A PREFACE FOR THE PEOPLE’S CUBE [ FULL PROG OFF ]

I originally wrote this article for the American Thinker (03/28/16). I wasn’t going to post it here, hoping to spare this site from the same temporary insanity that has split the rest of America into those who support Trump and those who hate him and his supporters (as evident from the 633 comments on AT). But then a couple of weeks later I was contacted by Australia’s major news site, News.com.au, with a request to republish the piece. It was published on 4/16/16, richly illustrated with archive photos and videos – and once again, attracted many comments, ranging from “the best article I’ve seen on news.com.au in years” to “you suck.” Apparently, this is an international phenomenon.

My Italian friend tells me their media is mostly anti-Trump. That made me wonder about how far this phenomenon goes. So I’m going to ask all our international readers and contributors to tell us if they know people in their own countries who support/oppose Trump’s candidacy and would like/hate to see a similar leader emerge there as well. If so, what are their arguments? Could you summarize the pro-Trump / anti-Trump split in your country (or other countries you know), and post it below in the comments?

If for whatever reason you can’t post it here yourself, email me your thoughts to RedSquare@ThePeoplesCube.com – and I’ll post them for you (let me know if you’d rather use your real name or a nickname).

Thus, instead of avoiding insanity on this site I’m going to take a risk and take it to an international level. Oh well. The good news is, this insanity is temporary and should mostly abate, at least on the right-hand side, either around the time of the GOP Convention (July 18-21), or the general election (November 8). On the general historical timeline this distance amounts to a millisecond, and I wish more people would treat it this way.

Perhaps, with your help, this article may well have an international sequel.

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Some of my best friends are Trump supporters

By Oleg Atbashian

Trump supporters are, perhaps, the only group of voters in this nation’s history who have been so viciously and consistently maligned, and in such a coordinated manner, by both political parties. At the same time, not much is known about them, despite the recent spate of articles attempting to explain the phenomenon. The problem with that is that the authors admittedly don’t know any of the Trump supporters themselves. Well, I happen to know quite a few of them personally.

Full disclosure: first, I can’t vote because I’m not a U.S. citizen yet, despite my best and decades-long efforts — but let’s leave the immigration system’s misplaced priorities for another day.

Second, I like to form my opinions about the candidates and their supporters independently, without taking advice from media pundits or Facebook messages from pro-Cruz acquaintances.

Third, I like both Cruz and Trump. I’m not as passionate about them as some; I’m merely pragmatic: I like anyone who can stop America’s descent into socialism or, better yet, reverse the course entirely. I also realize that America has come to a point when having big ideas is no longer enough; in order to shake up the system and get the economy moving the next president must also be a bigger-than-life mover and shaker.

Since I’m not allowed to vote, I remain simply an objective observer of American politics, judging the process from the perspective of a former Soviet citizen, who during the times of the glorious Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was forced to cast single-name ballots for candidates I didn’t know nor cared about. A total 100% voter turnout in practice meant total apathy: most people dropped paper ballots into the boxes without reading them. The occasional rare signs of passion were the ballots with crossed-out names and large capital letters saying, BLOODSUCKERS ALL; those were extracted by the KGB for handwriting analysis. Voting had become a periodic ritual of obedience and surrender before the powerful state and a reminder that we were all equal slaves in the eyes of our masters.

That memory makes American elections even more interesting. First it’s the primaries, where candidates from each political party position themselves in a circular firing squad, trying to assassinate each other’s character and reputation. Once only a few of them remain standing, their supporters start fighting and demonizing each other on social media to the point where to an objective observer every candidate looks like the most corrupt and immoral scoundrel and the worst human being who ever lived. Finally, the two surviving candidates from each party, badly wounded and bloodied, begin to punch each other in the wounds during the general election, as their supporters continue to fight and demonize each other on social media. The one who still stands by November is then declared Leader of the Free World.

At least that’s how most foreigners see it, especially if they are unfamiliar with the differences between the two parties and get their facts from the mainstream media which always promotes one party and pretends to be fair to the other. Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others, said Winston S. Churchill, and he had his own political wounds to prove it.

This year’s election especially fits the above caricature. The strongest fire from all media portholes and loopholes is directed at the Republican frontrunner, Donald Trump, and his supporters. They are being described as uneducated, angry, vengeful, racist, xenophobic, and plain stupid. Authors of these assumptions, mostly writing from within the Boston-New York-Washington corridor, admit that they don’t even know anyone who likes Trump. But how can they write about what they don’t know? When the electoral map is fluid, when things are happening rapidly in real time, and when no reliable historical data exists, we rely on personal experiences and anecdotal evidence. In the absence of such, the writers simply fill the gaps in their knowledge with their own prejudices, similar to how medieval mapmakers marked unexplored areas with “here be dragons.”

There’s a big probability that Trump supporters are, in fact, all around them, even in their own families — and the reason why these writers don’t know it, is their own snobbery. No one likes to be called stupid, his IQ questioned, or presumed to be an unthinking herd animal, and many simply don’t have the time to stop and explain their reasons whenever a #NeverTrump activist feels like trashing Trump voters. Many simply choose to remain silent.

This study explains why many polls underestimated Trump’s support: Trump has consistently polled better on anonymous online polls than on phone surveys because some of his supporters were unwilling to identify themselves publicly. In other words, public shaming didn’t unwean Trump from his supporters but caused them to go underground.

Doesn’t this also describe how the majority of Americans have felt in recent decades, being constantly shamed into silence by the “progressive” media, education, and the cultural establishment? I know this too well, having worked in New York’s “progressive” corporate environment. My co-workers would ask me about life in the USSR and I would tell them exactly what I thought about socialism and political correctness until I realized that most of them didn’t like my answers and I was only hurting myself by speaking my mind. Some gave me frightened looks, others stopped talking with me. I might as well have told them that life in the USSR was similar to life in New York, where people had to learn to keep their mouths shut and to look over their shoulders before saying anything remotely political. So much for emigrating into a free country. It felt like history was about to repeat itself. Until now.

Consider this story: there lived an apathetic silent majority, maligned and shamed by its leaders and the official media, and they thought it would never end. But one day a miracle happened: they suddenly heard a voice that articulated their own forbidden thoughts — something they had been afraid to articulate in public, even though it was common sense — words not dressed in flowery rhetoric and rounded sentences, but delivered roughly, in a regional accent of the common man — plain and truthful words coming from the highest pulpit in the nation. Millions of people recognized their own voices in his, lending him their support — silently at first, but more and more vocal as time went by — to a point that they went out into the streets to defend him in the face of violent and dangerous opposition from the far Left.

I am talking, of course, about Mikhail Gorbachev and the reaction he first received from the Soviets when he started his Perestroika and Glasnost in the USSR. I remember it clearly because I was one of them. Gorbachev wasn’t perfect by any measure, and yet he started a process that shook up the corrupt establishment, ended the rule of the powerful Communist Party, liberalized the economy, and opened the country to an honest debate about its problems. The parallels with Donald Trump, his message, and his appeal with America’s silent majority are unmistakable.

That the Soviet Union’s problems turned out to be irreconcilable wasn’t Gorby’s fault; the country had already been damaged beyond repair by seven decades of ruthless socialist experimentation. America hasn’t yet gone that far, but the wild popularity of socialist Bernie Sanders with the “screaming minority” of young voters may be an indication that this election may be America’s last exit before the road ends off a cliff.

Giving voice to the silent majority is one of the factors why Trump leads in the race. Some other factors will become clear if we look at some of his individual supporters. I know who they are because they aren’t afraid to open up to me. They know that unlike the above established essayists, I won’t be calling them names or trying to shame the silent majority back into silence. For the same reason I’m not using their real names.

Jack

Jack is an accomplished classical musician, a fine wordsmith, a long-time conservative, and a devout Christian. When a broken shoulder made him unable to hold the instrument, he used his sharp, perceptive mind and his degree in economy to make himself a fortune in the financial markets. Now he can afford to relax and write novels.

Jack gave me his take on the demonization of Trump and the stereotyping of his supporters as poorly educated, low-information rubes. According to Jack, both the Republican and the Democrat establishments are corrupt and dysfunctional, but the one thing they can do well is manufacture media narratives that infect people’s minds with notions that are beneficial to the respective branch of political aristocracy, while causing aversion to anything that endangers it.

Trump is a clear and present danger to this corrupt and elitist system. He is willing and fully able to blow to smithereens all their carefully established social hierarchies and to change the entire political culture, which will make the elites unnecessary and expose the uselessness of their cherished and very expensive apparatus. The GOP establishment’s fear and loathing of Trump is so intense that even losing the election to Hillary seems to many of them a lesser evil.

The same establishment remained ineffective throughout the Obama presidency. Obama didn’t threaten their careers and each one of his disastrous policies was to them a lucrative fundraising opportunity. In contrast, Trump threatens their very survival — and suddenly the establishment’s speed and effectiveness is phenomenal. Their quickly constructed #NeverTrump narrative is targeting conservative “purists” and die-hard Ted Cruz supporters, infecting them with hostility that reaches and surpasses the ill-famed Bush Derangement Syndrome.

The sad irony of the #NeverTrump movement is that these self-proclaimed “true conservatives” and “anti-establishment rebels” have swallowed the establishment’s narrative hook, line, and sinker. Worse yet, they now indiscriminately share social media links from previously despised leftist sources, as long as they attack Trump. So much for their stereotyping of Trump supporters as gullible, angry jerks.

Jack isn’t a Cruz-hater. In fact, he would just as much like to see Ted Cruz become president, if he can win in the general election — which is unlikely. Like most Trump supporters I know, Jack doesn’t treat other candidates with the same hostility. There’s no organized #NeverCruz movement to speak of, and no one except Cruz supporters are creating blacklists targeting the other side. Jack is sad to see that so many good, previously sane people have succumbed to the #NeverTrump lunacy.

Mike

My other friend, Mike, who is a conservative writer, approaches this from a different angle. He likes Ted Cruz because Cruz has all the right answers, but that’s not enough. Mike compares Cruz to a professor who can recite the chemistry textbook by heart. Trump, on the other hand, is a wild man who wants to use the formulas in that same textbook to blow away our enemies. At this point in history we don’t need a professor, we need the wild man.

Brendan

Brendan is an immigrant from Ireland, who says that when he came to the U.S., he expected to see an American leader to be more like John Wayne — a decisive and confident guy with swagger — and not like Pee Wee Herman or a European-style spineless socialist.

Brendan has spent years working on New York construction projects, including some that involved Donald Trump. He witnessed Trump getting personally involved with contractors and workers without any mediators, not afraid to get dirty and drive a hard bargain. Trump has never lost his lower-class accent he picked up growing up in Queens, and he was never accepted by the snooty New York elites as their own. But he has always been liked and accepted by the working classes as a “people’s billionaire.”

He doesn’t see anger among Trump’s supporters, but rather optimism and love for the country. He also scoffs at those who compare Trump to Mussolini or Hitler. Trump has been in the public eye for almost 70 years, running a large business, producing a TV show, and nobody ever complained about him acting like a despot. Don’t you think that if Trump had the slightest trace of a dictator in him, someone would have brought it up and the media would have trumpeted it all over the world?

Brendan also likes Ted Cruz and shares many of his ideas. But even if Cruz is president, says Brendan, he’ll be lucky if he’s able to implement at least 10% of those ideas in practice. Trump, with his ability to overcome obstacles, will probably get at least 70% done. Brendan may not share 100% of Trump’s ideas, but he would rather see 50% of them implemented by Trump than 10% by Cruz, or 0% by Bernie or Hillary.

Ann

Ann has recently parted with feminism and quit the NOW over what she describes as the betrayal of women’s rights by feminist leadership. The politically correct, leftist feminist establishment has done nothing to oppose the oppression of women in Sharia-dominated societies, and continues to oppose any attempt to prevent the spreading of the patriarchal and misogynistic Sharia values through Muslim immigration in America. In Ann’s words, by supporting pro-Sharia multiculturalism, NOW effectively sided with male chauvinists over women’s rights.

Ann isn’t buying the divisive argument that Trump is anti-women, saying that giving women special allowances because of their gender is condescending. You can’t eat cake and have it, too. If you demand equal treatment, be ready for equal treatment. One can’t beat Hillary if one is too concerned with sparing her feelings. We are all adult individuals.

While fighting patriarchy in our society, she says, the radical leftist feminists went too far and destroyed manhood itself, along with fatherhood. It’s bad for the families, for the children, and especially for women. Ann sees Trump as a successful male role model and a father figure. If he weren’t one in real life, his own children wouldn’t have turned out so well.

The Left has emasculated our men, she says. Fathers in popular culture changed from “Father Knows Best” to Homer Simpson: the butt of all jokes and the last to get the joke. Fatherless children who grew up watching The Simpsons are father-hungry. Trump, she says, will be like the dad who comes home to an out-of-control house party, makes the kids clean up, kicks out the troublemakers, and sues their parents for damages.

Ann sees today’s emasculated warrior class, with new recruits using time-out cards if under too much stress, and she is worried about their ability to defend us. She sees the European “men” who do nothing to protect their women or their nations from organized, systemic rape by Sharia-fueled “guests,” and predicts that will happen to us, too, if we don’t change course.

She sees the spineless millennials wishing for Bernie Sanders to ensure their perpetual childhood, and she blames the leftist education for crippling their minds and souls. The worst part is that these young doormats hate, not those who disabled them, but those who keep spines intact. Ann believes we have entered the age of fear and denouncements, where anyone with a spine is automatically perceived as a fascist, racist, homophobe, Islamophobe, and so on.

Trump is giving American men permission to be men again, to say what they think, and to stand tall without guilt or fear, says Ann. She quotes Billy Graham: “Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened.” No wonder Graham’s son endorsed Donald Trump. With Trump as president, a new generation of Americans will have a chance to grow up having a spine, with a positive male role model to compensate for their fathers who are either missing or have been neutered. His campaign slogan may as well be, “Men! Take back thy manhood!”

After seven painful years of watching our Commander-in-Chief bunny-hopping down plane and helicopter steps, struggling to lift one-pound barbells, girl-throwing first baseballs in mom jeans, and dressing up in little cowboy outfits, the country needs a masculine reset.

The return of a strong, manly man to our culture will be great news for women, who have grown tired of being single-income mothers, leaders, fighters, and protesters, Ann says. And America will have a chance to get back its emotional and psychological health, confidence, optimism, and positive disposition that’s been missing for too long.

Colin

Colin had a successful international career as a dancer and choreographer, ranging from performing and teaching classical ballet to modern dance, from acting on Broadway to choreographing dances for some of the most famous pop stars, whose names I’m withholding for obvious reasons. In case anyone is wondering, Colin is not gay and lives with a long-time girlfriend. He also has a sizable collection of guns, likes hunting and fishing, and drives an SUV. Having been to every corner of the earth, he retired and became my neighbor here in Florida, where we became good friends and have spent many evenings playing music and sharing stories.

Colin never spoke about politics and whenever I or anyone else touched on that subject, he would start singing some silly tune in a loud, raspy voice, ending any possible debate. That was until this summer, when he decided to support Donald Trump. Not only did he tell this to all his friends and neighbors, some of whom were die-hard liberal leftists; he also called everyone in his phone book, encouraging them to vote for Trump as well, thus becoming an unaffiliated Trump campaign volunteer.

His reason for the sudden change of heart was that for the first time in his life he heard a presidential candidate whose words made perfect sense. All the others, according to Colin, were trained weasels giving rehearsed performances, which he could instantly spot with his professional background. Unlike the rest, Trump spoke off the cuff, didn’t mince words, called things by their real names, and used strong language when necessary, unconcerned about what society and the media would say about that behind his back. I couldn’t help noticing that, in a way, Colin was describing himself. If he were ever to go into politics, he would’ve done it pretty much the same way, except for the hairstyle.

Christina

Christina has a PhD in literature, but her academic career ended when she evolved from a liberal into an outspoken conservative. All her previous activism in helping the inner city families, being involved in refugee resettlement programs, working with the ACLU, and other liberal credentials didn’t matter anymore. She became an untouchable and soon lost her job. Since then she has been active in local Republican politics and Tea Party circles, exposing the rot in America’s education system, fighting Common Core, and organizing book tours for conservative authors.

She sees Trump as the only candidate who is not buying into the neurotic identity politics that’s currently driving both political parties. In her experience, identity politics and political correctness are the drivers of fascism in America today. In that sense, Trump is the most anti-fascist candidate in the race — and the most optimistic one, too.

The first Trump rally she attended was different from all other political events she has seen, which usually attract party regulars and the party elite. The people in this crowd weren’t very political; many of them first-timers — those who don’t live and die over the latest little fluff-up in DNC or the GOP or even the Tea Party. Christina thought that was very significant.

There were old people, young families, teenagers, blacks, whites, and a good number of Southeast Asians. This was in Norcross, Georgia, which has one of the most ethnically varied populations in the South and maybe even the U.S. It’s a major refugee placement site and also attracts immigrants from India, Asia, and Africa. So there are a lot of immigrant entrepreneurs and small business owners in Norcross, and she saw a lot of that actual diversity — including economic diversity — in the crowd, says Christina.

She doesn’t understand how anyone in the GOP could be so recalcitrant as to not see this as an extraordinary opportunity to grow the GOP brand. Trump alone has the ability to move people towards conservatism: doesn’t the GOP get that? Christina sees Trump as an object lesson in moving towards conservative values in his own life, and he can move other people in the same direction.

She objects to the description of Trump supporters as angry. There was no love lost for either political party or for the media in that crowd, she says, but the people weren’t angry at all: they were optimistic. It was the sort of optimism people felt when Reagan was elected. Trump’s message was patriotic and positive, praising America’s virtues and the value of hard work and self-sufficiency. It’s sad that the Republican Party couldn’t see the extraordinarily positive message Trump was delivering, and the positive spirit with which it was received.

At that moment, the election could have been in the GOP’s hands, had they not launched a coordinated assault on Trump and his followers. The editors at National Review and others of their ilk ought to be on their knees celebrating their good luck that someone like Trump has come along at this particular moment in American history. But instead, they’re so angry they’re overturning their sandboxes and pitching tantrums, she says.

Imagine how different this race would be if the GOP hadn’t tried to salt the earth around Trump and his supporters, says Christina. She believes that if they had only remained neutral, the party would currently be growing by leaps and bounds. The very landscape of the electorate would be shifting towards conservatism and away from liberalism. But it was more important for the party elites to control people than to listen to them.

* * *

At the risk of alienating many of my readers (if they are still reading, of course), let me say that I share all these opinions and have plenty of my own to add, but that would have to be my next essay.

RULES FOR THIS DISCUSSION:

Don’t make me post the full set of rules!

Speaking of Belgium:

population:
I think that the Belgian (and in general: the Western European) public is almost solidly anti-Trump. Even anti Political Correctness friends of mine can say no good word about him. I have stopped trying 🙂 It’s funny because it’s true Doublethink(tm) in all it’s glory: they might be 100% pro border fences and strong immigration laws, but would start bashing Trump on his mexican wall. They’d talk about too much muslim immigration, but would say Trump’s “temporary ban” is evil. It’s all so strange 🙂

media:
The media in Belgium, well… I think you can guess 🙂 Being anti-trump is so “basic” that there is not really any form of debate. Up until a few weeks ago, a radio star would start anti-trump narrative, convinced of the Holy Truth of the Anti-Trump movement. Opposing that, well… nobody would take you serious anymore. Since Trump’s candidacy has become more serious and he got more and more support, they are also treating him more as a serious candidate. But often you can hear – sometimes between the lines – the opposition against a Trump presidency in many talk-shows, mainstream media outlets and interviews.

politicians:
In Belgium, the NVA politician (and chairman of the Parliament) Siegfried Bracke said something like “it’s good Trump shakes the system” during an interview (behind pay – wall, cannot link it here) in a major newspaper (de standaard). He was referring to the current political correct climate of the western world. I think he’s about the only one up ’til now…

Other leaders in Europe that are anti-PC in a Trump kind of way? I think Orban gets close… maybe Frauke Petry from AFD. Of course Nigel Farage from UKIP. But in mainstream media in Belgium these people are rarely given a free forum. And even they would not dare (I think) to openly support Trump in a serious way: it would be too “out of the box” for most Europeans. But our Hungarian, German and British Kubists will have to answer for that 🙂

myself:
I cannot vote in this election, so who cares right? But I do have an enormous, visceral aversion against every form of smug, pseuo-intellectual finger-waving condescending political Korrekt thought – control. If any person with Trump’s number of supporters gets ridiculed in the name of “Correct Thinking” without any honest attempt to fight his ideas with good arguments then I immediately get a lot of sympathy for him (I am talking mainly of the European media now, I cannot speak entirely for the US of course).
Apart from that, I’m not sure who I’d vote for if I were a US citizen.

Komrades, make the right choice (whoever it may be), and do not forget to laugh!

The numbers illustrate this quite nicely – As of March 15 the media has bequeathed a $2 billion gift to in free media to Donald:
The media’s $2 billion gift to Trump
The Prime Time Primary: Trump vs. His Rivals on Cable News

Quote:

Our study found that FNC spent much more time interviewing Trump and his surrogates than either of his GOP competitors. Over the past four weeks, Trump was interviewed for a total of 178 minutes on Fox, vs. 106 minutes on CNN and 43 minutes on MSNBC. (Interviews includes network-sponsored town halls as well as sit-downs with a network host, but not debates or live coverage of rallies or speeches.)

And for those who may dispute this asseveration, I would ask when was the last time Donald had to deal with a challenging interview?

The tremendous advantage coupled with Donald’s celebrity status has driven his polls numbers, but these advantages would quickly turn to dross were the Donald disaster to befall the nation. The past is prologue and it should be obvious they are holding their rhetorical fire until the right moment just as they have with the last few presidential contests.

His onetime media allies would quickly turn on him and unleash a media onslaught the likes of which no one has seen before. One cannot under estimate the stakes in this election of the US and the rest of the world. This one is for all the marbles, for if the left wins this one we will have reached the point of no return.

Most, if not all analysis shows this to be the case to the point of being a landslide for them:
Trump Can’t Win
Electoral Map: A Clinton blowout, higher GOP ‘defection rate’
The stark reality is that were Donald to become the nominee, the result would be catastrophic to say the least. The national Socialist left would win the general election contest with a predicted down ballot apocalypse, a leftist extreme court would eviscerate the bill of rights and the border would be opened to the illegal invasion.

We would no longer have control over our own destiny, and the only other recourse would be a second civil war or revolution. And trust me, I have heard this sentiment expressed by more than a few people who happen to be Donners [Donald Trump supporters], one of whom was running for office.

As a student of history, one of my favorite pastimes is to tour battlefields and historic sites to walk the ground of places that have witnessed of time’s inflection points. Like it or not, we are all in one of those moments in time that could diverge either way towards liberty or towards tyranny. It is my firm belief that supporting Donald would send everyone on the later course on the road to tyranny.

That is why I support Ted Cruz.
We do not have any other choice in the matter.

You didn’t see me trashing Cruz, did you? Why don’t you stick to the same rule?

You just confirmed my earlier point that Cruz supporters can’t praise their candidate without throwing a shovel load of troll poo at anyone who doesn’t pledge allegiance to their guy. That’s not attracting people to your cause; most normal people will just run away.

Worse yet, your load of troll poo came pre-packaged, with a “made in Nevertrumpland” label. Now, how exactly does joining forces with the Establishment make you “anti-Establishment?”

The campaigns have thrown (and will continue to throw) all kinds of political poo at one another. That’s what campaigns do. But then some people like to pick up the splatter and smear themselves and others in it. Such behavior is more suitable on social media or some political websites dedicated to this sort of activity. Let’s keep it there.

There’s a lot of troll poo that can be thrown at Cruz as well. But if we start depositing it here from both sides, we’ll all drown in it and our glorious red pages will become brown. Let’s not do it, if only for sanitary purposes.

But since you have already threw in some of that poo, I’ll have to clean it up:

Much of that media attention you mention was negative (e.g., Chris Matthews, Megyn Kelly, etc.), translating into high negatives for Trump – something Cruz never fails to mention. Besides, those negatives are passed from the US media to the international media, as we’re seeing from the overseas comments (more to come). You can’t eat cake and have it, too. Those who accuse Trump of whining shouldn’t whine themselves, don’t you think?

Now, please, no more copy-pasting of random links and campaign talking points from either side. This thread has a theme and a purpose: your personal experiences only, preferably if it relates to foreign perceptions of this campaign.

Thus the extreme danger of the situation.

2. The links I posted were to bolster my points as to this treatment.

3. Further still, the links to the analysis I posted showing a catastrophic loss were sourced from many varied polling units and the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.

Now, you asked for my personal experiences and I outlined some of them at the end of the piece.

You have my apologies for not precisely understanding the purpose of the piece, but the facts are the facts in the media coverage of the primary season.

Okay Kids,

So Red emailed me as part of an ongoing discussion, and he asked me what Kanadistanjians think of Trump, in general, and if I actually knew anyone who supported Trump, and if so, why… and if not, why…

So I conducted a small survey/study, which I can’t really call scientific, just because the sample size was so small that I can’t remotely claim it reached ∑, but here’s what I came up with.

… No. (or for those more colloquially inclined, Nope.)

Most of those I spoke to consider themselves at least fiscally conservative, but that might be part of why I got the result I did. While many Kanadistanjians are fiscally conservative, we tend to also have a strong streak of social consciousness, for lack of a better way to put it, or conscience… it’s one of those (apologies for bad grammar) things that I can never quite decide the right word for so I offer both. Even those of us who believe that there’s not anything wrong with a two-tiered medical system for those who can afford to pay, generally feel precisely that, because we realize that anybody who’s rich enough to pay for their medical care is taking those consumer dollars outside of Kanadistan, and why shouldn’t they stay in our economy? It’s just stupid to force people to buy something, even medical care, outside of Kanadistan, and ultimately, we can use the tax dollars from pay-for-medical services for the universal health care system. I mean, seriously… look at the UK. Their universal or National Health Service gets worse and worse every year, but by the same token, we fear a national health care safety net as fragmented as the US’. Sorry… that may seem off topic but I think it’s necessary to explain the Kanadistanjian psyche, at least a little.

Anyhow, of those who would categorize themselves as fiscally conservative but don’t like Trump, I can pretty much sum up their dislike of him as a possible President in terms that are also very Kanadistanjian… he’s too much of an egotistical asstard…. He’s too full of himself. He lacks Kanadistanjian humility… We are a nation that, in spite of everyone thinking we say ‘eh’ a lot, actually use the word ‘sorry,’ more than any other country, and in multiple ways… It can mean ‘pardon,’… “excuse me,”… “I understand how you feel,”… and innumerable other things, and when people tell us that it annoys them how we use ‘sorry,’ so much in conversation, we generally reply by saying… you got it… “sorry.”

It’s our innate British-ness that we can’t escape. We are much more able to talk about emotions and feelings than the Brits, but we still have an innate dislike of flashiness and a lack of humility. We are made uncomfortable by people who are overly loud and self-serving and who toot their own horns and draw attention to themselves, except for Drake, who does it in the name of our only basketball team. We are shy people… stuck somewhere between our British past and our neighbours to the south.

So, even those of us who consider ourselves relatively conservative, or like me, heterodox, innately shy away from people like Trump because he is loud and boorish. I have said that I feel some despair over our country’s recent choice of Prime Minister, given that truthfully, I am literally more qualified than he is to run a country, and yet, when there is someone who is potentially (and I’m still not sure about this) fit to run a country in a more business-like way, exactly when it needs to be run that way, we dislike him… because he’s loud and boorish. I cannot bring myself to like him, even if I know I don’t need to like him to think he’s more capable than his opponents. I think many of us in what, to use what most believe is a Drake-ism, but which has been around since just after we amalgamated our city… that many of us in “The 6” look at Trump, and think, “seriously… you’d make a bigger badder version of Rob Ford your president?”… And maybe that is what it comes down to…

We aren’t that sure that despite his wealth and seeming business acumen, he’s as good at it as he likes to think, and he wants others to think. He’s had as many business failures as he’s had successes, and if this election were taking place at any other time… in the past, when he was on the verge of bankrupting his own businesses, we’d think he wasn’t such a great choice. And that is perhaps why, we are uncertain and somewhat dubious or doubtful… because although he might be on the upswing right now, he has, in the past, not always been as risk averse as he should be, and so simply because, business-wise, he is successful, we don’t quite trust his level of risk-aversion when it comes to running a country. Historically, many successful business figures have been megalomaniacal, critical, dictatorial, imperious, and culturally-demanding or onerous (in terms of their businesses), larger-than-life figures, but it is those very qualities that concern us, because historically, the brashness that allows them to come out on top, ultimately includes many missteps along the way. We would be more comfortable with someone (don’t cringe please, because I know he’s a democrat) Warren Buffett-like in his business persona, than Trump… and simply because he is quieter, more grandfatherly, but clearly, no one can fault his business acumen (even if I don’t support his politics), and he has a level of risk-aversion we are comfortable with.

So, there you have our basic national quandary… for those of us who believe in fiscal conservatism, Trump is too much of a loose cannon. His hyperbole. His brashness and boorishness. His over-bearing personality… and the fact that in spite of his current success, his some-time lack of risk aversion that has gotten him into trouble in the past, are worrying to us. But as with most elections, we look toward the south and shake our heads and think to ourselves, “sorry,” (as in, we understand how you feel, in this instance) because we don’t know that any of the other candidates are any better and some of them are clearly far worse, and so… as with so many elections, it doesn’t come down to picking the best candidate, but the least worse one.

So, while I can’t really do what Red asked, which is come up with a statistically meaningful answer, that then probes the ‘why’s’, I can at least explain why in spite of the fact that most of the people I talked to don’t want to see another Democratic president in the White House, most innately shy away from Donald Trump as an alternative. It’s more soft science than hard, but then, I’m not a polling organization and don’t have their resources. I do know that most I talked to have that recently released study in their minds, that not surprisingly, finds that most politicians lie more than the average person, and that in societies whose leaders lie more, it seems to make it more allowable for the average person, so there is a certain trickle-down effect culturally, but given how hyperbolic he can be, I think we shy away from Trump more, because he does say some ridiculous things… And there was that ‘reality TV show” of his, which I suspect did more damage to his imagine than less.

Of course, much of what Red wrote in his essay speaks to the fact that at this is a point in history, the US needs a strong leader who is not afraid to say what they think and do what needs to be done… and that requires a strong personality. So, just to make this clear, it’s not that Kanadistanjians look to milquetoast leadership, per se. They just don’t necessarily feel comfortable with overly loud people. And I don’t think that the conservatives I spoke to think that Trump or his followers are angry or stupid. What many of them said is that in spite of trying, there is so little written in the press about Trump or his supporters that does not follow the narrative that Red talked about that they have any way of making a fair judgement, and so they have started ignoring a lot of what is being written… most of it, actually… and as a result, they are left with the remembrances of a reality TV show, and a personality that was cultivated long before he felt the need to fill a vacuum in US politics, which is sad, but also to be expected, given that most of us no longer trust the mainstream media, right or left, in any wise, and haven’t for a long time. It’s how people like me end on up sites like this, and stick with them almost from day one. The fact that more truth can be gleaned from a political satire site than from an actual news outlet is disheartening, and speaks to the absurdity and entrenchment of mainstream politics. And we are aware of that, which is what makes us keep looking at Trump and not simply making up our minds, throwing up our hands, and walking away. We are looking for some truth that we haven’t found yet… and we know we haven’t found it, but we don’t know where to look anymore. And our media isn’t any better. But then, it’s not like we can pop down there and go to see him speak, and the only media outlet that has sent someone down there to cover any of his speeches, generally sends people so utterly inept and so completely bafflegabbed and gobsmacked by their own employers’ narratives that they are incapable of meaningful coverage of any of his appearances.

So, here it is… The best possible media coverage any of us have seen on Trump has been written by Red, a person who isn’t enfranchised to vote, but who is, thankfully, devoted enough to concepts of right and wrong, honour, good, involvement and enfranchisement, and to a culture of character rather than a cult of personality, that he can’t walk away, even though his devotion to these things has never made his life easier, and has probably made it much more difficult at times. But sadly, this also means we are left looking for some truth on a political satire site, which says much about the general state of things today, politically or otherwise. I do know that having passed the link to his article to my friends, many of them are doing their best to reconsider things, and to find sources that are not as entrenched in the existing narrative, which can never be a bad thing. And having said that, what it comes down to is that we don’t have to ‘like’ someone to think they would make a good leader, and in fact, there is often much not to like, given the qualities required to succeed in politics, and we’d be fooling ourselves if we believed otherwise. So, while this time around, the answer was “Nope,” I suspect that were I to repeat the exercise in a couple weeks, it might come out differently, which is no bad thing. And maybe there are some who weren’t willing to own up to thinking Trump is a good choice, but will start to feel more comfortable if they do, at least among friends. Again, no bad thing. For myself, I’m still not sure, but am willing to continue reevaluating.

That said, I can also say that 87% of people make up statistics, so any I provided as part of a response to Red’s request would be questionable at best… I will tell you all what I recently told him, and which I think is very important, which is, almost everything tastes better with hot sauce… and ultimately, given that it’s the little things in life that usually make it worth living, I think that’s a lot more important to remember than any political conversation we have, especially given that after the election, it will all be moot… but almost everything will still taste better with hot sauce… The world is full of so many things that are grey, so it’s good to have some black and white’s once in a while…

Good Luck!
SMO

Ps… Seriously… the conversation that got to the hot sauce was about how people develop, politically and how they mature emotionally… and I pointed out that one of the few things that doesn’t taste good with hot sauce is granola, which is a very good reason not to trust granola-heads…