Donald Trump brought a frivolous element to the Republican election campaign. Everything is just revolving around him. That is dangerous for the American conservatives. Hillary Clinton is delighted.
Seldom has the opening debate of a Republican presidential race been as eagerly anticipated as this one. Above all, that is due to the multibillionaire Donald Trump, who is currently ahead of second-placed Jeb Bush in the polls and of whom no one knows what to expect.
With each new poll, Trump gets another boost and his lead increases further. In today’s television debate, in which only 10 of the 17 candidates are allowed to participate, everything will center on the property tycoon and media star.
Both political analysts and the Republican Party establishment have significant problems making sense of this phenomenon. Ultimately, Trump donated a lot of money to the Clintons over a long period of time, changed his political positions as often as he changed his shirts — if he even adopted a position on substantive issues — and is often not so particular about the truth. What do people see in him under these circumstances?
Trump — An Exceptionally Gifted Entertainer Himself
Of course, “the Donald” possesses some advantages over the other candidates who took the classic route through the political lowlands. Almost everyone knows Trump as an investor and as a celebrity from reality TV; unlike the others, he doesn’t need to put effort into making his face and his name known.
He is an exceptionally gifted entertainer in a time in which American politics keeps resembling show business more and more. However, even long-serving veterans of the business are themselves astonished at how quickly Trump has managed to turn his negative reception in the polls into a positive one. No one can remember ever having experienced anything like it.
The Trump phenomenon is the expression of a deep sense of unease among Americans in general and the Republicans in particular. The country is experiencing an uprising against the old elites in the economy and politics. More and more Americans believe that they are badly governed and that the country finds itself going down a wrong path.
They have the feeling that the elites exercise favoritism among themselves and that the cards are “stacked” against the middle classes, as said by the left-wing populist, Elizabeth Warren.*
Obama’s Path Versus the Republicans
On the left, the anti-elite sentiment is expressing itself in the socialist candidate, Bernie Sanders, who is being carried on a wave of sympathy and is further decreasing the distance between himself and Hillary Clinton. On the right, it was unclear for a long time who would slip into the role of the angry people’s tribune because extreme right-wingers such as Rick Perry, Ted Cruz and Rick Santorum have been in the business too long to spark any new enthusiasm.
And then Trump came along and started his campaign with crass remarks about illegal immigrants from the south and, in this manner, offered himself up as a vehicle for the Republican foundation’s protest against the party’s establishment.
Many Republicans are disappointed with their leadership. After their victory at the mid-term elections last November, they predicted that the party, with its comfortable majority in Congress, would withdraw many of Barack Obama’s unloved policies. However, that was never a realistic expectation; ultimately the Constitution gives the president the power of veto against Congress’ decisions.
Fear of the Establishment
But Obama has really shown up the Republicans in the past few months in that he has expanded his executive power to the extremes of what is permitted in order to get policies from the left through on issues such as immigration and climate protection.
The very immigration that Trump has turned into his trademark is a sore spot for many Republicans. White, conservative America has the feeling that they are losing more and more ground. By now, the wave of Latin American immigrants is not only landing in the border regions and in California but in the heartland of what once made up the Confederacy — in the most important Republican electoral pool.
Rural, traditionally white-dominated regions are becoming more colorful and with this, the white’s anxiety that they will lose their dominant role in the country is rising. Many people have the feeling that immigration laws won’t be enforced and that Obama’s amnesty for illegal immigrants will aim to accelerate demographic trends to create a more colorful America.
At the same time, candidates from the Republican establishment, such as Jeb Bush, are targeting the Hispanic minority more in order to make the party more able to gain a majority in the future. The approval for Trump has also become an act of defiance against the Republican leadership by an old, white America which is driven by a fear of loss.
The party bigwigs are counting on the fact that the Trump “wingding” will end at some point. Exactly four years ago, Rick Perry, with over 30 percent of votes in the polls, was ahead as a candidate before he fell far from grace (Trump is currently placing in the middle of a larger selection of candidates with 23 percent).
The boisterous billionaire is currently helping the middle-of-the-road candidate, Jeb Bush, because he is taking votes away from other populist right-wing candidates. Bush, therefore, has decided not to engage with Trump on his level, knowing it is perhaps unwise to do so. He just wants to sit it out.
Admittedly Trump’s sustained high-flying success is harming the Republican Party. Now a competition has broken out among the candidates to gain people’s attention with Trump-like crass statements. The longer this time of political clowns endures, the more the Republican Party will be seen as a collection of extremists that, for independent voters in the middle, is not electable.
Despite his current high in the polls, it is hard to imagine that Trump will really be elected as the Republican presidential candidate. But a pre-election period dominated by Trump is exactly what the Democrats want. Sustained flippancy on the part of the Republicans makes it more probable that the next president will also come from the Democratic Party.
*Editor’s Note: Elizabeth Warren actually said, “The system is rigged” in favor of the rich. Hillary Clinton modified the statement in April, 2015, saying, “The deck is stacked” against average Americans.
Insightful analysis I would say, except maybe toward the end.
Here in the land of the free anybody can be President, and it looks they are all going for it this year. It is always amazing where it leads us and the path we take to get there. You can count on us. 🙂