Misunderstanding Trump.
Sanders. Bernie asserts that Trump’s popularity is due
to the legitimate “economic anxiety” of his supporters. Trump exploits this
anxiety by scapegoating “Mexicans and Muslims” and thus he diverts attention
away from the fatcat predatory capitalists really causing all the problems.
Bernie will free these supporters from Trump’s trickery by bringing them into a
grand, aracial, far-left coalition.
Well,
Bernie my Levantine friend, Democrats have tried to “appeal to economic
interests” and “free middle class White Americans from GOP trickery” for
decades, and yet the Democratic Party continues to lose White support. Levels
of support of working class and middle class White American men for Democrats
is laughably low. What makes you think you can do better?
More
to the point: if the real issue is economics and exploitation of the working
class by the wealthy, then why aren’t these folks supporting Bernie rather than
Donald? Well, Sanders may answer that
most of these folks are Republicans and so he needs to reach out to them and
convince them. But that would reveal where Bernie’s whole diagnosis is
wrong. If most of Trump’s supporters are
Republican voters, and I think we can all agree that this is the case, then these
are people who voted (those that did bother to vote) for Romney in 2012 – Mitt
Romney, the very archetype of a fatcat predatory capitalist; Romney, whose
views on economics are worse than that of Trump for the working class.
Now, why
is that? After Bush butchered the US
economy, why did these working class folk vote for McCain in 2008 and then for
Mr. Bain Capital Outsourcing Mitt Romney in 2012? The answer is that race and culture trump (no
pun intended) economics. The answer is that the Democrats long ago abandoned
middle class and working class White Americans, Democrats made failed and feeble
attempts to win back those people through the sort of wrong-headed arguments
Sanders is now making, and the Democrat Establishment as exemplified by Clinton
has essentially completely given up on these people. The GOP abandoned working class Whites as well, but, bereft of any choice, those Whites either
voted for Republicans who very actively “dog
whistled” on social issues, or they stayed home on election day (Romney could
have won with more support from that direction).
The
real anxiety being exploited by Trump is that of race and culture: his
supporters are justifiably anxious over losing their country. Economics are
part of that, sure, but only a part. Trump is the ONLY candidate who addresses
this anxiety. It is for that reason he wins the support of the Republican
voters and he also wins the support of working class Whites who despise the
Democrats (because the Democrats despise them), but who couldn’t bring themselves
to vote for Mitt "strap your dog to the roof of your car” Romney.
A pro-minority,
pro-immigrant, far-left Jewish socialist is not going to be able to compete
with Trump for these people.
That
said, I would advise Trump to move to the left economically if he finds himself
in the general election – that will solidify his working class support,
immunize himself from economic arguments which while secondary to race/culture
still have some power, and allow him to poach some Democrat voters.
Clinton. Carpet-munching corrupt reptile Hillary
Clinton, whose political career is predicated upon being “married” to Bill
Clinton, asserts that Trump is “the best recruiter for ISIS.” Whether or not that is true is
irrelevant. ISIS has no ICBMs or other
strategic weapons that would allow them to target America from overseas. They
are a threat to America solely because they have supporters living in the USA,
willing to engage in terrorism (as we have recently seen). Trump is the only candidate who addresses
that fact. The response of all the other
candidates, all the System candidates, to “bomb ISIS,” will do nothing but
inflame their supporters already here (opinion polls show a significant fraction
of Muslims living in America support radical Islam), and all the supporters yet
to arrive as “refugees” and “immigrants.”
In the old days, foreign wars were justified to the American people as
“we have to fight them there so we don’t have to fight them here,” but now it is
“we have to fight them there because they are already here” and the actual
reality is “the more we fight them there the more we will have to fight them
here.” After 9/11 the USA went to war in
the Middle East, radicalizing a new generation of Muslims, because (1) that is
what Israel wanted, and (relevant here) (2) we “couldn’t” do the sane thing and
stop Muslim immigration (it actually increased!), so the rubes had to be
satisfied by waging war against “the ragheads” overseas. Diversity trumps (heh) all, then as now.
The
problem is that the System’s fundamental basis, its very foundation, is
hostility to White interests. System politicians like Sanders and Clinton (and
almost all Republicans as well – do not forget) are inherently unable to accept
or even comprehend much less actualize any appeal to White interests – for that
would undermine and repudiate the very System of which they are a part. So they
talk about “economics” or “ISIS” and continue to lose working class and middle class
White Americans.