As Donald Trump’s dangerous rhetoric continues to escalate to the point where somebody is almost certainly going to end up dead at one of his rallies, the political establishment and the media continue to feed the beast with non-stop coverage of every word Trump says. I can’t believe someone hasn’t just looked into the camera and asked the three questions everyone who isn’t a Trump supporter is too polite to ask a Trump supporter.
Are you seriously this stupid?
Are you seriously this racist?
Really?
It’s so easy for many to dismiss Trump supporters as ignorant redneck racists, but that’s an over-simplified assessment likely to do more harm than good on Election Day. Again, it’s feeding the beast.
How? Go out and find whoever you believe to be the most stupid person you know, tell them they’re stupid, and wait for them to agree with you and apologize for their stupidity. It’s not going to happen, and you probably just strengthened the resolve of the person you called stupid by engaging them in such an asinine exercise.
The political establishment- neither Democrats or Republicans- have a clue how to counter Trump’s theatrics because they either don’t understand or don’t want to admit Donald Trump wouldn’t be an actual contender for the White House if the other politicians had just done their jobs at least sporadically over the past twenty years. Trump has clearly tapped into the anger of the electorate, but not enough people are paying attention to why exactly the electorate is so angry.
Many Democrats will blame the rise of the Tea Party and the money of the Koch Brothers for oversimplifying the complexities of government, dramatically increasing partisanship within government, and using attack ads to scare people (mainly lower income people) to vote against their self-interest. While these elements can’t be ignored, they may have merely greased the skids to hasten the inevitable conclusion that nobody believes government can do anything anymore.
A favorite saying to promote bipartisanship is there is more that unites Democrats and Republicans than divides us. It’s true, but not in the way you want it to be true. The reality is special interests have co-opted our government. The Republicans are often better at wearing their corporate sponsorship as a badge of patriotic honor, but Democrats often have little problem playing the game when it suits their interests.
I served as a state legislator in Pennsylvania for eight years, during which time I was a member of the Democratic Caucus. One more than one occasion, I watched members of our leadership cut deals to give the Republicans the votes they needed to help out special interests and then publicly feign outrage and despair after the fact. It was well-rehearsed political theater played for the benefit of the media, and by extension the public, to perpetuate the status quo in the State Capitol. I watched it with my own eyes, and it made me sick to my stomach.
Protecting the status quo in government often means preventing changes that might hurt the special interests. How else can you explain the inability of the Legislature and Governor to carry out their biggest campaign promises like liquor privatization and pension reform despite holding huge majorities in the State House and Senate, plus a Republican governor?
The Republicans ran the show in Pennsylvania for four years and somehow couldn’t get anything done. So either those issues are impossible to tackle, and people shouldn’t be voting based on them anyhow, or politicians refused to fulfill real campaign promises because some force larger than the voters stepped in and said no. It’s probably a bit of the former, but it’s certainly more of the latter.
Votes on legislation were invariably tied to campaign donations. It wasn’t always obvious, and fancy terms like “stakeholders” and “our friends” helped make it all seem somewhat less grimy, but it was always part of the conversation behind closed doors when it came time to make policy. (As you can imagine, I was a fairly lousy fundraiser as a legislator, which devalued my voice and influence to many inside the State Capitol.)
This lack of faith in government is the political cesspool that allowed a Donald Trump to exist in 2016. People are tired of the same old rhetoric from both Democrats and Republicans because they know nothing is going to change very much regardless of who is running the show. All they know is they keep getting screwed, or at least honestly believe they’re getting screwed. Both parties created this cesspool when they are repeatedly disrespecting the voters by taking them for granted.
So when a rich guy with a bad hairdo figures out how to not only tap into the public anger, but to stoke the flames by taking advantage of an electorate preprogrammed to respond to scare tactics and the belief that they’re working to subsidize a welfare state, it’s not hard to see how he could gain traction.
The political establishment, both Republicans and Democrats, need to realize they are perceived as the root of the problem, which by default precludes them from being part of the solution.
In a best case scenario, Donald Trump’s presidential run will be remembered as a wake-up call to the petty, obstructionist, arrogant elitists who currently hold public office. In a worst case scenario, Donald Trump is the first Visigoth over the hill.
This election, like all elections, is serious business with real consequences for all of us. Choosing the next President is, of course, important, but we need to look down the ballot at our legislators at the federal and state level, all the way down to municipal officials and school board members. Vote in primary elections. Vote in general elections. Listen to candidates speak, or seek them out to ask questions about the issues. Volunteer for a candidate you like and encourage others to do the same. Don’t be swayed by attack ads. Don’t be swayed by every sensationalistic post on Facebook or Twitter. Don’t assume anyone is looking out for your best interests except you. Most importantly, don’t allow yourself to be fooled into voting against your self-interests.
We’re running out of chances to get our house in order, and if we ultimately fail, we have no one to blame but ourselves.
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