Here’s one more column regarding the focus of the Republican presidential primary: reality TV star Donald Trump.
Some observers say they knew he would succeed this far. How did they know?
First, look at the Republican Party itself and their tendency to sometimes spread misinformation for their own purposes, which is then amplified ad nauseam to the public with tones of anger and/or alarm by Fox News, etc., to keep their ratings up.
Now, look at Trump and his untruths, which he tends to repeat and which don’t seem to really bother him. He has told so many stories that many have come to expect them (“Pants on Fire,” per Politifact). What’s important to his listeners is not what he says, but how he says it — his autocratic style being far more important than any governmental experience this election year.
The looming apocalypse belief held today in American mass culture has been carefully developed.
Conservative members of Congress and the Republican presidential candidates have pointed to how appallingly weak America is at this time, in every respect. We have come to expect this to some extent during election years. The candidates will all tell you they are the only ones who can “fix” America.
Trump uses his “white identity” politics as a clarion to attract the attention of xenophobes, what with all the Mexican, Chinese and Muslim immigrants that are “harming” America. Trump also enjoys promoting his other conspiracy theories, like the birther movement and the “murder” of Justice Scalia.
Trump loves to use doomsday rhetoric. You’re going to have more World Trade Centers, he told a standing-ovation crowd. He said America is dangerously weak, but he can ride to the rescue if you vote for him.
“What’s the appeal of this dark view? Well, it’s precisely that: people find [Trump’s] apocalyptic rhetoric enticing and familiar — because America has end-times obsession deeply embedded in its national psyche,” wrote Deborah Caldwell for Fortune. “This is a nation, after all, where a reputable national poll found that 41 percent of us believe Jesus will return to rule the world by 2050. [This is a nation] where there is such a thing as a Rapture Index, gauging how close the world is to The End.”
So how did the Republican elites lose their voters to Trump?
“It’s not exactly a surprise that Republican voters hate government. It’s been their No. 1 organizing principle for years,” Heather Digby Parton wrote for Salon. “In fact, the Sainted Ronald Reagan himself was known for his saying, ‘Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.’
“And we know they hate liberals. They have spent decades denigrating the philosophy, the ideology and even the word itself. But until now, they haven’t hated the Republican Party. And, boy, do they hate it.
“What seems to have happened is that GOP base voters feel betrayed and disillusioned because they voted for a Republican Congress and that Congress has failed to deliver the agenda on which they ran. First of all, they failed to remove President Obama from office, either through impeachment or at the ballot box in 2012. They also failed to repeal Obamacare, close the borders, ban abortion, stop gay marriage, or end political correctness, just for starters.”
As it turns out, Republican voters were trained by the GOP to be “uneducated, terrified, suspicious sheep.” Unfortunately, these voters don’t quite have what it takes to reject a bully with the insecurities of someone like Trump, who dearly wants to take his acting and real estate experience and apply it to the nuclear codes he will be handed if elected president.
That would feel like a very different country.
— Marylin Olds is an opinion columnist. Questions and comments are always welcome at marylin.olds@gmail.com.
