Why Was Donald Trump So Popular?

I, like many other Democrats, still can't believe that almost half of America voted for Donald J. Trump to be our next President of the United States of America.

This post by Urquhart on Library Thing back in February when other Republican candidates were still standing might help us better understand Donald Trump's popularity.

18  Urquhart

Edited: Feb 29, 8:09pm 

Donald Trump is the archetype of many different strands of demagoguery and populism in America both past and present. However what makes his appeal especially deep to the American psyche in particular is his promise of not just a better tomorrow but a “Great” tomorrow.

America has been built on salesmen/businessmen ever since the Mayflower. In America in particular the traveling salesman has been a man imbued with great power or expectations for making possible a Great tomorrow. 

In the computer world, “consultants” are always promising to come in and “fix” all the problems.

In religion, evangelicalism offers everyone or, at the least, the “select” a great tomorrow.

The traveling salesman has always offered elixirs for relief, cures, or panaceas. Two movies exemplary of this are The Rainmaker and The Music Man. They are American to the core.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainmaker

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Music_Man

What many people don’t realize is that Trump is mining a vein in the American psyche that goes very deep. He is not just another fad or the usual demagogue that many might expect. He is an American demagogue that is inventing himself as he goes. He is writing his own playbook on the fly and it is obvious he is having a hell of a good time. 

The other candidates certainly aren’t. Consequently so many of the other politicians are grabbing on to his coat tails and have no idea where it will take them any more than he does. He has hit the “mother lode” all prospectors and politicians dream of and he is clearly thriving on it all.

To dismiss him as a fly by night who has no real traction is to do so at one’s peril. He is able to reach the American people and strike a nerve that no number of position papers of Hilary or Bernie could ever reach. He is mining the American psyche in a way that has not been done since JFK.

It’s the salesman with the promise of a Great tomorrow that Americans just can’t resist. It is the person who legitimizes the self-righteous hurt of financial failure or forced lowered economic and political expectations.

It’s the best show in town, and we could all very possibly be part of that show after November elections.

The Sound of Broken Glass

I expected to hear the sound of a glass ceiling breaking last night.  And it would have been a momentous moment, much like when President Obama won in 2008.

I did hear the sound of broken glass last night.  But it was the sound of a glass house breaking.  And the sound was deafening....

The Biggest Scandal Since Watergate

Dictionary.com

On the campaign trail last Friday night, Donald Trump called the Clinton emails "the biggest scandal since Watergate."  "Totally absurd," replied a Watergate prosecutor."

One of the biggest scandals since Watergate may well be FBI Director James Comey's double standard of releasing information concerning Clinton emails that may or may not be relevant, yet seeking to withhold evidence of Russian involvement in the Trump Campaign, "for fear of influencing the election."

The biggest scandal since Watergate, however, is the fact that Donald Trump is this close to becoming the President of the United States!   Of Trump, The Atlantic said he "might be the most ostentatiously unqualified major-party candidate in the 227-year history of the American Presidency."

Why is almost half of America voting for Donald Trump? Because America wants a change:  government is broken.  But Donald Trump, the poster boy for bullies, anti-immigrants, and women-haters is not the kind of President America needs.

But America needs more than Hillary Clinton as President.  It needs a Congress that is willing to work with her for the good of America.   Already, Republicans are talking about impeachment.  Moreover, Republicans are saying that they will not allow Hillary Clinton to appoint any judges to the Supreme Court–any judges throughout her term.  Give Hillary a Congress she can work with.

Hillary's choice of a private email server continues to plague her.  But one of the biggest scandals since Watergate is the fact that no one went to jail when 2 million  (or was it 22 million?) emails on the RNC server used for government business by Karl Rove and others in the Bush cabinet were deleted in 2007.

Some of the deleted emails pertained to the partisan firing of 8 Assistant U.S. Attorneys.  In December 2009 however, Politico reported that a deal had been struck to restore many of the 22 million emails.   What I find intriguing in the agreement are the emails that were designated as "sensitive."  Surely Karl Rove was not sending and receiving emails concerning national security on the RNC server was he?