Misunderstanding Trump.
Sanders. Bernie asserts that Trump’s popularity is due to the legitimate “economic anxiety” of his supporters. Trump exploits this anxiety by scapegoating “Mexicans and Muslims” and thus he diverts attention away from the fatcat predatory capitalists really causing all the problems. Bernie will free these supporters from Trump’s trickery by bringing them into a grand, aracial, far-left coalition.
Well, Bernie my Levantine friend, Democrats have tried to “appeal to economic interests” and “free middle class White Americans from GOP trickery” for decades, and yet the Democratic Party continues to lose White support. Levels of support of working class and middle class White American men for Democrats is laughably low. What makes you think you can do better?
More to the point: if the real issue is economics and exploitation of the working class by the wealthy, then why aren’t these folks supporting Bernie rather than Donald? Well, Sanders may answer that most of these folks are Republicans and so he needs to reach out to them and convince them. But that would reveal where Bernie’s whole diagnosis is wrong. If most of Trump’s supporters are Republican voters, and I think we can all agree that this is the case, then these are people who voted (those that did bother to vote) for Romney in 2012 – Mitt Romney, the very archetype of a fatcat predatory capitalist; Romney, whose views on economics are worse than that of Trump for the working class.
Now, why is that? After Bush butchered the US economy, why did these working class folk vote for McCain in 2008 and then for Mr. Bain Capital Outsourcing Mitt Romney in 2012? The answer is that race and culture trump (no pun intended) economics. The answer is that the Democrats long ago abandoned middle class and working class White Americans, Democrats made failed and feeble attempts to win back those people through the sort of wrong-headed arguments Sanders is now making, and the Democrat Establishment as exemplified by Clinton has essentially completely given up on these people. The GOP abandoned working class Whites as well, but, bereft of any choice, those Whites either voted for Republicans who very actively “dog whistled” on social issues, or they stayed home on election day (Romney could have won with more support from that direction).
The real anxiety being exploited by Trump is that of race and culture: his supporters are justifiably anxious over losing their country. Economics are part of that, sure, but only a part. Trump is the ONLY candidate who addresses this anxiety. It is for that reason he wins the support of the Republican voters and he also wins the support of working class Whites who despise the Democrats (because the Democrats despise them), but who couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Mitt “strap your dog to the roof of your car” Romney.
A pro-minority, pro-immigrant, far-left Jewish socialist is not going to be able to compete with Trump for these people.
That said, I would advise Trump to move to the left economically if he finds himself in the general election – that will solidify his working class support, immunize himself from economic arguments which while secondary to race/culture still have some power, and allow him to poach some Democrat voters.
Clinton. Carpet-munching corrupt reptile Hillary Clinton, whose political career is predicated upon being “married” to Bill Clinton, asserts that Trump is “the best recruiter for ISIS.” Whether or not that is true is irrelevant. ISIS has no ICBMs or other strategic weapons that would allow them to target America from overseas. They are a threat to America solely because they have supporters living in the USA, willing to engage in terrorism (as we have recently seen). Trump is the only candidate who addresses that fact. The response of all the other candidates, all the System candidates, to “bomb ISIS,” will do nothing but inflame their supporters already here (opinion polls show a significant fraction of Muslims living in America support radical Islam), and all the supporters yet to arrive as “refugees” and “immigrants.” In the old days, foreign wars were justified to the American people as “we have to fight them there so we don’t have to fight them here,” but now it is “we have to fight them there because they are already here” and the actual reality is “the more we fight them there the more we will have to fight them here.” After 9/11 the USA went to war in the Middle East, radicalizing a new generation of Muslims, because (1) that is what Israel wanted, and (relevant here) (2) we “couldn’t” do the sane thing and stop Muslim immigration (it actually increased!), so the rubes had to be satisfied by waging war against “the ragheads” overseas. Diversity trumps (heh) all, then as now.
The problem is that the System’s fundamental basis, its very foundation, is hostility to White interests. System politicians like Sanders and Clinton (and almost all Republicans as well – do not forget) are inherently unable to accept or even comprehend much less actualize any appeal to White interests – for that would undermine and repudiate the very System of which they are a part. So they talk about “economics” or “ISIS” and continue to lose working class and middle class White Americans.
The problem is that the System’s fundamental basis, its very foundation, is hostility to White interests. System politicians like Sanders and Clinton (and almost all Republicans as well – do not forget) are inherently unable to accept or even comprehend much less actualize any appeal to White interests – for that would undermine and repudiate the very System of which they are a part. So they talk about “economics” or “ISIS” and continue to lose working class and middle class White Americans.
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