I wish he was a better con man, you know? What bugs me about Americans vs. the election is not the fact they're being taken in; it's that they're being taken in by a guy who has put out no real effort to be good at what he does: lying. His lies are specious on their face. His examples are constantly exaggerated. He drops lines like the worst, most superficial stereotype of a used car salesmen you've ever heard.
And yet people are buying it. Or perhaps maybe they're not buying "it" so much as just voting their anger and giving it to the candidate who most resemebles their unfocused, conspiracy theory-laden beliefs.
I just expected a little more out of Americans. Not that they'd be impervious to demagoguery, no nation is. Not that they'd "do the right thing" and not elect him based on the catastrophic stances he's taken on, well, mostly everything. No, I just expected American conservatives not to settle for literally the meanest bargain bin reality TV star they could get. Because you know what this means? If Trump can get elected, then pretty much anyone with money can. Bieber can get elected president as long as he can drum up enough popular support. Kanye can. Kardasshian can. Anyone can, as long as you can capture the popular imagination and have enough money to start with.
It'd be beautiful if it weren't in fact cheap and tawdry. I've always wanted an America where a commoner can actually get elected president just based on their beliefs and, in turn, popular support. But Trump isn't a commoner. He's just the next rich white guy ready to take a crack at exerting personal control over US politics and policy. And he's just simply fucking terrible at pitching to people. I don't know what sort of person listens to a Trump pitch and goes "You know what, this guy has it on the money. He's clued in." Maybe, MAYBE 1980s Donald Trump would meet my own personal expectation of the bare minimum skill a conservative Republican candidate would have to demonstrate to get elected. 2016 Donald Trump sounds like a sweaty drunk shouting into a mic and what he shouts about is just as solid.
Put another way. If Trump was actually Bill from Kansas with a retirement account and $60,000 in life savings, he'd have likely never even made the nomination. But because Americans are such well-trained consumers, the fact Trump is a name they've been seeing for years actually carries some capital with them. Never mind what that name was built on, or how it was built and managed. Poopooing Trump as much as I do, I still have to admit he has real insight on one fact: it's all about the brand. He's been cultivating that for decades and now it has the real chance to pay dividends. Granted, it probably wouldn't work as well if outrage, suspicion and frustration with "government" wasn't the order of the day. But in that, his timing for a move like this may prove to be pretty much flawless.
Author
Topic: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: T+0 (Read 1423439 times)