Since Ted Cruz and John Kasich suspended their presidential campaigns, we as a country have been dealing with the collective outrage of the media, political pundits, conservative commentators, social media and politicians caused by Donald Trump becoming the presumptive nominee of the Republication Party. These reactions have clearly shown that there is a profound disconnect between the voters, media and the leadership of both parties.
The separation of the Trump Voter from traditional establishment Republicans who say that they will never support Donald Trump, and either won't vote at all or will support Hillary Clinton, illustrate that the current Republican platform does not reflect the social and economic reality of many working class and middle class Americans.
While many of the Republicans unwilling to support Trump are people of good conscience who genuinely disagree with his platform, values, style, or language (all of which are valid concerns), the disdain shown by many politicians not supporting Trump feels more like a power play and sour grapes. I would primarily attribute this to his not being part of their elite club and his unwillingness to play by Washington rules.
The calls to not support Donald Trump because he fails to show the proper respect for the underlying conservative values ring hollow when the last two Republican candidates for president, John McCain and Mitt Romney, were considered Moderates. In fact, so many voters were unhappy with Romney it's been estimated that as many as four million Republicans stayed home in 2012.
Not to be outdone by the political class, many people in the media are attempting to place blame for Donald Trump getting the GOP Nomination on the news coverage of Trump's campaign and their perceived failure of not showing him in a negative enough light. The problem with this narrative is that it mistakes the role that the media should play in the election process. The media's job is not to tell us who to support, but to give us information so we may make our own informed decisions. You would have to be asleep at the wheel to think it was not clear that many in the media loathe Donald Trump and made no effort to hide their preference for other candidates that they considered to be "serious" politicians. In spite of negative coverage, Donald Trump was able to capture voters' imaginations, and their votes, too.
The celebrity that Donald Trump has built by being in the public eye for decades allowed people to have previously formed their own opinions about who and what he is regardless of any media bias. Donald Trump was able to define his brand in a way that didn't require conservative think-tanks and Super PAC endorsements. He did not steal primary elections or pretend to be anything other than who he is (like him or not), and that did nothing but further the support of voters in overwhelming numbers. He's expanded the "Big Tent" of the Republican Party beyond the traditional Republican demographics. In a place like in my home state of Pennsylvania, there were 60,000 Democrats who switched parties, many just to vote for Donald Trump.
Donald Trump's winning formula was in talking about the true issues affecting working and middle-class America, primarily jobs and the economy. The fact that many people are still losing their jobs due to outsourcing or that the jobs that they have are not enough to provide a decent quality of life for them and their families is an issue that drove many to the polls to pull the lever for Trump. Many people don't think that they can go on another four years without things turning around and would rather take a chance on someone that they believe will make a fundamental change, regardless of his lack of political experience or clear policy details, in order to turn back the tide of financial despair that they are experiencing. As Benjamin Franklin once said, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." It seems Americans all over the country are looking for different results in 2016.
Many people frustrated that voters would support someone like Trump are unwilling to have a real conversation about how we get Americans back to work at decent paying jobs. They shrug their shoulders and say globalization is here to stay. But those are real people's jobs and the people who's factory jobs are being relocated to Mexico, or elsewhere, have a right to be concerned. Those politicians telling downsized workers to go back to school and learn new technology is only proof of how tone-deaf they are towards a large number of voters. It's no wonder the establishment candidates were spurned at every turn.
The America that many of us used to know, where if you were willing to work hard you could build a life for yourself, is no longer true for more and more Americans. Trump talked about winning for people who have been losing for years. Regardless of how many pundits call these people "stupid", the opposite is actually true. This large swath of voters is actually, for a change, voting FOR their own economic interests rather than carrying the water for a party establishment that continually sells them out for special interests. The same can be said for a larger than expected percentage of the Democrats supporting Bernie Sanders, who are tired of liberal elites with hollow promises who eventually bow to the same special interests as the Republicans once they are in office.
Donald Trump has not endeared himself to many people, with his brashness and lack of political correctness. For this I can understand some of the outrage pointed in his direction. He is not the traditional politician. The man is some shade of orange, his hair is an easy target for late-night comedians and the way he speaks about opponents is sometimes shocking. But this Billionaire seems to be able to understand what is driving poor and working class Americans and to articulate their anger and frustration in a way that we may have not seen in decades. They believe he is going to fix things and "Make America Great Again" but what they really hope is that he can awaken a time when a path to opportunity was available for those willing to do the right things. Trump's message resonates while the establishment lectures voters about how they need to adjust to the new economy. That they should feel bad to complain because we owe it to those in the developing world to let them earn $.30 per hour to make our t-shirts. Who doesn't like cheap prices anyway? The reality is that charity begins at home and although Americans are incredibly charitable you can't expect that they would put the needs of other people in front of the needs of their own families. The staggering population relying on food stamps and other social programs is a testament to the work we have to do within our own backyard.
The media pundits who are so outraged at the rise of Trump failed to realize that poverty and the closing of economic opportunities wasn't just happening in urban communities but also in the rural and suburban communities. Many Republican politicians have been pushing the narrative that poor people were only the black and brown among us, who didn't have intact families and were poorly educated, while missing the fact that working class white households are falling behind with stagnant wages, outsourcing and the exorbitant cost of higher education.
Many people want more education but feel precluded from going to college because of the concern of incurring huge amounts of debt without any guarantee that they would have a good paying job at graduation, thus giving them the ability to pay off the debt. Where was the outcry from Republican leadership when their Republican voter base started having shortened life spans because of increasing suicide rates and drug abuse. Some of what we are seeing today in struggling white communities is what has ravaged urban communities since the eighties. Fewer opportunities and hopelessness can and will create a toxic mix within any community it takes hold. You will see increasing crime rates, less stable families and the creation of a permanent underclass.
People are fighting for their lives financially and literally in some circumstances. They don't give a damn about tax cuts for businesses and small government promises when they can barely pay the bills and put food on the table. We talk about saving for a rainy day but for many voters it feels like a hurricane has been brewing for the last thirty-years and they are tired of the party establishment that gives them an umbrella when the water is already above their necks. If you want to blame someone, look to the party elites that look down from their ivory towers and proclaim, "Let them eat cake." The new found self-interest of these voters is what has altered the Republican Party to a populist movement making it unrecognizable from just a few short years ago. The Democratic Party isn't far behind, with a historical female candidate in Hillary Clinton that even her supporters acknowledge will keep the status quo, writing off the same ties to Wall Street and entrenched interests that they use to demonize Republican candidates as an example of her "experience."
Conservative elites have been peddling the image that the downtrodden just needed to take personal responsibility and stop being "takers." Well, the people they have been deriding with divisive language and devastating policies just turned out to be the party voting base. They found a candidate in Donald Trump that pointed out that you were the problem all along, rather than them and their neighbors. Instead of listening to the cries for help with policies that would benefit the little guy, the elites listened to the rich donors.
Here's some advice to the establishment and power-brokers: After turning your back on these voters for years, stop being surprised that they refuse to hear your pleas for rationality to re-think Donald Trump. So, instead of decrying media outlets or uninformed voters, take a look in the mirror. It's the actions of your very own political parties, including the hallowed GOP, that elected Donald Trump to be the presumptive nominee.
The revolution is currently being televised.