If you asked the typical liberal one-percenter in New York City to describe a conservative, what would they say?
Racists and xenophobes? Check.
Religious bigots? Check.
Reactionaries and victim shamers? Check.
Simpletons who lack substance and fall for platitudes? Check.
Hyper-paranoid birther conspiracy nut jobs? Check.
Moral hypocrites? Check.
Lacking in critical thinking skills? Check.
Except what I just laid out doesn’t only weigh in as standard liberal elitist demagoguery of conservatives. It also happens to be the exact kind of campaign Donald Trump, himself a lifelong liberal one-percenter from New York City, is now waging for the GOP presidential nomination.
Like many conservatives tired of being emasculated by political correctness, I was originally willing to give Trump 2016 a chance. Especially because he seemed willing to do what must be done to defeat our betrayers — the eternally feckless GOP establishment. But now that we have witnessed months of Mr. Trump’s actual campaigning, a disturbing trend has emerged. And it’s a trend none of us should be proud of.
Mr. Trump consistently tries to elevate himself by appealing to the worst in us, and he does so by playing to the same sneering stereotypes of conservatives many liberal elites like Mr. Trump cling to.
When Mr. Trump flirted with running against Obama in 2012, he played the birther card until the president released his birth certificate and he was discredited. Four years later, he’s now playing the birther card against Ted Cruz, despite the fact he’s been discredited once more from numerous sources.
Yet no matter how many times Mr. Trump is shown that birtherism is intellectually dishonest and bankrupt (like if Mr. Cruz isn’t a natural-born citizen, why didn’t he have to be naturalized to become an American?), in the comments section for this article you’ll likely find a Trump supporter assert that both parents have to be natural-born for their children to be afforded the same status. Except in that case Mr. Trump isn’t eligible to be president, either, since his mother was originally from another country. Just like Mr. Cruz’s father was.
Now look at the way Mr. Trump messages the vitally important immigration issue in a recent television ad, which features video of a border surge by Muslims from Algeria. Mr. Trump previously called for going as far as registering Americans based on their religion, yet at the same time Mr. Trump has had no problem with making millions of dollars doing business with predominantly Muslim countries. Go figure.
Mr. Trump also attacked both Mr. Cruz and Ben Carson for their religion, using language to insinuate they weren’t really Christians because Mr. Carson is a Seventh-Day Adventist and evangelicals like Mr. Cruz “don’t come from Cuba.” For Mr. Trump to play the orthodoxy card is pretty rich, considering he admits he’s never asked God for forgiveness and claims self-esteem peddler/heretic Norman Vincent Peale as his greatest spiritual influence. But Mr. Trump, like most elitist liberals, assumes people claiming to be Christians don’t know what any of these distinctions mean and therefore will fall for anything.
There’s a Trump commercial out right now where he just repeats variations of his slogan “making America great again” while offering no specifics. Substitute that with “hope and change” and we’ve heard this all before. Unfortunately, most of the interaction I have with Trump supporters is little more than a variation of this mantra repeated back to me, which may or may not include some vague references to his polling numbers. In other words, there is little to no conservativism of substance whatsoever.
With Hillary Clinton also running for president, Mr. Trump has naturally taken to attacking the well-known personal peccadilloes of the Clintons. That comes after years of wooing them with cash for political influence while knowing full well Bill Clinton’s well-deserved reputation for using and abusing women. Apparently Mr. Trump, who himself has had his share of tabloid media devoted to his moral indiscretions, only started caring about the Clintons’ “bimbo eruptions” when he wanted to run for president. Seems like weird timing to finally get your righteous indignation fired up.
How about the way Mr. Trump seems to erupt and overreact while on stage at an event, or via social media, toward even the slightest opposition or disagreement. You know the drill. Over-the-top, easily disproven assertions that make him come across on Twitter like he has “Bieber fever” instead of presidential gravitas. Basically, Mr. Trump’s persona in the face of pushback is to resort to textbook examples of how liberal elites stereotype conservatives — and particularly how liberal elites stereotype listeners/consumers of conservative talk radio/media.
In short, either this is all a coincidence and Mr. Trump somehow managed to build his empire by being immature and shallow, or our movement/party is being trolled by a shrewd New York City liberal billionaire. Who has cynically calculated we are the exact lemmings his fellow liberal elites always thought we were, and he can parlay that into winning the most powerful office in the world.
This is just as Obama used stereotypes of liberals worshiping the state as a god, desiring a secular messiah, and being low-information voters to forge his successful path to the White House eight years ago. Now we are seeing desperate people on our side fall for similar smoke and mirrors because they’re rightfully tired of the corruption in Washington, and justifiably looking for an alpha-leader type.
However, my friends, remember that nothing good ever comes from desperation when discernment is needed instead. History is replete with people making the worst of decisions because they acted out of desperation. Like how practically every bad public policy in America begins with someone breathlessly uttering the phrase “something must be done.”
I’m not claiming Mr. Trump is some sinister figure. But he’s a typical politician lying and scheming his way to acquire the power/prestige he wants. You don’t make billions of dollars by happenstance, and you don’t just happen to deploy every negative stereotype of conservatives in order to win over their support, either. This is a well-calculated scheme by a guy who has made billions by outscheming and outcalculating his rivals — usually by counting on their collective desperation, cowardice and lack of discernment working to his benefit.
Let’s not be Mr. Trump’s next mark, because if and when he fails or is finally exposed, we won’t get to buy-off more politicians or manipulate the bankruptcy laws to save our skins the way Mr. Trump gets to. It is our way of life and constitutional republic that will suffer.
The country already allowed one narcissist to prey on its desperation all the way to the White House, and look where we are eight years later. It cannot afford another.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.