Reading time – 39 seconds . . .
There is only one reason I would give any e-ink to Donald Trump. It isn’t to examine and refute the flamboyant, xenophobic, homophobic, baseless, factless, insulting, unconstitutional (see cartoon tweet below) things he’s saying. That’s being handled to excess by our broadcast people. In fact, yesterday I wanted to find out what was going on other than in the despicable world of Trump and had to go to non-U.S. media to find out. What can we learn from that?
New York Daily News Tweet,
December 9, 2015
No, the real reason to comment about Trump is because of what it says about us that 28% of Republicans like what he’s saying and will vote for him. And it is because there are a bunch of Democrats who like his unconstitutional discrimination of Muslims and they, too, intend to vote for him.
Donald Trump is showing us who we really are and what I see is terrifying.
No, I don’t think he can win a general election. That isn’t the point. The point is that it has become reasonable to ask whether in this blizzard of sensationalism he could. And that’s so because, through their support of Trump, so many Americans are displaying their fear and hate and anger and are eager to support a candidate who plays to their basest instincts.
We better get to the bottom of our self-destruction or we will become something that is very un-American and very dangerous to every one of us.
To understand more of Trump’s “sell,” look at what master marketer Bruce Terkel has to say.
Recorded live in a hotel room in New Jersey.
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Ed. note: There is much in America that needs fixing and we are on a path to continually fail to make things better. It is my goal to make a difference – perhaps to be a catalyst for things to get better. That is the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people and a robust dialogue.
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Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
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One Response to Trump and Us
Frank Levy December 10, 2015
Yes, Trump has a great marketing strategy and fantastic marketing organization – the willing and foolish MSM – to spread his word. But, as you say Jack, Trump is playing to the basest instincts of a very frightened, xenophobic, and bigoted, intolerant, angry crowd of voters. More frightening than Trump himself is that what Trump is tapping into is not new in America.
Trump, for all of his disgusting, bombastic, hate-filled speech, did not create his army of followers. They have been there all along just waiting for a/their leader to emerge. They have been waiting since Barack Obama became president to find someone who would be the voice of their fear of change, of losing their white privilege, and who would legitimize their hatred of those who do not vote, speak, have sex, look, or pray like they do – the way Jesus intended – and anyone and everyone who is not a true American (read non-white, non-Christian, non-European immigrant). They have been waiting for a leader who would bring back the America of their youth – an America that never existed except on TV and in their fantasy world. They have been looking for, and in Trump have found, the “leader” who would “make patriotic” their hate and their hate speech.
Trump is playing to the same violent, fear-based, xenophobic and anti-Semitic emotions and hatred Adolph Hitler did in the 1930’s. If we are ever to roll back the hatred, paranoia and fear of Trump’s followers and the millions of Americans who think and believe as they do, we first have to admit that what we are seeing is as American as apple pie. Trump is not the first demagogue to use this very American emotion to make political points or to demonize a religious or ethnic group. And, contrary to the limp, feckless protestations of Speaker Ryan, some of the Republican leadership, and some of the other Republican candidates – Trump and his followers and their followers – IS what conservatism and the Republican Party stand for and are about!
Republicans and Conservatives have supported, funded, and cheered the constant stream of hate messages from the likes of Fox News, Breitbart, Drudge, Rep. Steve King, Louie Gomert, Michelle Bachman, Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter, Ted Cruz, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and countless others for years. Now, the Republican Party, and unfortunately the rest of America, is harvesting the rotted crop of their vile, vitriol directed at anyone and everyone who they consider the “other.”
Where the hell did the mainstream Republican Party think all of this venomous, bile-filled, contemptuous, cruel, vicious, bitter, speech would lead? Trump is exactly the candidate they have been looking for to carry their vision of America –a white, Christian America – to the people. The problem the Party has with trump is he is not polite, he does not play the game the way folks like Romney did, he says in public what they only want said in the back room, and they cannot control him. The fact that they cannot control him – meaning he doesn’t need their money – pisses off the Party’s big sponsors and upsets the gravy train.