Posted on 07/26/2015 4:57:56 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
It isn't hard to figure out what's driving the so-called Donald Trump phenomenon that just prompted one-quarter of America's likely Republican voters to say in a poll he's the one they want to be our commander-in-chief.
What's harder to figure out is why the Trump phenomenon blindsided the Republican Party's presidential pack, the working press and the parasitic punditocracy. And why we keep being surprised every time this happens.
After all, this political driving force isn't really about The Donald or his billions; and it is as old as politics itself. It's about the way things happen -- and often collide -- at the campaign trail intersection of populism and pandering. As we've noted here before, it's no phenomenon, just a fact that was documented way back in 1968, by a young Newsday Washington correspondent covering an independent presidential candidate who seemed to have just a regional appeal -- Alabama's segregationist Gov. George Wallace.
Earlier, in 1963, Wallace famously declared "Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!" and tried to block the integration of the University of Alabama. But President John F. Kennedy and Attorney General Robert Kennedy sent federal officials and 100 Alabama National Guard troops who escorted two African-American students peacefully to school. Five months later, President Kennedy was assassinated. Five years later, in 1968, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in April. And then, then-Sen. Robert Kennedy was assassinated on the June night he won California's Democratic presidential primary. In September, Wallace took his anti-big government crusade up North -- and drew big crowds.
Northerners cheered Wallace's jabs against "pointy-headed intellectuals who can't even park a bicycle straight," federal bureaucrats whose briefcases contained "nothing but peanut butter sandwiches!"
Folks whooped every time he told anti-war protesters he had two four-letter words for them: "work" and "soap."
So Newsday's correspondent began asking Wallace rally-goers one question: Which candidate did they like before Wallace came north? Many answered: "Bobby Kennedy." It sounded mind-boggling to 1968 ears. So the correspondent asked: Why did you shift from a big-government, pro-integration, liberal Vietnam War dove to a small-government, state's rights, pro-segregation, Vietnam War hawk? Folks replied they never thought of it that way.
"Sure I voted for Bobby," in New Jersey's springtime primary, said a Newark postman proudly wearing a Wallace button (and proud of his Bobby Kennedy autograph back home). "He had the same thing Wallace has got that none of the other politicians have: guts. Bobby was a good man because he was not afraid. Now Wallace is the only guy who isn't talking out of both sides of his mouth at the same time trying to please everyone at once."
Mrs. Clifford Dupree, an Edison, N.J., housewife saw her shift from Kennedy to Wallace as a consistency, not a contradiction, because: "They say what they mean and they don't beat around the bush."
Fast-forward to 2015: Those 1968 answers should seem familiar to you. That's what today's voters say they like about Trump, what 1992 and 1996 voters said they liked about billionaire presidential candidate Ross Perot -- and what many say about statewide tea party candidates.
People are drawn to candidates who make things sound simple and make promises people want to hear. Even when candidates offer no actual plan. If you can't trust a man who made billions to make good things happen, who can you trust?
Still, you can also trust Trump will go too far. Hours after his shameful Saturday belittling of Sen. John McCain's Vietnam prisoner of war heroism, the Washington Post/ABC News poll showing Trump at 24 percent also showed his support was dropping.
Millions who watch reality TV believe they are watching reality. The Donald knows reality is like sincerity -- if you can fake it, you've got it made. So Trump's believers aren't bothered by his birther blasphemies and reality distortions. The reality they know is it's harder than ever for middle class people to pay their bills, while only the rich are getting richer.
Trump's believers are our reality. That's why it was wrong, but understandable, for a fed-up McCain to call Trump's audiences "crazies." They are America's fed-up voters of 2015. They desperately want to be led and are easily misled.
They are drawn to Trumps, Perots and tea party fulminators for the same reason they might heed the impassioned command of filmdom's iconic Howard Beale -- if that truth-talking anchor in "Network" (played by actor Peter Finch) implored them on today's reality TV, as he did in that 1976 film classic:
"I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell: 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!'"
If you hear those words echoing through America's swing-voting cul du sac suburbs on election night 2016, you will know America's fed-up, mad-as-hell voters just chose your next president.
The Leftist Media runs this country not the lemmings in the UniParty.
I hate the Media. Even worse than I hate Democrats.
“Still, you can also trust Trump will go too far.”
The writer is clueless. In this day and age, how far is “too far”? Trump could go “too far” 10 times a day and still not catch up with how many times we have been squelched and demonized by the left. Add to that the number of times the Republicans have harmed us, either by blatantly selling us out or simply standing by and not taking a stand.
Trump is saying what we’ve wanted to say for a decade. I say, “Keep it up!”
I'm sure they are biding their time to play the same tired old card with regard to blacks. They probably have already located a number of such former employees who probably deserved to b fired and who Trump may not even know about to blindside him at the opportune moment.
A closed boarder? The guy renting the spare room is uncommunicative?
That can't happen for this reason: If Trump doesn't flame out, he's got the nomination because he's got the momentum. As it has been said, Trump can only be stopped by...Trump.
If he does flame out, his decline will force his withdrawal from the campaign. And just as well, Trump would be impossible to control as Veep.
He's never been second in command in his life.
And you think John Bonehead and Mitch McConnell are “for the people”?
Unlike Trump, they actually have power to change things.
Yet, they do nothing.
If you READ BETWEEN THE LINES you can see the FEAR this guy has of Trump and what Trump represents.
Robert Kennedy was so damn Socialist that even Stalin would have trouble matching him. Yet many of his voters drifted over to Wallace, who was anything but Socialist. They know the same will happen with Trump - there are MILLIONS of fed-up white voters (hence my tagline and profile page) that play both sides. They voted for Obama out of guilt and because they thought that Obama would end racial strife, and instead they find themselves lectured to more and more - by the people they voted for. They’re ready to flip.
What that means today is that Democrats can PUBLICLY say that Trump is their dream candidate, given his negatives - but privately, as this article shows, they knew they are looking at the possibility of a landslide election going against them if Trump can get the Republican nomination.
...and the only people left to stop Trump is the RNC, Rove, RINOs, and ultimately us - and they DO NOT control us, it is our choice as to whether to do the dirty work for the left, or not.
Reagan struck fear into the hearts of those 535 congress critters.
Cruz collapsed when he opportunistically tried to latch onto Trump's soaring aura....
Trump is at 28% in some polls.
And after 4 or 8 years of Trump, Cruz can move on up. So, I agree that if Trump says something unforgivable he will lose both the presidency and the vice presidency. But if he does really well, we may end up with both Trump and Cruz. I'd be OK with that.
LOL. Give me a break. It’s early.
Cruz could keep Congress under control and help Trump handle the politics of the Presidency.
I disagree with you that Obama has no real accomplishments. He's been wildly successful in damaging the country. Gay marriage, more dependency, weakened military, strengthened Islam, Common core, border still open, and sowed seeds of fear and distrust between Americans.
SOme people are looking for a dictator, they just don't realize it. Think of the power Obama usurped for the presidency. Anybody hell bent on ruling us already has the bureaucracy and power to do so. And half the population will cheer as their political opposition is punished. America is in a dangerous place now.
The way Trump is steamrolling I think he has a good chance.
There is only one thing that will stop him.
Trump himself saying or doing something that goes too far...
He is taking a wrecking ball to everything. There are a lot of Dems and Republicans that would vote for him because of it.
No plans. No deeetailed plaaanns.........
ARe you kidding me???
Trump says “build a fence”—HOW COMPLICATED IS THAT??? There are a bazillion ways—pick one AND DO IT!!
This is really not that complicated.
The writer uses Wallace but never once mentioned he was a Democrat.
Yep. A lot of those 1960’s Dims slid from supporting Kennedy to Wallace because they both were DEMOCRATS.
That would trigger Trump's threshhold of being mistreated by the RNC. He'd go 3rd party.
The obsessively-opportunistic Cruz used the audience's goodwill to promote his agenda, rather than comment on Christians' plight....he was booed off the stage.
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BACKSTORY: Is the Canadian-born Sen Ted Cruz really a Washington outsider or just another neocon establishment player willingly following the globalist agenda?
Back in 2014 a writer questioned the opportunistic Cruz’s self-proclaimed “outsider” status....in light of his background as a Harvard-trained lawyer who worked for George W. Bush and Congressman John Boehner.
The writer also mentioned Cruz’s wife Heidi’s banking and Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) affiliations: "Cruz’s wife Heidi is a Goldman Sachs Regional Manager, which is a little unnerving, given the massive bailouts and their involvement with the Federal Reserve in deflating our currency and killing our economy.
Heidi was also a member of a CFR task force that produced a report in 2005 called “Building a North American Community”.” Cruz himself once referred to the CFR as a “pernicious nest of snakes” working to undermine US sovereignty. This apparently includes his wife.
The CFR is a Rockefeller-funded group that is said to be occupied with the task of promoting the acceptance of global governance by Americans. Members there have written about why Americans must give up some of their sovereignty for a new order.
CFR’s “North American Union”, many believe, would indeed undermine the sovereignty of The United States.
Cruz is a recipient of over $106,000 from foreign pro-war lobbies, and once suggested that pro-abortion Democrat ex-Senator Joseph Lieberman would make a good Secretary of Defense. Lieberman himself has taken more than $2.2 MILLION from pro-war lobbies, the most of any US Senator.
This proclivity to support war, is said by many pundits to be “spawning the New World Order abroad.....perhaps a Police State at home”.
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