TR MP EATS POLLS for LUNCH
Rogue candidate personifies the end of politics as usual,
David Welshhons knows first-hand that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump can be a divisive force. One day last week, he arrived home in Ankeny, Iowa, to find the two “Trump. Make America Great Again!” signs he had planted on his front lawn missing. The thief, it turned out, was his mother.
She returned one sign but kept the other for her home, modifying it to read “Dump Trump. Make America Sane Again!”
Media pundits, Sen. John McCain — even his own mother — have dismissed Trump supporters as crazies, but that only solidifies Welshhons’ conviction that the billionaire real-estate mogul and reality TV star is the leader the United States needs.
He calls Trump “a breath of fresh air,” a welcome change from the “career politicians” who have dominated for too long. If Trump is upsetting the Republican establishment, all the better.
“He’s taking a non-politically correct approach and it’s resonating,” said Welshhons, 47, who works in sales and marketing for a company that produces prepared meals for seniors.
“So many times, I’ve held my nose when I voted — you have to vote for somebody,” he said. “I’m more passionate about Donald Trump than I have been about any candidate for years.”
A national Washington Post-ABC News poll published this week suggests the passion is spreading among Republicans. The survey conducted July 16-19 found Trump was the favourite of 24 per cent of Republican supporters, compared with just 13 peer cent for his closest rival, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.
Former Florida governor Jeb Bush was third at 12 per cent. The Trump surge has confounded experts, many of whom dismiss it is a mediafuelled summer crush that will have deflated by the time the primaries roll around in 2016.
But New Hampshire state Representative Stephen Stepanek, co-chairman of Trump’s campaign in the state, said his appeal runs deeper. When he endorsed Trump in June, “a lot of people questioned my wisdom,” he said. But now ordinary folk stop him in the supermarket, expressing their support for the straight-shooting Trump.
“He is tapping into a group of people that I call the vast silent majority, who have been silent because they’re sick of politics as usual. They’re sick of the politicians who make promises that they know they can’t keep, on both sides of the aisle,” he said.
“They look at Donald Trump and say, ‘Finally somebody who can’t be bought, somebody who’s standing up to all the special interests, standing up to the people who are politically correct and saying, enough is enough’ …. These aren’t crazies. These aren’t right-wing nuts. These are average Americans who have given up on politics and they finally see somebody who they think will change it.”
If Trump’s success hinges on mobilizing a vast army of mad-as-hell Americans, he is in for a disappointment, said Seth Masket, a professor of political science at the University of Denver.
“There is a segment of the population that is always angry, at least when there’s a Democrat in the White House. They constantly feel that their government doesn’t represent them and that the country that they love and knew growing up is being taken away from them,” Masket said.
“They will rally when someone says the sort of things that Trump is saying. It doesn’t take a particularly deft genius to tap into that.”
But that group is too small to propel him to the nomination, he said.
“It is perhaps an exceptionally bright flash in the pan, but it’s still that,” he said. “There’s really nothing sustaining him other than he’s still more famous than anyone else, and people are reporting on the fact that he’s saying things.”
Larry Sabato, the director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said there is a long history of flavour-of-the-month candidates grabbing attention in the early days of a campaign. In 2011, when Trump was toying with the idea of seeking the nomination, an April poll put him at the front of the Republican field, 11 points ahead of eventual nominee Mitt Romney. Later during that campaign, Herman Cain, Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich all saw support surge as they briefly captured the media spotlight, only to fade away before it came time to vote.
“I think he’s already peaked,” Sabato said of Trump.
“He can stay in as long as he wants, as long as he’s willing to spend the money, and he can run as an independent. He’s got the resources.”
It is perhaps an exceptionally bright flash in the pan, but still that
“But he’s not going to be the Republican nominee for president and he’s not going to be president. He’s too controversial. The closer people get to the election, the more they think about the real consequences. Do you want Donald Trump’s finger on the button? You can hear the question already. The answer will be overwhelmingly no.”
Steffen Schmidt, a professor of political science at Iowa State University, has been following presidential campaigns for 45 years. He remembers people being as dismissive of Ronald Reagan in 1980 as they are of Trump today.
“They said there was no chance in hell that Ronald Reagan, a B-movie movie star who got all kinds of facts wrong, was going to be able to get the nomination and become president. And it happened,” he said.
Of course, Reagan had served as California governor, whereas Trump has no experience in office; and Reagan had a folksy charm that the name-calling Trump will never exude. But while Schmidt agrees Trump is a long shot to win the nomination, he won’t rule it out.
The United States is a country “drunk on celebrity,” he said. Voters have made a senator of comedian Al Franken and governors of film star Arnold Schwarzenegger and wrestler Jesse Ventura.
“Donald Trump is a household name. Everybody knows who he is,” Schmidt said. “They make fun of him and his hair comb-over and all that, but goodness, you know, there’s a possibility that enough Americans are shallow enough to say, ‘This guy, he’s loud, he’s pompous and all that, but he’s not a politician, and maybe he’ll give the politicians a hard knock and knock them into shape.’ “
Even more than in the polls, Trump’s domination over his Republican rivals is most striking on social media.
His postings on Facebook can draw hundreds of thousands of likes and tens of thousands of comments, mostly approving. Walker and Bush are lucky to generate a tenth as much Facebook interest.
Welshhons said the days of mainstream media shaping opinion are over. “At the end of the day, they’re not going to sway me, and obviously they’re not swaying a lot of people, because Trump just keeps getting traction,” he said.
Beth Hollis, 56, a marriage counsellor in Denver, acknowledged Trump can be an egotistical “blowhard,” but she said that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t make a good president.
“Trump is smart. He did not get to where he is by being stupid. And he’s not afraid to alienate people,” she said.
She worries about the state of her nation. “We are so in debt. We are owned by China. Our military is hardly respected. Everyone is tiptoeing around Iran,” she said. “We need someone with chutzpah.”
Some are inspired by Trump’s denunciation of illegal immigrants, by his promise to protect American jobs or by his defence of the military and veterans, but mostly people seem to be drawn to his persona as the anti-politician.
“It’s unscreened, it’s unfiltered,” said Chris Sanger, 30, a realtor in Houston. “I mean, this guy comes out, and he tells it like it is, and I think that’s something that’s important in American politics.”
Sanger, a Republican who ran unsuccessfully for state office in Iowa in 2010 before moving to Texas, said the political establishment is “shaking in its boots” at the prospect of a rogue candidate.
“They can’t control him, and they are afraid that they aren’t going to be able to control the American people,” he said. “This is something they are going to have to get used to, because our generation is tired of being taken advantage of by the political class.”