I keep thinking that people, fellow Republicans, Democrats, Independents and the general populace - ought to quit signing Donald Trump off as a fluke in the upcoming presidential election. Like it or not, he is a real contender and he will continue to be.
The tell-tale signs are there. Things that would normally set huge swaths of people off are not impacting them at all like we would have expected, and even when there's been a groundswell of protest about something he has said, Trump seems to win the critics over. When he denigrated the heroism of Sen. John McCain, there was some outcry, but not nearly what one would have thought it to be. McCain is a beloved American hero to most. Yet, when Trump said McCain was not a war hero it wasn't nearly enough to bump him off his narcissistic throne.
When he said that Mexican immigrants in this country were bringing drugs and crime, and that they were rapists there again was a little rumbling but not enough to stop him. He ended up saying that "Mexicans love" him.
His disparaging remarks about Megyn Kelly, intimating that her asking him questions he deemed unfair was because she was on her period, he again fielded the criticism and suggested that she should apologize to him. I wondered where all the women were? And finally, when he said that he does not ask God for forgiveness, the evangelicals, normally a rousing and vocal caucus, were silent.
Trump is on a roll, and Americans are rolling with him. His self-serving statements, his narcissism, his arrogance, his insults of other people ...are nothing to this American populace who, it seems, is tired of "business as usual." Trump states that he can and will get things done, including building a wall between the United States and Mexico and making them pay for it, and sending children born in the United States of illegal immigrant parents back to their country. He wants to change the United States Constitution in order to get done what he wants to get done...and the people are behind him.
Trump is not trying to be pretty or politically correct. He is saying out loud what people have been saying in their living rooms for years, probably more so the last 7 years as they have decried and bemoaned the presidency of Barack Obama. What Americans have said since the day Obama took office was that they want "their country back." That's code for wanting America to remain as many think God ordained it to be: a white man's country." Trump promises to get the deals that will make America just that, which is the definition for it being "great again." He seems to care not a whit for the need for diplomacy and the need to show respect for and to other nations. He says, simply, "I know how to get things done." That's what his followers want.
He hasn't said one thing about the major social upheaval in this nation, the Black Lives Matter movement, except to say that if a member of that coalition interrupted one of his rallies ...well, he'd make sure they didn't interrupt.
There is a cultural and class divide, in addition to the racial divide in this country that has been a sore spot for many for a long time. That divide is between the elite and the not-so-elite. There has been and is resentment that too many of our lawmakers and jurists have gone to Ivy League schools, and a resultant sentiment that they think they are better than everyone else. Americans hate that. Trump seems to speak to and for them. He is, in effect, giving voice to the voiceless.
When I spoke recently at an event in West Virginia, the host of the event warned me of the defensiveness that many in West Virginia have along just those lines. "They are really wary of people coming in, acting like they know more than they (West Virginians) do," she said nervously. "I just want you to be aware of that."
It seems that Trump, the guy who knows how to get a deal done, is aware of that, too. He is a smart, smart man. His confidence and his wealth just make him all the more palatable and appealing to a group, a large group, of people who have felt ignored and put upon. The pundits keep saying he cannot win the White House. I am not so sure.
I do wonder how he would govern this nation, taking back jobs that have been outsourced to foreign countries, bombing the oil fields in the Middle East and "taking" their oil. I have wondered if he has given thought to the fact that America does have a Congress and a system of checks and balances that were put in place to prevent totalitarianism here. America does not want a dictator.
Or does it?
Right now it seems like the masses are not thinking that far ahead...and those who call the shots probably need to be a little more vigilant and strategic. Mr. Trump is in the race to stay, and whatever happens in the 2016 presidential election, he has already caused a tidal wave in American political life as we have always known it.