Donald Trump combines the aggressive differentness, the missionary vanity and the money which are all prerequisites for the career of a supposed independent in the world of U.S. politics. The billionaire has come a long way in the U.S. presidential primaries. Fortunately, America is more diverse, more rational and more respectable than many of his followers.
A lot can happen between now and the presidential election in November, but Hillary will probably be the Democratic candidate. If her opponent turns out to be named Donald Trump, it’s a pretty good bet that Clinton will be able to write history: She will be the first woman elected president of the United States.
Trump has come frighteningly far with Republicans and their sympathizers. The latest series of primary elections led by extremists in Florida gave him further impetus. The description “extremist” is fitting because a political figure who approves the torture of America’s enemies and labels Mexican immigrants collectively as rapists is no longer within the bounds of democratic speech and discourse.
America Is More Diverse and More Rational than the Majority of Trump’s Fans
Perhaps the Republicans themselves can prevent Trump from running in their name, but that’s by no means certain. The once great and rational conservative Republican Party with Abraham Lincoln as its figurehead father has morphed over the past 20 years into a self-absorbed, navel-gazing, right wing populist movement obsessed with an imaginary monster called Washington.
Thus, Donald Trump is the logical outcome of years of listening to people like Newt Gingrich, Donald Rumsfeld, Sarah Palin and Paul Ryan – the aggressive, more fundamentalist figures who now give today’s Republican Party a new face and a different voice.
As a political type, Trump is by no means unique. The know-it-all billionaire who wants to run the nation the same way he ran his corporation, often acting like some proletarian king dabbling with his own personal election system. Before Trump, there was Ross Perot who ran as an Independent and made Bush’s life difficult. And such diverse characters as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Michael Bloomberg were elected to office running under the motto “I’m not a politician so I can do the job better.”
Trump combines not only the aggressive otherness, the missionary vanity and great wealth that are indispensable to the career of a would be independent candidate; in addition, he has launched his siege on the White House at a time in which a relatively large minority of citizens and possibly a majority of Republicans aren’t motivated by reason and debate but hunger for pathetic, saber-rattling nationalism.
Trump is a peacock who wants to be a lion. Fortunately, the fundamentalist wing of the Republican Party is not America even if Trump’s fans aren’t all Republicans. America is more diverse, rational and, yes, more respectable than many of Trump’s admirers. That said, by November at the latest, America will see that Trump the peacock is, in reality, Trump the cuckoo.
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