While Donald Trump would make a horrible President for a whole host of reasons, I am still very grateful he is in the race.
Despite bad policies on a number of issues (such as trade, health-care, and tax reform), his spiritedness is refreshing. Since he is funding his own campaign, he can say things that others cannot. He thus represents the voice of a great many people who are at their wits’ end with what they see as a broken system and who are ready for a tough fight in politics.
To say that the system is broken is shocking to some. The Trump phenomenon is a mystery to establishment Republicans. Daniel Henninger of the WSJ recently wrote that “no one understands exactly what is going on inside the base.” I’ve heard other conservatives lamenting the Trump phenomenon and asking how the “uneducated base” could be so foolish. Despite their education, establishment Republicans do not understand Trump’s success because they do not understand the need for a fight.
To understand the Trump phenomenon, you have to recognize that the American political system is utterly broken. Establishment Republicans cannot understand this because they are generally rich, educated, and upper-class. They assume their success is the same as freedom.
This is not to say that all rich or well-educated Republicans are “establishment.” But wealth insulates establishment Republicans from the real world and makes them blind to the principles of liberty. They know what freedom is, but they do not understand what it means to be free.
They can still afford to fly from coast to coast for business and live in ritzy D.C. suburbs. The stream of wealth from our crony government still provides them with a comfortable life. Their kids can go to elite private schools and later head off to Harvard or Yale. To them, an aggressive foreign policy sounds great because it keeps them safe at no cost. Endless wars offer the kids of all those “uneducated” Republicans a chance for upward mobility in the military, but their kids won’t be serving overseas because they have more important contributions to make to freedom like making money.
If their kids are each born with $50,000 in federal debt over their head, it doesn’t matter because they already have that paid for. If their stock portfolio takes a 10 percent hit, who cares? Nothing in their standard of living has changed. For rich, elitist, establishment Republicans, money keeps them comfortable and cowardice keeps them safe.
If you are a normal American, you watch your life savings stagnate or disappear. You watch your home value stay below what you paid for it. You feel like you can’t send your kids to public schools anymore because the schools are worthless or worse. You worry that your church will get in trouble for being closed-minded bigots if they stand in faith. You feel like you can’t start a business because cronyism keeps you out, regulations shut you down, or social justice warriors will put you in jail. Your healthcare costs keep going up and your coverage keeps getting worse. Your kids have federal debt at birth. And if your kid joins the Army, he is likely to go off to an ill-fated war to die or be maimed for no good reason.
Government keeps taking over more of the average American life. Your freedom shrinks and your choices become more limited. You can no longer say, think, buy, or do the things you feel are necessary to pursue happiness. For the average, “uneducated” American — those who live in fly-over states in small towns and farmland, the base of the Republican Party — everything in American politics is broken.
This is why I love Trump. He has given a voice to the American people. He calls things like he sees it and it sounds honest and genuine. He says he will do some of the things we need done and he says it with spirit.
His antics have inspired millions to demand a fighting spirit in their other candidates and representatives. Every candidate has gotten tougher and more radical. Politics in general has gotten more principled. Suddenly normal Americans have someone who looks like a hero standing with them and they feel like there is hope.