Of course, Trump will not win the presidential election. This time.
But the people who support him now, this segment of the population that feels lost and confused and experiences intense anxiety when hearing the incomprehensible words “capital gains tax”, this group of people that finds reassurance that the world can be understood and doesn’t have to be scary in Trump’s childish “Ha ha, he puts on glasses to look smart but we are bright, we see right through this ruse” – with the erosion of the nation-state, this group of people will be growing.
And one day we will have to begin to notice them. Losers, idiots, ignoramuses – we will continue to make fun and feel so much more sophisticated and brilliant than these stupid country bumpkins. But one day somebody will turn to them and exploit their fear, rage and impotence in the face of a confusing world. And then we’ll see who’s the real idiot.
Clarissa's Blog 
One day he will trump all the others!
Hehehe. I’ll see myself out.
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You should read Rick Perlstein’s books, Clarissa. They give a more expanded version of your take on American culture and politics, and how that played out in the emergence of the modern American right-wing.
All of this has happened before and will happen again.
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Trump could be the lesser of evils. We have segment — white, low income, declining standard of living, well armed and many with military training – that could become the American incarnation of the Brown Shirts. The political party elites don’t understand the risk, or are content to line their pockets and bury their heads.
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Yes, precisely. There is a growing group of people whose jobs are being destroyed by technological progress (and this will only become more acute) and fluid borders and who are lost, sad, confused. Traditionally, they had religion to orient them in a confusing world. They had stable identities, well-defined roles. And that made the world less scary.
But now all that has been taken away. And they’re scared, acting out in fear. It’s easy to dismiss them as crazy, losers, lunatics, etc. But there is no reason to believe that their number will decline. To the contrary, it will grow.
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One technology forecast calls for elimination of 43% of current jobs by 2035. Frankly, no one knows what to do with the people being displaced. Technology stopped creating jobs a decade ago; now it is a net job destroyer.
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The work technology creates is all high-skill, very specialized. And we have a growing app culture that is creating a huge division among those who can’t even use a regular browser or send a normal email and those who can.
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No technology is now eliminating jobs in marketing, financial analysis and accounting among other areas. The NET
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. . . impact of technology is job destruction, not creation. Technology is eliminating more jobs than it is creating.
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In fact, Johnson and Johnson is working on an application to automate anesthesia and eliminate anesthesiologist jobs.
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What is being created simply doesn’t correspond to the definition of “job” that we are used to.
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“One day Trump will win.”
No, you won’t come to power, ever — except in melodramatic fantasies that might make an amusing made-for-television movie.
He’s simply a buffoon, and the worst that he might do is actually get Hillary elected in 2016.
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In the seventies, the Trump real-estate company was sued by the Justice Department for racial discrimination in its rental practices in Brooklyn, Staten Island, and Queens. After settling the case with Trump, the Justice Department sued yet again for non-compliance. In 1989, Trump took out an ad in the Daily News, and three other newspapers, about the Central Park jogger rape case, in which he declared that the “criminals of every age” who had been arrested twelve days earlier—five African-American and Hispanic teen-agers—were “crazed misfits,” part of “roving bands.” “BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY,” the ad read. “BRING BACK OUR POLICE!” Years after it turned out that someone else had committed the crime, and the young men had finally been released from prison, Trump wrote an unapologetic op-ed for the paper in which he called the city’s push for restitution payments to the men “a disgrace.” He made it plain that, to him, their lives were nothing, and, besides, “These young men do not exactly have the pasts of angels.”
http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-trump-balloon
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I am not comparing the two, but I wish to point out that Hitler also was portrayed as a buffoon before he took power. I’m also not defending Trump. My comment is about the depth of alienation in sectors of this society. People who feel they are being crushed don’t care about social justice — the pick up guns and shoot or they set up concentration camps for the people they feel are oppressing them, or they behead them. (The source of canon fodder for fascists and ISIS is the same.) Germany was a highly developed and civilized country before the Nazis came to power — just look how quickly that unraveled. I’m not a fan of Trump, but I don’t see him as evil. His role could be, like Hindenburg, to open the door for someone who is. And yes, there are scenarios in which he could win.
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I agree completely. Instead of mocking the Trump supporters, we’d be better served trying to understand the reasons of their fear and alienation.
The comparison with Hitler is very apt because Hitler managed to attract the people who were alienated and confused by the first wave of modernity. We are now experiencing the second wave. And the reaction to the advent of the painful and complex changes augured by modernity will be similar to what we saw back in the 1930s.
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Ah, the angel thing again. It just refuses to go away.
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If the email scandal takes Hillary down, which it might, the Trump could win this year either as a Republican or as an Independent.
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Nobody cares about “the email scandal.” These days, a scandal needs to be a lot more scandalous for anybody to care.
Right now, Hillary seems to have an easy path towards presidency. Unless there’s an economic collapse or Russia does something very stupid or Iran freaks out, she’s in the White House.
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Right now, Hillary seems to have an easy path towards presidency. Unless there’s an economic collapse or Russia does something very stupid or Iran freaks out, she’s in the White House.
I think her unfavourability ratings are rising. This is relevant, I suspect.
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Nobody cares about “the email scandal.” These days, a scandal needs to be a lot more scandalous for anybody to care.
Exactly, Clarissa. The Clintons endured one scandal after another in the 90’s, and the result of all that is that Hillary Clinton became a Senator, then Secretary of State, and now a Presidential contender. Bill Clinton, meanwhile, is a beloved figure and he spends his days schmoozing for dollars for his foundation.
Love them or hate them, but recognize that they are tough to take down.
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Sounds like a solid description of vatniks.
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Yes, vatniks exist everywhere. 🙂
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