The sky may be falling
The latest issue of Maclean’s magazine features a front page article about 11 Americans who are said to be representative of the significant numbers of their countrymen who are expected to vote for Donald Trump in the November U.S. presidential election. Let’s call them “Trumpeters.”
Their motivations are similar and they manifest several overarching themes. Trump supporters seriously dislike and distrust the political elite in Washington and see themselves, and the Donald, as outsiders. They feel betrayed by their elected representatives, who they see as beholden to vested interests, and Herr Trump [Drumpf] has given them a way to express their anger and a means to seek their revenge. His supporters are convinced that illegal and, to a lesser degree, legal immigrants threaten the economic security of their children. They have bought into the myth that illegal immigrants are taking jobs away from real Americans and that undocumented aliens are a major cause of the crime wave which Trumpeters feel is sweeping their country. Neither of these beliefs is supported by the facts, but that doesn’t seem to matter.
They are convinced that terrorists, read radical Islamic jihadists, are a serious threat to their family’s personal security and that pre-screening Muslims for un-American beliefs and denying them entry into the U.S. will fix that problem.
In reality, obesity and unhealthy lifestyles should be a much bigger worry. For the first time in a century, life expectancy in the U.S. is declining. Trump supporters sense that the U.S. is no longer the pre-eminent nation on the world stage and, in some respects, they are right. In recent decades the U.S. has maintained its position as the most powerful and influential country on earth by dint of its economic power, its military might and an unwavering belief that if it’s good for America it must be good for the world. Trumpeters have bought into the Donald’s assurances that he will make the U.S. military the most fearsome fighting force in the world … again. His reasoning, and theirs, seems to be: if we can’t be the most loved and the most highly respected, we will at least be the most feared.
His supporters feel that U.S. military veterans are no longer treated with the high degree of respect they have traditionally commanded. American culture has always lionized serving one’s country. Not so much anymore. However, the primary reason for their unswerving loyalty to a man who has been described as a racist and misogynist, a narcissistic rabble rouser with no political experience, a self-serving entrepreneur with a checkered business record, a man with questionable personal morals and with a complete disregard for the truth is that the only one between him and the White House is Hillary Clinton. Above all else, they detest and distrust Hillary Clinton. Her lack of public warmth and charisma, coupled with her secretive nature and reputation for bending the truth may deliver the kiss of death to her campaign, a competition which probably could have been won in a landslide by any other credible Democrat, possibly even Bernie Sanders.
This election will be won by the side which is more successful in striking fear into the hearts of its supporters by convincing them that, if they don’t vote, Chicken Little may turn out to be right. If the other side wins, the sky may indeed fall.