Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVIII: I'm OK, You're Deplorable
As someone who is on record as sitting this entire stupid-*** election out, the amount of heated vitriol I've gotten from people on BOTH sides, often using the exact same rhetoric ("A VOTE FOR X IS A VOTE FOR Y!!!," "HOW CAN YOU SIT THIS OUT AND LET CLINTON/TRUMP BECOME PRESIDENT?!?!?") has been very, VERY illuminating. Both sides seem to realize they've nominated the worst possible candidates, and are just rooting for their political sports team at this point.
I don't think the dems have nominated the worst possible candidate--not by a long shot. Not the one I preferred, but certainly qualified. I also don't think Trump is the worst possible. Or should I say scariest possible. That honor I would give to Cruz. But as a group, I'd say the GOP primary field was as weak as it's been in my memory, and I think that is the effect the far right has had on that party--those voters who are socially extremely conservative and who are especially given to fear of diversity, foreign threat, and change generally. I don't think many of the posters here fit that description, but that base has kidnapped GOP party, not because they outnumber the more level-headed but because they are like the swing vote--whoever wants to win in that party needs those voters.
Why now? I don't see the Trump phenomenon as a finger in the face of the establishment, though Hovey made a pretty good point, as he often does. But Trump is, if anything, the 50s establishment. Make America Great Again, with him and to those to whom he is trying to appeal, is nothing more than Make America White Again. He is still living in the 1950s.
We are living in a time when people who are susceptible to fear have much to worry about. It is harder to make a living wage without a college degree. Without a degree, which is prohibitively expensive for many, you can no longer assume that if you learn a trade or get hired by a reliable company you will be able to 1) stay employed with that company long enough to retire and 2) make a living wage while you are working for them. So people are susceptible to fears about their own economic future. Although we are living in a time of peace compared to just about any time in recent history, people are bombarded by news of terrorist acts that scare them. They know how to digest the knowledge that tens of thousands of their children are dying in a war in another country, but this terrorism is something different. It sometimes happens in our cities, it does not make sense to them, and the bad guy are most certainly from another tribe. In their eyes, a Godless tribe.
So people susceptible to fear, whether it is for economic or security reasons, are susceptible to politicians who use that fear to manipulate them. Ant that is what that tail wagging the GOP dog has done. It has capitalized on fear of the godless wanting to ruin the institution of marriage and of our way of life, fear of muslims who will cut our heads off, fear of foreigners generally who will take our jobs and buy our skyscrapers. And when people's fears have been aroused to a certain point, they fear everything around them. That is where The GOP political machine miscalculated. It used fear as a tool for many years, but the mob it created has gotten out of their control.
Hovey was right when he observed that many people thought it was amusing when the mob was breaking windows over on the GOP side of town but not so much now that it is doing the same on our side of Main Street. But the swing vote population is not that large a pool, and they are also susceptible to fear tactics. Not as much as the far right, IMO, but they are. And Trump appeals to them too. He will keep mexicans and muslims out of their towns and schools without costing us money, he will find good people who know how to take care of bad buys abroad, and he will not be controlled by big money bad guys here in our own country. And if you are increasingly driven by fear and uncertainty, what is there not to like about that?
Edit: Reading this, it's kind of an embarrassing ramble. But what the heck--not my first.
