out and say what a lousy employee that person was, etc. He doesn’t play by the same PC rules.
That’s why the media, Democrats, and most Republicans are so afraid of him.
“Trump is catching an emotional wave of anger”
Is he catching it or creating it?
To me Trump is an extraordinarily intelligent, insider-knowledgeable, successful person.
He captures our attention by, in addition to his bombast, informing us of what’s happening to us and why.
“there are MILLIONS of fed-up white voters (hence my tagline and profile page)”
I’ve thought the GOP lost the last two elections because the base (whites) stayed home. They pander to everyone but us.
Yep, we lost because our candidates had no credibility with the base (i.e., white conservatives), so millions stayed home.
But we also lost because we didn’t our natural constituency a reason to come over to our side. That being white voters that are absolutely sick of constantly being called racists and being lectured to by the President and the media. And now having to go through Stalin-esque show-trials confessing their guilt for being born white.
Trump can reach both of these groups...and that is what scares the crap out of the Democrats and the media.
Because, racism.
Must have been in his speach. ;-)
I hate “the Media” so much I even hate that name for wire service journalists. Journalists presume to call themselves (more precisely, call each other, in a mutual admiration society) “objective” - as if they had no motives of their own. But IMHO their motives are easily recognizable in the following quotation:The man whom we believe is necessarily, in the things concerning which we believe him, our leader and director, and we look up to him with a certain degree of esteem and respect. But as from admiring other people we come to wish to be admired ourselves; so from being led and directed by other people we learn to wish to become ourselves leaders and directors . . .Journalist’s claims of their own objectivity actually prove only one thing - they actually aren’t even trying to be objective. Trying to be objective is hard work, because it starts with self-examination of how “where they stand” might be affected by “where they sit.” But if you think you actually are objective, you assume that you don’t have to do that work - and so you don’t, actually can’t.The desire of being believed, the desire of persuading, of leading and directing other people, seems to be one of the strongest of all our natural desires. - Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759)
What’s not to like about a person like that! </sarcasm>
You our probably right, but I don`t think the enemedia will be smart enough to change the playbook which has worked so well for them all these years.
"Scott Walker, I'm high on yoooooooou".....
Cruz was booed by bigoted Christians because he defended Israel and he WALKED off the stage to some applause by normal Christians
Yeah, you shouldn’t speek that way at the boarder.
This clown writes for Mother Jones
A real leftist
And you think John Bonehead and Mitch McConnell are “for the people”?
Unlike Trump, they actually have power to change things.
Yet, they do nothing.
You got me all wrong. No! I don’t think Boehner or McConnell are for the people, any more than 99% of them.
Don’t kid yourself. They don’t have the power you think they have to change anything. They do what they are told, just like those under them do as they are told.
We need to stand behind the new blood, like the Cruz’s of the world. Yes, there are few of them, but there are many of us.
Cruz would be one of the highest-paid lawyers in the United States with his background, eight figures a year. The $170,000 he makes now is chicken feed compared to that, and president only pays $500K IIRC.
Exactly. Cruz is the real deal, IMHO
Definition: narcissist
Part of Speech Definition
Noun 1. Someone in love with themselves.
There ya go.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.