In the 2000s, when I used to watch Donald Trump as the no-crap-taking business magnate in The Apprentice, I couldn’t help but like him both as a business person and a television personality. I barely noticed his political agenda, if there was one running through the show at all, and didn’t even give a second glance to the bird-like wig that rested ever-so-peacefully on his head.
As far as reality TV went, he seemed alright.
Imagine my surprise when he rears his now ugly head to run for president of the United States, seeking the Republican ticket. I was surprised, but not exactly apprehensive. I mean, this guy was in Hollywood, after all. And that place is filled with left-wing nutters and Jews, right? Surely, if there is anyone to be ticked off by his running, must be the right-wing, glue-sniffing conservatives?
Obviously not. Forgive me for not being in the loop when it comes to Trump’s political and ideological shifts (once, many moons ago, he had supported Clinton over Bush), but this is where we stand.
Trump arrived at the scene like a professional wrestler, like a villain out of one of WWE’s staged storylines -- what they in the industry refer to as a heel. He came out loud, pompous, and obnoxious, talking trash, being loud, making obscene gestures, and flailing around on the podium in general, happy to finally have a mic with a world-wide audience.
Trump was a caricature in real life: Grotesque, almost obscene. His rhetoric reeked of ignorance and bigotry; his actions of stupidity. Like the uninvited joker at a posh West End after-show party, he made, what seemed at the time, the most gravest of errors: He made a fool of himself.
And the rest of the world pointed and laughed. The world that matters to us anyway. They whispered in the dark, they wrote about how ridiculous his antics were. They posted on social media and made fun of his toupeé, they condemned his “obviously” and “indubitably” incorrect views on immigration, on abortion, on Muslims, on everything in general.
And when Sarah Palin came out to endorse Trump, it was like the blind leading the blind. If there was one person who could cement Trump’s position as an utter “idiot,” it was Palin. Her endorsement speech received further ridicule, further mockery. Hosts like Stephen Colbert and Trevor Noah came out with impersonations ridiculing this already ridiculous duo of dunces.
Seriously, this guy? When pigs fly.
As it currently stands, Trump is leading the polls for the Republican nomination with a sweet 34% chunk of the votes. His nearest competitor, Ted Cruz, is significantly behind, hovering somewhere around 18%. And that is no fluke, and certainly no accident.
Suffice it to say, most of us, when Trump came out in all his glory, did not for a second think that there was even the slightest possibility that this man could one day be the next president of the most powerful country in the world. Not me, anyhow. This barely concealed, congealing blob of a man? We thought not.
We underestimated Trump’s temerity and, perhaps, overestimated the American populace’s (and especially the Republicans’) ability to stick to the status quo. A mouth-breathing, openly racist billionaire? Couldn’t dream of it, wouldn’t even consider it.
That is not to say that the supporters of Trumpistan should be underestimated. To put all of the Trump eggs in one, solitary, stupid basket would be a mistake. There’s a reason that Trump’s “tell-it-like-it-is” method works.
Since left-wing rhetoric has taken over most of the media and almost all of American college campuses, it doesn’t seem completely unlikely for one to suppose how a festering bitterness has ballooned into a support for a lunatic. One presumes Trump himself is very much like his supporters: Angry, frustrated, and tired of listening to “politically correct” talk-show hosts discussing issues as if Muslims and Mexicans were not out there to bomb the next high-rise and rape the next white woman, respectively.
It would be foolish of anyone to dismiss these hordes of enraged “white trash,” as some of us may wish to term them. Treating these people with righteous anger and condescension does nothing to solve the problem of these presumably “privileged, white people” feeling both oppressed and disenfranchised.
Yes, even if these people are part of the majority, even if these people are racist, and see people of other skin colours or religions as being different from them, as having different values, even if their world-view is dominated by a very first world understanding of how things work, that is how a lot of people feel, and how we feel cannot be controlled or maintained. Objectivity isn’t practiced by the left when spewing liberal rhetoric, why expect it of the right?
When someone succeeds in catering to the lowest common denominator so well, the fools rush in as support. But when it comes to Trump, yes, there are ignoramuses in the hooliganistic crowds at his rallies, cheering every obsequiously sensationalistic gesture and word he manages to let escape from his flapping mouth, but there’s a reason for this, and this must be understood, not beaten down and ignored, pretending as if it is not powerful enough to make a difference, or that we are too good to give it any serious thought.
Because when Donald Trump finally takes the oath and sits down in the Oval Office to preside over the most powerful nation in the world, it is us who will be the fools, sucking on our thumbs.
