Of the four Christmas cards I received from the UK this past December, three of them had the same request: explain the Trump phenomenon.
This is my reply:
America has had a bloodless revolution. It remains to be seen what will really happen once the New People take over Washington. No doubt much can (and maybe will) go wrong, but Trump, while a gaudy character, is an “instinctive Patriot.” We have been marching relentlessly toward a modern socialist state. At least we can hope for better times.
The first thing to remember is that America has not been governed by either President or Congress in the traditional manner for at least a generation. It simply costs too much to run. Millions and millions of dollars. And who has that kind of money to spare—except for the REALLY rich, who live in a world of their own. Their home is everywhere (they can make more money) and while handing over their money to many, they make sure they get their money’s worth. Hence their insistence on “open borders,’ “free trade,” in short all the tenets of the One World Order. Many who donate their money are not citizens, but it certainly doesn’t keep them from meddling in U.S. affairs. For instance, take George Soros (please). Remember he was the man who almost broke the Bank of England a few years ago. So it is not surprising that the only “successful” candidates for high office are the ones who feel comfortable keeping Congress from passing any laws their benefactors oppose. After all, they will soon be running for office again. And in the near future.
Since various European countries have lalely experienced slight (but unexpected) lurches to the despised Right, it is obvious that the U.S. is not the only one to experience that loyalty to the almost forgotten localism. For how many decades have campaigns been predicated on the needs or desires of pet minorities? The quiet, hard-working Middle and Lower Class whites have been dismissed as the luckless inhabitants of “flyover” country. No “real” politician ever paid any attention to them.
Then Trump entered the lists. Now early last year, when the GOP was congratulating itself on its fine stable of wannabes, everything seemed “normal.” But Trump changed everything. Predictably, everyone laughed at his pretensions.
But the GOP had forgotten recent history, and even the Never-Trumpers admit that for the past 30 years, Trump had been declaring, at every opportunity, that America should return to “greatness.” He gave money to the Dems without result. He did the same for the GOP. Nothing. It was obvious neither party would (or maybe even could) change. Thus Trump decided to run…but, unlike all the others, he threw his money into the effort.
Thus he was beholden to no one, and right from the start, he outraged all the arbiters of Political Correctness. He absolutely refused to abide by their si1ly rules, and his enthusiastic audiences adored his admonitions: Stomp on the Jihadists. Slam the door on the unwanted millions. Kick out the militant Muslim agitators. Keep the jobs in America. Slap a tariff on all the “stuff” once made in America, but was now sent overseas “to money.” Beware the pitfalls of unrestrained Free Trade…and on and on.
The Pundits went into apoplexy. They should have taken a gander at what was happening. Clinton was happy with a few hundred at her well-advertised rallies. Trump effortlessly attracted 15,000 in even small towns. So the Media turned to lying. Nothing new in that. Back in 1800, when John Adams and Tom
Jefferson were vying for the presidency, they both paid rival newspaper editors to lie about each other. Nobody today believes that Adams was ever in the “hip pocket” of British bankers, but a number of today’s trendy “historians” are happy to tell you that Adams said Jefferson had slave mistress. So lies can linger . . . .
When that didn’t work, the Opposition relied on “goon” squads to break up Trump rallies and cause maximum chaos. Meantime, the Media was busy magnifying all Trump’s faults and “inconsistencies” and minimizing his strengths. The public was supposed to deduce from all the commotion that anyone liking Trump had to be a born-again Nazi. And yet . . . yet, for all the shenanigans, more and more became committed to Trumpism.
And, oh, the weeping and wailing of the Pundits as election returns came in—and that was just on TV. To this day, such Pundits cannot BELIEVE their side lost, because they all firmly believed they could determine the outcome of any election they chose to cover.
The weeping and wailing has also been a part of life in various so-called “conservative” News magazines. I can tell you they are changing the names on their mastheads and pretending they knew all along, what they were talking about.
But never mind the educated Professionals in the news, consider the plight of the children. I mean students, attending America’s citadels of higher learning. Right after Nov. 8th, many “students” asked for “down time” to take in the awful prospect of the “wrong” person becoming president. (A new way to avoid pop quizzes? Who knows? A number of the most prestigious institutions “felt their students’ pain” and offered them coloring books and Play-Dough to assuage their sadness.
As a matter of fact, Clyde Wilson (more properly, Dr. Clyde Wilson, Emeritus Distinguished Professor’ of History at the University of South Carolina) is convinced it is not today’s media which is really at fault, it is the troops of American professors who indoctrinate rather than educate. They take malleable young minds already full of well-meaning mush and turn them into doctrinaire Liberals, or as they prefer to be known these days, “Progressives.”
I wish you could read Dr. Wilson’s latest book, Annals of the Stupid Party: Republicans Before Trump. This came off the presses a month before the election, at the height of all the manufactured hysteria. To emphasize the point, his last chapter is entitled “A Few Modest Suggestions for the Trump Administration.” You know, “the first hundred days” or so.
Well, you have to admit, Dr. Wilson is willing to spell out in print what all too many people are afraid to THINK.
