Donald Trump won seven of the 11 states where the Republican Party held elections yesterday for the naming of their candidate for the presidency. The so-called Super Tuesday was a good day for the rich politician who has annoyed, scared and shocked the American establishment.
Trump passed any bad luck on to his adversaries.
He is the palpable result of the Republicans drifting to the right. By tolerating all sorts of unfortunate conspiracy speeches – in addition to the neurotic blank opposition they created for Obama – they made “The Donald” possible.
How can you threaten to leave millions of people without medical insurance? How can you claim the right to forbid women to make decisions about their own body? The Republican Party avoided answering these questions. Rather, the leadership chose to put all its hopes into candidates lacking energy and inspiration, like Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio.
Paradoxically, Trump is not an extremist. He is not the answer for an electorate who is scared to go too much to the “left,” but for an electorate who is exasperated. In fact, the Republicans voting for Trump are annoyed by the shallow rhetoric of the party’s formal leaders. The consequence is that these people are willing to consciously participate in a sort of gigantic prank in which the candidate locks eyes with the electorate, to the exasperation of the Party’s leaders.
Donald Trump is a non-ideologist and his biggest advantage is that he’s not afraid of controversy or ridicule. He’s amoral and, as Americans say, he keeps his eye on the ball. He will do whatever he thinks is necessary to win. He will offend and he will charm, he will threaten and he will blow kisses, he will make good jokes or he will be offensive beyond limits.
However, apart from all this, Trump is essentially a negotiator who most likely won’t follow through on the threats he is making to scare people. It’s unlikely that he will ban access to Muslims in America and even more unlikely that he will build a gigantic wall at the Southern border and force the Mexicans to pay for it. And these are just a few examples.
If he ever becomes president, expect a Reagan, rather than a Hitler. Reagan was a former entertainer himself and during his mandates, he practically became a saint in the Republican synaxarion. Reagan also promised to stay firmly on the right, so that the meeting with the real government can shift discretely to the center. I am inclined to think that Trump will take the same path, if given the chance. Candidate Trump’s flexibility shows that victory is important to him. And in America’s recent history, there are no cases in which the president seriously threatened the democratic system without the defense mechanism intervening. I also believe that Mr. Trump knows this and I’m pretty sure the system is functioning properly. The line of defense has not been broken.
Trump? Trump is just the litmus test of policy done out of the electorate’s sight, nothing more. He’s not Mussolini or Satan’s chosen one. He’s a sort of warning with disheveled hair.
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