WHAT LEADS THE MAN who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 to come out for Donald Trump in 2016? What prompts a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat to re-register himself as a Republican – just so he can vote for “The Donald” in the Florida Primary? Obviously it’s about disappointment. About “change we can believe in” turning into the same old Wall Street shuffle. About “yes we can” somehow acquiring the rider “but not quite yet”. Equally obviously, however, it’s about hope. If the eloquent graduate from Harvard Law School couldn’t, then maybe – just maybe – the ebullient, trash-talking property billionaire can.
Can what, though? That’s what’s got New Zealanders puzzled. Trump offers very little in the way of carefully considered and thoroughly costed policy. Indeed, a rational case for electing Donald Trump president is difficult to make. The man has never held elected office and has no record of public service upon which to build his candidacy. And yet, paradoxically, it is precisely this outsider status that draws so many Americans to him. They are not looking for someone who understands the system. They hate the system. They’re not in the market for a constructive candidate, they want a President who’s ready to go after the system with a wrecking ball!
The Republican and Democratic parties have only themselves to blame for Trump’s extraordinary run of primary victories. For three decades they have either crudely inflamed, or, loftily dismissed, the people they call “Trailer-Trash” and “Rednecks”: the very same people who are now turning out in their tens-of-thousands for the man who openly proclaims that he “loves” the “poorly educated”.
Are you going bald? Does your beer-gut spill over your belt-buckle? Do you work at a dead-end job for the minimum wage? Yeah? Well, guess what? The Donald loves you guys – and he wants your votes. Why? Because your votes, and the votes of those assholes up at the Country Club carry exactly the same weight. That’s right: exactly the same. And you know something else, fellas? There are way more of us than there are of them!
It’s taken these folk a while to work out that all the promises the Republicans made about abortion and gay marriage were only ever intended to keep them away from the Democrats. Not that they needed much persuading – not when the Democrats had already written them off as Bible-bashing misogynists, unreconstructed racists and gay-bashing homophobes. But now they have woken up. Now they know that the politicians in Washington have about as much interest in their welfare as their old employers did when they laid them all off, shut down the factories, and opened up new ones in Mexico or China.
That’s why they have no interest in Senators, or Governors, or any other representatives of the established order. That’s why they’re flocking to the man who’s so rich he doesn’t need to go cap-in-hand to the Koch brothers (like “Little Marco” Rubio). The man who “gets” what’s happened to people like them. The man who knows that the TPP is nothing more than a thieves’ charter, something cooked-up by and for the big corporations. The man who, like them, knows what it means to be ridiculed, excluded and hated – and isn’t afraid to say so out loud. The man who wears the scorn of the Establishment as a badge of honour, and who revels in its all-too-obvious fear.
When asked by journalists (“disgusting people”) what his reaction would be if the Republican Party grandees attempted to deny him the nomination, he didn’t answer them directly. What he would do was not something he was prepared to discuss. What he did tell the news media, however, along with the rest of the political class, was what his followers would do: “There’ll be riots in the streets.”
Moderate America – Hillary Clinton’s America – recoiled in horror. This was without precedent in the nation’s recent history. A presidential candidate had just warned the nation that his followers would not shrink from unleashing civil disorder – if that is what it took to secure their objectives.
Nothing less than the future of the American Republic is now at stake. Its fate in the hands of a social formation filled to the brim with the same reckless disdain for established order that drove the bluff burgesses, sturdy artisans, and unruly apprentice boys of Boston in the 1770s. The revolutionaries who concluded that if the Royal Government in London could offer them nothing more than the constant abrogation of their rights, then they would devise a way of governing themselves.
Two-and-half centuries later, the role of King George is being played by the Federal Government in Washington. Not for nothing did these latter-day rebels style themselves “The Tea Party”. They may not be historians, or political science graduates, but the imagery of the armed citizen stepping forward to confront tyranny is burned ineradicably into their political imaginations. Nor are they strangers to the grim business of securing their nation’s objectives by force. A great many of Trump’s followers are veterans of America’s most recent wars: the men and women who were “rotated” in and out of Afghanistan and Iraq far too many times. Not only are these good ole boys and gals ready to fight for their version of the United States of America – they know how.
Donald Trump, with a political empathy bordering on the fascistic, has made himself the leader of these disregarded Americans. He “gets” them in ways that Hillary Clinton (and even Bernie Sanders) cannot hope to emulate. Like every successful purveyor of nationalistic populism, he first stokes and then validates his followers’ anger. Because they have been cheated by those who claimed to be their friends.
But that’s all over now, because he, the Donald, will never cheat them. He will be their wrecking-ball. And, together, they will “make America great again”.
The Americans seem to have made a habit out of choosing the stupidest idiots they can find to stand for president.
When in 1984 the best they could come up was Ronald Regan and Walter Mondale (are you serious? each was stupider than the other!) you really have to wonder about their sanity.
Donald Trump is just another example of the pathological American need to pick the biggest d…head they can find and make him president.
Hopefully not, but in the it-could-only-happen-in-America department, anything is possible.
Systems failure -economically, financially, environmentally, socially and politically.
Next comes collapse, whoever pretends to be in charge.
A vote for Trump is a protest vote, just like Winnie for Northland was. Trump will be the next president of the United States, like it or not. People don’t vote for who they like the best anymore, they vote for who they dislike the least.
He does seem to have the corporate elite very worried because he is out of their control for now, hence the attacks, and voters are picking up on that.
The USA is a real paradox of country. In so many ways it is more like a whole bunch of little countries with different cultures all joined up. Having a president of the USA is almost like having president of Europe, or Africa.
As for Trump, he puts me in mind of people with issues with control, instead of them adjusting themselves to fit in with the world, they demand everyone else fit in with them. It’s a trait, along with psychopathy that probably actually helps people amass a lot of money as in their universe, they are the centre. You have to have a pretty healthy lack of empathy for the position of others to amass vast amounts of money as well at the expense of others.
There are a lot of bothersome, from a prospective president point of view, things about Trump and for anyone in any doubt, I suggest, if they haven’t already, watch the doco “You’ve Been Trumped”, very revealing to anyone with a modicum of interest in human nature.
Heard on Paul Henry show (just before switching stations as I do each morning) a question “How did Trump like his steak done?” I immediately saw him as a well-done to the point of cremation kind of guy and I was right. I also suspected the guy may have some sort of OCD disorder, so I googled and, bingo, germ phobia. I know these things can be debilitating for many, but once you get to the point where money is no object you can convince yourself that it is not you that has the problem, but the rest of the world.
He is completely disconnected from reality. I know we should not criticize someone for something as minor as how they do their hair, but tbh I think everything about Trump makes up the whole and its fairly obvious the guy has a total phobia about anyone seeing whatever is underneath that lot, it is so heavily lacquered down and why the baseball cap all the time. Then there is the orange body paint!
I also reckon with all his grandstanding, that he is, in fact, a craven coward. The draft dodge all those years ago spoke to that.
I wonder what will happen should the unthinkable happen and what those who thought Trump was their saviour will do if Mexico flips the bird at the USA when they come calling for the cheque for the wall? Will Trump call in Baycorp?
I am trusting the majority of Americans are reasonably sane and reject this jerk outright
Madness has taken hold of many Americans, and it also has fertile ground it could thrive on in New Zealand, I fear.
It seems humans never learn much out of history, maybe single generations do, but the following generations will not know much about past madness and thus be condemned to repeat the same mistakes that were made before.
John Key has shown many of us how easy it is to take advantage of much ignorance and indifference, as he was rewarded by voters with three terms in government.
Disillusionment with Key seems to rather pay off for NZ First, not for Labour and not so much for the Greens.
The more meanness comes from the top, the meaner most seem to get towards each other, hence the many hateful actions that some are capable of. I dread the future, I really dread the future, especially if Trump may indeed become US President.
Trump will be the best thing that could happen to america
no way could he be any worse than the leaders of the last few decades, maybe if he’s elected then citizens in NZ will
care a little more about all our economic, online & Personal data being syphoned & (worse) willfully handed over to the United Slaves
Just as Rome was built on its roads, able to send its armies to far reaches of Europe and conquer new territory and transmit wealth, then Romes roads would eventually collapse under the shear wight of the empire, with each road having its own legion to protect its labourers from the barbarian hordes. The roads crumbled letting the barbarian hordes right into the hart of Rome, then sacked by hordes of barbarians.
History is repeating with U.S elections. Because Americas empire is built on roads of debt spanning the globe, that leads right back to the Federal reserve. Americas armies like Romes is over stretched, now those same roads of debt are letting in the barbarian hordes all the way to Washington DC.
If it’s not trump this time. We are likely to see wave after wave of presidential candidates looking to tear everything down.
Great post Chris – I think you hit the nail on the head.
One small area where I disagree – I wouldn’t call Hillary Clinton “moderate”. She just represents the status quo with all its special favours and dirty deals done on the golf course. All masked by vomit inducing political correctness.
She’s also a furious warmonger, and one who thinks that the best way to counter the perception that she’s ‘weak’ is to act belligerently. She is not the match for the wits of Vladimir Putin, but she thinks she is – which makes her dangerous, very dangerous indeed. Her management of Libya generally, and Benghazi specifically shows that she doesn’t have the temperament for the management of a modern military campaign, fails the tests of crisis leadership, and totally spurns (indeed, deeply resents) any sense of accountability when failure occurs in her decision making processes.
Incidents like the Yugoslav-airport-snipers-that-weren’t-non-incident also show her to be a compulsive liar with Walter Mitty syndrome. I see no reason to hold back on Hilary – she’s an oligarch and a power fiend.
A lot of articles by who knows who on the internet state that Donald Trump is a Mason a
Bilderberger a Illuminati, etc, etc, and a plant by New World Order.
How are we to know if he is the real deal ,i hope if elected he will be the saviour he claims to be,otherwise America is stuffed .and where America goes Key follows.
Cruz is like a sleazy used car salesman,(with appologies to decent used car salesman)and apparently takes payment from Monsanto.
I have been a delegate in NZ elections.
All delegates interview each candidate ,appear at a meeting with all assembled to choose the final candidate.
We all voted a number of times to choose or eliminate candidates,one by one candidates fell off the list till one person was chosen, BUT not once was the voting numbers announced, only the people behind the scenes knew,we had to take their word for it.
There was much scepticism about outcome.so easy to rig a vote that people no longer trust government or minions.
In America they say the choice is made before elections start, the voting is only to make the voters feel they have a say. So maybe people vote for Trump because he
“Tells it like it is “in other words tells people what they want to know.
Trump dosnt need Koch brothers and Monsanto and all the other bribers money. he has plenty of his own to use in the same way if he chooses, same outcome.
It would be good if someone could really check into backgrounds and secret society membership of candidates,but then would we believe them either?
My hope is that Trump gets in and makes America great again,
but im not holding my breathe.He could make it a whole lot worse as Obama apparently has.
As to Hillary Clinton, seems like shes the bribers pick ! Its like buying a lottery ticket and hoping for the best,only the winners are happy ,the rest lose out .
I’ve not been able to turn up anything solid on the Don re. Free Masonic, Bilderberg, or even Bohemian Club membership so far, but he’s been moving in circles soaked enough with it to know who they are.
The question which interests me for now is around his mob connections; has he taken out some Italian-style insurance? Has he gained access to their no doubt massive dirt files on American politicians? And if any of the above, does he intend to use it to hold them to account, or just to hold them in his debt the way the Free Masonic/Bohemian Club types usually do? Espionage and dirty politics 101 of course; compromise people and hold that over them, and they’ll look the other way no matter what you do. That’s how we ended learning about David Cameron’s piggy antics, and how we ended up learning about the respectable alter ego of ol’ Carlos Danger.
http://journal-neo.org/2016/03/20/a-mafia-don-with-a-pompadour/
” Yes, He Can: Why so many Americans are voting for Donald Trump? ”
Without wanting to be rude; who gives a fuck?
I say, lets purge NZ/Aotearoa of their Banks and debt pimps with a hearty raised middle finger.
I personally don’t give one fuck, and at my age fucks are becoming increasingly rare, for what Trump voters do. Their only usefulness, however, is evident in signalling to the rest of us that we should go in high alert for an epidemic of full on small-diddle gun mania and egotistical narcissism on an unprecedented scale.
One thing’s for sure. It’ll be a laugh until the bombs start falling.
Last weekend I discovered there is a huge new genre in American country music which could loosely be described as white trash or redneck country. To some degree it is like a white lower class version of rap culture. Videos tend to feature pole dancing women, drinking beer, huge vehicles, shooting, sliding on plastic sheets hosed with water etc. Musical influences range from banjos to rap. A lot of it is very danceable.
Try the Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band, fits the description. I’ve been into country cross over for years now, Howie Gelb, Lucinda Williams…..the lyrics of country music are the next best thing for understanding middle American life since reading Hunter S Thompson. They are all completely fruit loop but obsessively fascinating.
I do not know if Fox and Friends falls under this categorie, but the All American Summer Concerts Series, to me is a lot off whitewash to keep people dumb on matters that are important. In other words; Stupid, as that is what I see is going on overthere.
Al Amercan SummerConcerts series come to my mind.
John Key this morning picked the new Governer General ,how can we
trust that his pick is not coming because Matapare is now ready to spill the beans,Mataparai has been virtually hidden for quite a while,maybe illness, maybe a threat to this government.
She maybe a nice genuine type but with Keys record he picks people who will do his bidding, granted the Queen picks the person but on Keys recommendation. The lady could take over today ,Matapere’s term ends in August,if he is too sick to complete his term condolences to his family, the job hasnt done him any good healthwise.
This is how the world is operating to make the rich richer and the rest of us poorer.
Oil cartels , who carved up the profits from their crooked deals ,mostly Arab oligarches.
American interests including George Bush and Cheney,profited hugely .
Wake up New Zealand give indepth account of petrol companies huge profits through illegal activity.The article shows how money has been syphoned off to feed these rapacious businesses.
Hillary Clinton is backed by George Sorus a Rothchild plant ,so we now know who Hillary Clinton is ruled by.
Rothchilds and Rockafella empires are under threat.
Saudis are propping up American petrodollars. Seems the world is owned by Arabs who were funded in the past by British interests.
An article about Nicky Hagar is also included.
A great deal of the world info comes in Wake Up New Zealand.
There is a Predicition Market, very similar to iPredict before they shut it down, where you follow the US election. If the success of iPredict in correctly predicting the NZ election are anything to go by two cycles in a row, this is the “poll” to keep an eye on. Also some of the comments are hilarious. https://www.predictit.org/Browse/MostPredicted
If, as Elle thinks, Trump becomes president and turns out to be part of the establishment rather than its opponent, there will be hell to pay. Extreme civil unrest, at the very least. I think that Trump supporters differ from Sanders’ supporters in that they are not geared to alienation. Where Bernie supporters largely want to make the world a better, fairer place (and I would be one of them if I lived in the US), Trump’s lot are geared to being salt-of-the-earth guys on the establishment’s terms. They have played by the traditional establishment rules – learned trades, fought for their country, started small businesses, etc, but the establishment has alienated them by making a mockery of them and their efforts. I would not want to be in the US if Trump won the presidency and turned out to be just another establishment shill, and he has not been involved in politics long enough to have a record that would rule that possibility out.
Maybe a more thoughtful person will comment on what makes a woman vote for Mr Trump, or any of the other candidates.
But of course you are not sexist or a supporter of male privilege are you.
I have to admit I just can’t read this, I scanned and didn’t see any reference to women, did I miss something.
Getting rid of male privilege language is just so easy it’s amazing to me that in 2016 there are people who don’t, and won’t, get it.
Easy for left wing know it alls to criticise other people, much easier than looking into your own flaws.
Where is the outcry all the ‘Women’s Studies’ grads??
You’re over-thinking this; Trump is just a bogeyman, set up by Bill and Hillary Clinton to frighten the Democratic party into holding their noses and rallying around her in panic.
Trump is a longtime Clinton friend and supporter, who has donated to her campaign, and plays golf with Bill. He’s playing a role, as a Reality TV star. There is no plan for him to win. Don’t allow yourself to get misdirected.
Hillary Clinton personifies the “banality of evil” that is required in a Corporate Proxy President, to keep the American War Machine rolling. That’s her function. Trump is helping her, not hurting her.
Bernie Sanders is the only credible threat to this bit of theatre. Watch Bernie Sanders.
Why torture yourself, Sofya? By all means, watch Bernie Sanders. But if you imagine there is the slightest chance he will win the nomination you are clearly watching down the wrong end of the telescope.
Sanders preaches a European-style Social Democracy which could not be instituted until the whole of the US financial system is radically reformed – not going to happen within his lifetime, even if it happens within yours. He also rides on an angry diet of pretty empty rhetoric against Wall Street.
Wall Street is the centre of American investment. In case you hadn’t noticed, Americans do a heap of investing. That is where the Too Big To Fail thing came from, not out of fear of the stockbrokers, but out of fear for the exposure of maybe 80% of Americans to a real Wall Street collapse.
If giving the bums rush to hedge fund managers and investment mandarins were easy and without negative consequence, it would already have happened. But we live in a connected world of shade, light and unforseeable outcomes. For the outside we can call for revolution, but Stalin, the Great Depression and Madame Guillotine are always waiting just off-stage.
So now watch Bernie Sanders on any other subject than this single issue and try to be equally enthusiastic on his position on that. Just more of the same as pretty much anyone else on the Democratic side?
Exactly.
Nick; you make a good case for Hillary’s “steady as she goes” campaign; that Wall Street is such a delicate balance of graft and D-rated derivatives, of overlapping secret obligations and Deep State self-interest that only by lashing the wheel to centre rudder and staying the course can we avoid disaster.
This is the very argument the Politburo would have made just prior to the collapse – that “glasnost” was too dangerous. Indeed, as you are, they were right, from their perspective. But it was morally unconscionable to allow the Soviet system to continue as it was. And this is where you are similarly wrong in the present case.
It is morally unconscionable to allow the current system to continue for fear of fixing it. This is a system which is incapable of the simplest things attendant on good governance; like not poisoning children with lead-laced water, or bringing those who do to justice. Like not condemning millions to years of incarceration for petty offenses to prop up a capitalist private prison system. Like not allowing the nation’s schools and bridges to deteriorate to an unuseable state. Like not waging war and mass surveillance on the bulk of the rest of civilisation – little things like that.
This system, which you defend, must and will fall under the dead wait of its own corruption and venality. To defend it, under the pretense of fearing what might come of fixing it is a very odd and strangely privileged position to take. I hope you reconsider.
Hi Sofya
I’m not arguing for anything, Hillary, Bernie or even “the Donald” in my entry. Just making some observations. (Ditto on my post further down, which links the US experience to our own in other ways than simply “bring on the revolution”).
I personally do actually like Bernie, I don’t think he would make the worst President by any means and I might well have voted for him if I had the chance. I’m just not wasting my time courting disappointment when he inevitably doesn’t get nominated and observing that even if he did, he would hardly be expected to do better than Obama in promoting a more socially conscious America.
On the other hand he has had a useful function of reminding Hillary of her more radical early career. And that’s no bad thing.
But to ascribe all good things to his ascension to power is as unrealistic as it is just plain silly.
An interesting mix of irony and revolutionary zeal. This kind of sarcastic contribution does not lend itself to content analysis, whether from a feminist, a political science or any other considered direction.I don’t doubt there is much truth in what you say, but the key element is in the ascribing to Donald Trump everything on their iconoclastic wish list.
Even when his speeches pronounce the exact opposite, you will still find plenty of true believers asserting that he will do the right thing. The “a plague on both your houses” thing is plenty powerful until confronted with the reality of the consequences of an over-abundance of blind enthusiasm.
But the American experience is a salutary reminder of two things.
First, there is amazing power in a self-confident politician who never apologizes, never explains and never recants.We in New Zealand should already know that from experience both recent and fairly historical, but some of our political leaders have apparently yet to learn the lesson. In the meanwhile, there are whole classes of angry Kiwis out there dying for the arrival of such a one. And rank upon rank who would join the parade down Main Street at the end of the campaign.
Second, if you are dreaming of such a leader: be careful what you wish for.
Sanders and Trump represent a populist response to the Globalist plundering and slaughtering business. Unlike war mongering H.R. Clinton, Trump has declared himself ‘neutral’ on the Israel/Palestine pit of genocidal carnage.
He reminds me of Henry VIII. Scary perhaps, especially to females in his clutches but he rid himself of the Papist vampire squid. Britain became ‘great’ with all the positives and negatives that come with greatness.
After a while, a bunch of economic migrants, boat people and refos from the industrial revolution ended up on some other islands at the arse end of the earth which they proceeded to pollute and wreck in record time. Good old Henry.
Spengler wrote about the cloister and the castle. Those in the cloister comment and observe and those in the castle act, in the manner of tigers, mad bulls, charging swine, hyenas, wolves, mad dogs or rabbits. The bulk of the population gets dragged along. Unusual, serious dissenters get put down one way or another.
Sometimes someone in the castle does something which sets of a long term major change despite themselves.
The cloister is then hugely occupied for centuries.
The reality of life is finally, that there are ‘wars and rumours of wars.’
Spengler said that democracy occured at the decline of a civilisation and could never be anything else but the political tool of money. Democracy is followed by military dictatorship.
Is there something homo sapiens has missed or forgotton about?
On AIPAC today Trump is all for Israel the great friend of America,of course the audience was mainly jewish,Trump got a standing ovation.Palestine were the baddies Israel the goodies.No mention of israel taking Palestinian land and building houses on the land then putting up a wall along side Palestinian houses.
Israel is Americas buffer against the middle east,and Israel has heaps of money in America.
Polititions say to different audiences what that audience wants to hear.
Cruz speech parroted Trump almost as though from the same script writer ,or they both got a page from Israel written history.
Both candidates got a big reception ,but Trumps was the biggest .
Missed Hillary Clintons speech ,shame about that (not).
Someone has been teaching Trump how to be presidential,if he lost his pouty mouth and nose in the air “im right “stance he might make it.
Trump is not neutral on Palestine and Israel today,that was last week.
Ken O’ Keefe sums up Trump perfectly and of course who is really running the show.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2F81mSab0k
Even if Don loses he will have scared the proverbial from the establishment, and he will have laid bare the vacuity of both Republicans and Democrats.
Trump and Sanders are the political inheritors of Occupy, a movement that had no political focus or form other than identification of the “One Percent” and their misdeeds. Both have tapped the rich vein of discontent with a status quo that ignores the aspirations of both salaried middle class liberals and redundant rust belt industrial workers.
Can Trump win? Imagine you are a liberal salaried type struggling to retain your employment status and your mortgage. You vote Democrat, always have BUT there’s Hillary hogtied to the banksters and corporates, the people who directly threaten your life goals. Voting for her just to keep out Trump, does that make sense to you? Most likely you might stay away from voting, helping Trumps cause OR you will say to hell with Clinton, the One Percent, vote for Trump to give them the blood nose they deserve.
I feel sorry for US citizens. The bulk are treated like pawns in a game for big US corporations to use and abuse to make vast profits for their filthy rich owners. The same people of course who dream up rubbish like the TPP, that their little protege boy Key tries to sell to us morons.
They have had their jobs taken away and sent off to the nearest 3rd world destination to ensure those profits get even larger. And with the US there never seems to be an end to 3rd world countries that can provide a workers hell for their rich masters.
They, and its usually the not so well off, are sent off to stop and start wars few understand but make vast fortunes for those same few. There are few happy endings should they be hurt whilst serving their nation, they have Uncle Sams cut price butcher shops to look forward to. Which of course flows into the US’s appalling health “care” where tens of millions cannot afford to even look at a hospital.
And sadly this so called great democracy, a two party fiasco, is owned by the same big corporations who have patiently chipped away at everything good in the US creating a Washington to suit them, paying off congress and the senate alike.
Your average US citizen deserves far far better than the fraud and despair their political system has delivered in the last 40 years.
Moderate America – Hillary Clinton’s America?!!! I agree with Marc Faber who says its all relative: Donald Trump would destroy the Amercian econony byt Killary Clinton would destroy the world
Id swap Trump for paula bennit anyday. key is just a national disgrace and a traitor.
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