[My Wrong Pick]
Trump and the Angry Uneducated White Men
Donald Trump is not going to be president of the United States. He cannot win the demographics. He will probably do pretty well among angry, disenfranchised white voters, and old white women. But he has not, so far, demonstrated the slightest attraction to blacks, hispanics, women, educated white men, educated white women, educated people of no specific gender, or establishment Republicans.
How Does He Do It?
One is forced to consider how he might just do it, as if the possibility itself must be considered for some reason. Trump is volatile, and he doesn’t embrace a lot of the traditional Republican values. He has even– God Help Him! — let slip that he would consider raising taxes on the rich, if necessary, to deal with the mythic crisis called “The Budget Deficit”, which is only ever a problem when it can be used to justify slashing social spending. You want a war? Hey, here’s my gigantic American Government Credit Card.
So, he is volatile. He might take positions that a lot of Americans would find appealing, even if they don’t like his boorishness.
We cannot afford to forget that Americans are very, very angry at their government. Most of them could not name a single policy that they actually want to change, or how they would change it, aside from the obvious: no boots on the ground in Syria. They do want to tear up trade agreements but I suspect most people would be easily frightened into keeping them, if the consequences of a trade war with China were described to them in vivid terms.
But Trump looks like a bully and sometimes you like the bully if he’s on your side.
Or if you think he’s on your side.
I lost it at the Movies
Do Americans cling to an obsolete, nostalgic image of impervious American power and prestige? When the marines could just land somewhere and “take” a country or city, and the rubber or oil or coffee or bananas would just flow through American corporations to American consumers in American malls?
2021-05-05 Update
Yeah, obviously I was wrong.
Perhaps the most astonishing thing about this election cycle is the fact that the two people most people want to be president– Bernie Sanders and John Kasich– will not be the nominees.
Is there a problem with a system that produces two of the most unwanted presidential candidates in history?
Is there a problem with the obscenity of the fact that the wife of a former president is about to become the next president of the United States? Is the U.S. actually a tin-pot dictatorship?
Why the hell doesn’t someone start a third party? If people hate their government so much– no matter which party is in power– why don’t they do something about it? Is this an abusive relationship? Are the American voters enablers?
Wednesday, May 05, 2021