Share and Share Alike



Purchase My Stock Photos From Dreamstime
Stock Images

Thursday, December 31, 2015

The Donald - Echoes of Middle America

Campaign trails can reveal a lot about candidates. From flip-flopping platforms to impossible promises, the dog and pony show is designed to whip up your otherwise apathetic stance on one topic or another into a clouded frenzy of pixie dust. All this pomp serves only to appear like there is actually a material difference between one candidate and the other.

Truth be told, it has been decades since any Presidential hopeful has uttered anything beyond the regurgitated banality heard every four years.

When every day is a bad hair day, and you want to deflect any conversation of your position within the one percent club, you better have something beyond provocative to say if you want the mainstream media to devote its unbridled resources to your cause.

That’s where The Donald enters the picture. Forever threatening America with a run for the Republican nod to seek the highest office in the land, Trump finally committed to the endless lapdance of rubber chicken dinners and ponied up some lunch money in a sprint for the White House.

With a shattered economy and little prospect for recovery on the horizon, the (forgive the pun) trumped up war on terror, and litany of domestic issues, what possibly could Trump offer that his fellow partisans dare not conceive?

Trump did not achieve the level of financial success he enjoys by being quiet nor stupid. His ego and ambition cultivated a personae given to hubris self-promotion, further compounding his P.T. Barnum-esque circle of eminence.

His candelabra on the grand piano is to take aim at illegal immigration and the Islamic faith. And by no means has Trump been subtle in articulating his public platform. Close the borders, build a Great Wall, and deport the damn ‘insert your preferred nationality or religion here’.

Those sentiments immediately resonated with Middle America. That’s just what she was thinking but lacked the permission to say in today’s PC society. The genie was out of the bottle. “Finally”, Joe and Jane Lunchpail can almost be heard to say, “someone is saying what needs to be said!”

While Trump dominates the soundbites and front pages, nary a peep can be heard from the other GOP runners, begging, as Pink Floyd famously sung, ‘Hello, is there anybody in there? Just nod if you can hear me’.

Time will tell if Mr. and Mrs. Lunchpail will be able to stomach the other bile yet to be secreted by The Donald, but one thing above all else is absolute fact, America is paying attention to his every word and intent. And, believe it or not, that is exactly what it takes to be elected President.

In some ways, too, campaign trails reveal a lot about the electorate.