The Trump Phenomenon
What a controversial character! He’s a racist! He’s a fascist! He’s a Nazi!
He’s a buffoon! He’s a
clown! He’s a game show host! He’s xenophobic! He’s Islamophobic! He’s a demagogue! He’s vulgar! He’s an iconoclast! And on and on and on. One thing cannot be denied. He is a phenomenon. His alarming and disturbing rhetoric has
fired up the country, pro and con. He is
media-savvy and a media star in his own right, and knows how to use the media
to optimum advantage.
He is reminiscent of Teddy Roosevelt over 100 years ago, not
only because he is another rich New Yorker, but also because he is so damned
e-bully-iant. Like Roosevelt, Trump’s
bluster masks a more cerebral and pragmatic mien. His scholastic and business background and
accomplishments support this contention.
He most likely is going to win the Republican nomination,
and then he most likely is going to win the presidency. Whereas he was once thought to be a passing
fancy, he has become the dominant force in American politics. From his past, and as he has repeated many
times, he doesn’t undertake anything he cannot win or prevail at. Being a successful businessman, he is using
good business sense, pretty much funding his own campaign by loaning
his campaign funds from his personal wealth, with a potential payout later.
His appeal was once thought to be from the uneducated and
disenfranchised. Not true. He has appealed across the board to people
who are fed up with the Washington establishment, Democrat and Republican. He has attracted large numbers of both intellectuals
and blue collar workers, whites, blacks, and Latinos; and particularly he seems
to have attracted much of that middle 30% swing vote that has become so
important in recent presidential elections.
He has hit a mother lode of anti-establishment feeling – people from all
backgrounds that are fed up and angry at what has happened to this country at
the hands of the political establishment of both parties. That there is more interest in the Trump
salted republican primaries in 2016 than in past primaries is supported by this
recent
Pew poll.
I’ve pulled together various commentary and references
around the Trump phenomenon and list them below for further reference and study. These are both pro and con Trump, and several
give a British perspective on the issue.
Ray Gruszecki
March 11, 2016
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