10:08:03 am on
Tuesday 19 Mar 2024

The Mirror Candidate
AJ Robinson

Media and political pundits are turning themselves inside out as they try to understand why Donald Trump is the GOP’s current frontrunner in their presidential primary. I wondered myself, for a time. Then it came to me.

The Don is the Fox “News” candidate. For many years, I speculated on the popularity of that channel and I figured that one out too. On Fox, they cater to a very special demographic: angry white folk who are sure that everyone else is against them, are the cause of all their ills and are stealing the country from them. He or she that wins the network wins these people over by a very simple technique.

It completely and totally panders to them!

Fox tell their viewers exactly what they want to hear. That’s why they do endless reports on the “evils” of Obama, the Clintons, the Democrats, liberals and all minorities. They did reports on the “Death Panels” that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was supposed to impose, the massive tax hikes and deficits Obama was causing, the skyrocketing unemployment, the Climate Change “hoax” and the endless “scandals” plaguing the administration. It didn’t matter that all of the endless reports were false, completely. For Fox, it’s not about truth or facts; all they care about is one thing: ratings.


Enter The Donald.

He is doing exactly the same thing that Fox does. He’s pandering to the lowest of the low. That’s why he attacks Mexicans as being killers, rapists and drug mules and then extends that to just about all immigrants.

Highly skilled immigrants are evil, too, don’t you know? Of course, it was the large corporations, run by people exactly like him, which lobbied the government to allow such people to come into the country to work for them. Immigrants work cheap. Thus, those companies can boost their profits, while cutting back on the hiring of regular Americans. Gee, so doesn’t that mean we should get angry at corporate America?

The Donald says that stopping illegal immigrants is easy as one-two-three: build a wall and get Mexico to pay for it. No details on how he’s going to do that, but he will (Recently, Trump hinted, ever so slightly, at tariffs on imports from Mexico.) Trump will deport all the illegals in the country, no word on how he’ll pay for it or how long the process will take.


He can’t be troubled with such things.

He’ll just do it. Then there are the so-called “Anchor Babies” that are a result of the Fourteenth Amendment. Ah, that’s the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the supreme law of the land. Once again, The Donald has the answer: we’ll change that.

 

Anyone care to think what’s involved in changing birth right citizenship. “Class, if you’ll open your high school civics book to the chapter on amending the Constitution, you’ll see that it is not an easy or even quick process.” There’s a reason for that. We’re talking about changing the very foundation, the bedrock, upon which our nation rests!

Changing birth right citizenship isn’t something you do on a whim.

There’s no trifling with The Donald over mere details or with his supporters. No, these people convinced he speaks for them for one simple reason: he’s a mirror to their emotions. He tells them exactly what they want to hear.

Women liberals, the government, immigrants and minorities abuse Trump and his supporters; everyone that isn’t one of them is almost an enemy. It doesn’t matter that Trump is rich, born rich, has never had a hard day in his life or dealt with anything like what they deal with daily. It doesn’t matter that he’s not a “born again” Christian or he’s supported both sides of the political fence for years.


Doesn’t that make him the ultimate Washington insider?

Doesn’t that make him the ultimate Washington insider? He’s exactly the same person he claims to be fighting against. It doesn’t matter that he’s not only made a fortune rigging the game in his favour, but that he’s also gotten the government to bail him out, via the bankruptcy laws, time and time again. No, what matters is that he says exactly what they’re thinking.

 

Does The Donald have a chance of being their candidate? Oh yeah, the current GOP is completely under the thumb of the Tea Baggers and they could easily push him through.

Could The Donald be president? No, not a chance, I think. Given the massive number of people he ticks off, I don’t see him able to win any elected office and that’s even in the reddest of the red states. However, I do hope he runs, either as the GOP candidate or an independent, not only will the election be hilarious, but also the Dem candidate, whoever it is will win by a landslide.

Now, folks, here’s the important thing: get out and vote for the Senate and House, as well. We’ve had six years of a Dem president unable to do squat because Congress is frozen. Oust the Tea Baggers. We don’t want another four of years of gridlock.

Combining the gimlet-eye of Philip Roth with the precisive mind of Lionel Trilling, AJ Robinson writes about what goes bump in the mind, of 21st century adults. Raised in Boston, with summers on Martha's Vineyard, AJ now lives in Florida. Working, again, as an engineeer, after years out of the field due to 2009 recession and slow recovery, Robinson finds time to write. His liberal, note the small "l," sensibilities often lead to bouts of righteous indignation, well focused and true. His teen vampire adventure novel, "Vampire Vendetta," will publish in 2020. Robinson continues to write books, screenplays and teleplays and keeps hoping for that big break.

More by AJ Robinson:
Tell a Friend

Click above to tell a friend about this article.