But, the more I see and hear Mister Trump, something I have hitherto studiously avoided, since, oh, the 'eighties or so, the more I'm convinced that Trump is not just appealing to your crazy older relatives & in-laws, who marinate their brains in a steady intake of Fox News, Drudge, and AM talk-radio...Rather, he is them. He is that crazy uncle who will start ranting on at the dinnertable about Saul Alinsky & Rules for Radicals, and then get angry and frustrated that everyone else is 'pretending' not to have a clue what the fuck he's talking about.
The difference is that your crazy uncle will likely end up in a mental institution, homeless, shooting up a movie-theatre, or, more likely, dead of an aneurysm, after angrily shouting at the 'Muslim interloper' on the teevee-set one time too many. He doesn't have the self-confidence, the hubris, or, more importantly, the money and contacts to run for president. Trump does.
Think about it. An eccentric nearly seventy-year-old white man, who, never mind the right-wing media-bubble, factor as that is, has spent his whole life in a bubble of his own making, hobnobbing with only the richest*, the most famous, coming otherwise into contact only with the most expertly craven bootlickers and yes-men. A man who stamps his name in massive capital letters on every property he touches, who refers to himself in the third person, who exaggerates his own wealth and accomplishments. And who stokes publicly for years a fantasy about his running for president. Only to end up here at the tail-end of 'the worst presidency ever', with apparently apocalyptic consequences if good decent-minded white folk can't take back the White House from the perverts and communists who have infiltrated it...to, er, make America great again, as it were.
If you were naïve enough to believe the ridiculous hyperbolic crap that come out of the likes of Fox News, if you heard the Republican base crying out for a messiah, and if you were Donald Trump, why wouldn't you run for president ? He can afford it. His ego is seemingly untouchable, and allows him to easily spin any loss as a victory, even to himself. And if there were ever a time in a man's life, assuming Trump considers himself mortal, for a true legacy-moment, going on threescore years and ten is about it. The man has nothing to lose.
Nothing. Trump goes bankrupt, he wins. Trump helps elect Hillary Clinton, he wins. Trump destroys the GOP for generations, he wins. Trump brings on the coming of the Antichrist, he wins. Trump invites an alien invasion of Earth, he wins. Trump always wins...even when he loses.
And the man would seem to be as utterly deluded as the right-wing Tea Partiers whose votes he would court. Outside of the conspiracy-theories, it's the only thing that makes sense. He just is that crazy. Which, if he takes this all the way, could just be America's salvation.
For a reminder of Trump's background, pre-Apprentice, do yourself a favour and go watch Trump: What's the Deal?** (Don't be put off by the cheesy music by Queen in the opening credits.). It's a pretty good window into the origins of and the person that is one Donald J Trump.
* In case you were wondering whether there were consequences to living in such a bubble generally: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/07/28/rich-people-surrounded-by-other-rich-people-think-america-is-richer-than-it-really-is/
** Also on YT, here.
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