Donald Trump’s meteoric rise as the Republican nominee for
the highest office in the land continues to stun, baffle and frustrate many
Americans. Who could have anticipated that a crude and clueless bully with a
reckless disregard for truth and reason would be where he is now?
It’s more complicated than that, of course. Ignoring Trump’s
appeal to his acolytes, that also include some of the very people he considers
pariahs, only serves to boost his candidacy. What needs to be understood is why
Trump is winning and what collective raw nerve he has touched that reflects on
us as individuals and as a nation.
Trump supporters assert that Americans are fed up with the
status quo and with career politicians whose milquetoast ways are no match for
today’s tough challenges. They want someone who tells it like it is and whose
kick-ass attitude is proof enough that he has the guts to back up his words
with action, with the military might of the United States if necessary. They
are looking for a candidate who will close America’s borders to undesirable
hordes and remove the afflictions of the working stiffs, particularly white
working stiffs, with financial wizardry. Trump, to them, is the fearless cowboy
to today’s toadies, the Rambo to the confused ‘to be or not to be’ appeasers.
But how to separate myth from reality, or can it be done at
all? Consider a few of Trump’s policy proposals.
On defeating ISIS: Since ISIS and Syrian dictator Bashar
Assad are mortal enemies, why not let ISIS finish off Assad and then go in and
take out ISIS? If that doesn’t pan out, let Russia get rid of ISIS. “What the
hell do we care?”
In other words, if Trump’s hero Vladimir Putin can deliver
the goods, why worry about ISIS at all?
On keeping America safe from barbarians, that is, Mexicans (‘criminals
and rapists’) and Muslims (each a potential terrorist): Build a 1,200-mile wall
along the U.S.-Mexico border and ensure that the Mexican government foots the $10 billion
bill. Ban Muslims from entering America and open a registry for those already
in so they can be tracked. Round up all undocumented immigrants and deport
them. "If I win,” said Trump during a campaign rally in New Hampshire,
“they (the Syrian refugees the U.S. may accept after rigorous vetting) are
going back."
On boosting the economy: Given that 44% of Americans say the
economy is their number one concern, Trump modestly declared in his speech for
candidacy for the president in June last year that “I will be the greatest jobs
president that God ever created.” Although short on details, Trump’s proposals
include massive tariffs on China and Mexico so that jobs from these and other
countries will return to America, keeping the minimum wage fixed at $7.25 per
hour, getting Wall Street professionals to run the economy and, of course,
repealing Obamacare.
According to former treasury secretary Larry Summers, Trump’s proposals are likely to “introduce great
uncertainty at home and abroad. The resulting increase in risk premiums might
well be enough to tip a fragile US economy into recession.”
Trump’s ideas to ‘Make America Great Again’ just don’t add
up, be it in foreign policy, in keeping Americans safe, or in creating
well-paying jobs for Americans who need them the most.
So what accounts for his victories in New Hampshire, South
Carolina, Nevada, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee,
Virginia, Vermont, Louisiana, Kentucky, and in undoubtedly more states to come?
When we feel besieged, playing to our worst fears work, and
often work spectacularly well. This is the phenomenon we are observing as Trump
continues to triumph in state after state. Although this is particularly true
for mostly middle-class white Republicans, who have seen their fortunes decline
as African-Americans and Hispanics have made gains at what would appear to be
at their expense, it is a part of human nature, and Trump is exploiting it for
all it is worth.
Many Americans are also in awe of wealth. They see in Trump a
fabulously successful businessman and are given to vicariously enjoying his
private jet and soaring towers, his name emblazoned in gold across his
holdings, a brand almost as well-known (at least to them) as Apple and Google. This weakness for wealth is
far more common than we think. It doesn’t matter that Trump got a huge head-start
by inheriting millions from his father, or that he had filed his businesses for
bankruptcy four times since 1991. ‘All that glitters is not gold’ may be true
for others, but to those who worship wealth, Trump is both glitter and gold.
And that’s reason enough to vote for him.
If there is a silver lining to Donald Trump’s run for
president, it is that he has revealed our darker sides to ourselves, our propensity
for overlooking the fatal flaws of the wealthy, (like the careless people in The Great Gatsby ‘who smash things up
and then retreat back into their money or their vast carelessness’), our tendency to confuse demagogues with saviors, and our misplaced confidence
in people who can seduce us with false hopes. Only by confronting these
weaknesses in our character can we ever hope to defeat them.
