I keep imagining the White House with a big, really big neon sign TRUMP across the top of the roof.
Count me as fully supporting the candidacy of Donald Big Mouth Trump. Why? Because for a long time we have had a delusional democracy, the product of a political system destroyed by both major political parties and the moneyed interests supporting both of them. Trump is the only possible president capable of productively disrupting this fake democracy, actually a plutocracy. It is more rational to fear whatever conventional Democrat or Republican won the presidency than to fear Trump. More of the same is far more frightening than nothing like this before. Moreover, there are sufficient constitutional checks from the other two branches of the federal government to curb fears of nutty actions by President Trump.
The pundits and intelligentsia enjoy demeaning Trump supporters as ignorant, uncouth, racist schmucks. Sure they have every right to be totally fed up with our political system. Who wouldn’t be? But how can they possibly buy into the insanity, stupidity and insulting rhetoric of Trump? I think all these shocked people on the right and left still don’t see the larger truth.
We must imagine something akin to electric shock therapy applied forcibly to the political system. Many urgently needed reforms will never be pushed by any conventional Republican or Democrat. In our delusional democracy, ordinary elections can no longer produce the cleansing that our filthy, corrupt system needs. I believe that many millions of Americans who do not vote would be motivated to vote for Trump. They would enjoy sending a big F-you to the establishment. I certainly would. I would like to see polling of people eligible to vote but who have not voted in past presidential elections.
Sure, I confess that I would have preferred Michael Bloomberg spending a billion of his dollars on a presidential campaign as a third party candidate. But I gladly accept Trump as a second choice, even as a faux Republican.
I am a highly educated former full professor, former official at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the National Governors Association, and author of a number of books, including Delusional Democracy. I say this to demonstrate that Trump surely has more current and potential supporters than the media and political establishment can accept. Unlike Trump, they have no imagination. Trump, to his credit, is really on to something Great. I hope that many more Americans recognize that he is exactly what the nation needs. Stick that middle finger up at all the chronic liars that have sold out the vast majority of Americans. We really do have to make America great again or watch its continuing slide into a two-class society based on economic inequality. Only a traitor to the upper, upper powerful class of insanely rich Americans can save the nation.
Joel S. Hirschhorn was a full professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and a senior official at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the National Governors Association; he has authored five nonfiction books, including Delusional Democracy—Fixing the Republic Without Overthrowing the Government.
As I read this article, I kept waiting for a punch line that would reveal it to be satire. Mr. Hirschhorn should be careful what he wishes for, Trump looks too much like Benito Mussolini for comfort.
Unfortunately Professor Hirschhorm is not using satire, but as a contender for the Republican presidential nominee I find TD (The Donald) less than a savior for democracy but a demagogue waiting in the wings to bring what is left of our Republic down upon its ears.
Listening to even a bit of TD’s word salad should give any thinking voter pause:
“Well, that is a gotcha question, though,” he said. “I mean, you know, when you’re asking me about who’s running this, this this, that’s not, that is not, I will be so good at the military, your head will spin.” TD then went on to say that a General MacArthur would emerge and he would find him.
Saints preserve us.
Michael Bloomberg? Please. Bloomberg would continue the neolib/con plutocrat agenda we have now. Trump appeals to a large swath of the masses because said masses know they’re getting screwed economically by the usual Dem and Repub suspects and are hungry for anyone who breaks from the tired political script – that even the brainwashed sheeple are realizing is total crap. But that hunger won’t be satiated as Trump is an insurance policy to guarantee a Killary coronation in 2016. If Trump was a serious candidate he wouldn’t have made those incendiary remarks about Latino immigrants which served to 1) alienate a burgeoning voting bloc; and 2) to distract discussion from economic and foreign policy matters to teeth knashing over racism. A serious candidate would have said “We need to halt immigration and focus our resources on helping our citizens regain a better economic footing.” Such words would get a thumbs up from a crapload of voters from all political and racial categories. Trump further revealed his true colors as the Distractor by recently pledging to not run as a third party candidate. If he was “in it to win it,” he wouldn’t sign off on such a pledge.