You don't want to vote for Donald Trump, and he knows it. And yet you're still thinking: Is this really happening...is this guy going to win?
He might, because he's the Wolf of Wall Street we all hate to love, and he likes it that way. Underneath all the pomp and that sweet, sweet combover, Trump's got the one message we all secretly wish was coming out of every other candidate's mouth:
Trump's self-funding of his campaign makes him uniquely poised amongst his peers to deliver the Bernie-esque, populist message that any voter-funded candidate would make the centerpiece of his/her campaign:
"I'm not dependent on special interests, cronies or lobbyists."
It doesn't matter that Trump is considered by many to be one of those cronies. Nor does it matter that any sentient human would be hard-pressed to imagine a selfless President Trump dutifully serving Lady Liberty. Because the ace up his sleeve is the anti-corruption platform, and that's brilliant.
Fixing corruption polls higher than national defense, healthcare or the environment. More than 90% of Americans on both the political right and left think they're not represented by their elected officials. And they're right. The good folks at Princeton University went ahead and proved it:
"The preferences of the average American have only a miniscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact on public policy," (Gilens & Page).
The American people are so disgusted by the devolution of our government into a pay-to-play circus -- we so desperately want a leader who won't kowtow to the puppet masters -- that we're putting serious electoral stock in a reality TV star. Hey, don't get mad at me for saying it, I'm not the one who called him a half-wit.
Even if Trump could get elected, he wouldn't usher in an era of conflict-of-interest-free governance where ideas matter more than money. Then again, neither would Bernie. Sorry Team America, ain't no President who'll save us from this one, and besides, our nation's founders didn't give them that power. We've got to fix this ourselves, and thankfully, we can. Our founders got that part right.
There are 27,000+ cities and at least 20 states where voters have the power to put new ideas on the ballot and vote them into law directly. We can govern ourselves and take the reigns back from the special interest elites who think they're entitled to make decisions for us.
Here's how it can work -- a plan you can be part of at Represent.Us:
First, conservatives, progressives and everyone in between need to get past the falsified partisan divide. We already agree overwhelmingly that corruption needs to be fixed (90%+ support). Let's get to work.
Second, we need to be brave enough to rally behind a comprehensive new set of rules -- like our founders did before us -- that fix the flaws in the system completely:
- Stop political bribery so politicians can't take exorbitant checks from the interests they regulate.
- End secret money by giving Americans the right to know who is trying to buy political influence the moment it happens
- Give every voter a voice by changing how elections are funded, so politicians answer to their constituents, not special interests
Third, we've got to face the facts and call the buying-and-selling of influence what it really is: Corruption.
It's time for Americans to stop thinking about corruption as a third-world problem and start to realize that the legalized bribery and cronyism that run rampant in American government means dollars and cents coming out of your pocket every day and funneling straight into the silk-lined pockets of the likes of... you guessed it... Donald Trump.
Let's not let another 4 years slip by, hoping the next President will "Make America Great Again." Let's move forward with the knowledge that it's only great because we, the people, make it that way.