Donald Trump might not be many people’s idea of a standout candidate, but he’s definitely a phenomenon when it comes to the Republican primaries in the US. With the eyes of the world turned to the American stage, he has proved himself to be the person that has everyone talking and debating, following a legion of controversial, racist and, frankly, frightening remarks.
The Huffington Post has gone as far as to describe the billionaire as “a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist, birther and bully who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the US.”
To the observant outsider, the rise of Trump should come as no surprise when you consider the dynamics of the Republican Party as a whole.
The Republican Party is made up of three major voting blocks. These are the religious conservatives — an evangelical class from the Bible belt — all fire and brimstone. Next up there is the working class and lower middle-class block, people who work in blue and white-collar jobs with less than a university education. Thirdly, we have the moderates, the ones that bring the Republicans back to center.
Trump’s biggest band of supporters is drawn from the second category. They are fed on a diet of paranoid Fox News shows from Sarah Palin and Bill O'Reilly, the angry radio show ranting of Rush Limbaugh and websites like Breitbart.com. They are sick to death with a lack of opportunity. They feel the burden of the deteriorating economic situation after the savagery of the global recession. They see more debt, stagnant wages and the price of mortgages all impacting on their day-to-day lives. Trump offers these people a scapegoat. It’s all the fault of the illegal immigrants from Mexico. It’s the jobs going to China. It’s the Muslims that are the problem.
Because Trump is a billionaire, he doesn’t have to answer to a Super PAC. He doesn’t need the financial backers that other candidates have. Instead, he can afford to entirely fund his own campaign — and what a show it has been. Red-faced, angry, funny, speaking without a filter and saying what he thinks with no holds barred, alongside his fiery social media presence. He offers Republican voters something “real.” It’s political entertainment over politics.
Trump has harnessed the power of broadcasting to garner results in the primaries. He ignites the politically correct with outrageous statements, vowing to deport illegal Mexican immigrants en masse (all 11 million people). He accused Mexico of sending rapists and drug dealers across the border. He mocks the mentally handicapped, the physically disabled. He denigrates women, making sexist and disparaging remarks. The question is how can he get away with all that?
It seems that Trump has become immune. He has not apologized for any of his remarks and he’s still winning. Trump understands his power lies in the excitement he raises in his fans and the ire he raises in his detractors and continues to stir controversy.
Noam Chomsky has put forward the proposal that one reason that Trump inspires such support from poorly educated, middle-aged, white Americans is the fact that this group is dying out. Their life expectancy is decreasing, driven by self-destructive behaviors, suicides, drug and alcohol use. Perhaps Trump represents yet another self-destructive tendency for the disaffected of America. He said: “(They) are sinking into hopelessness, despair and anger — not directed so much against the institutions that are the agents of the dissolution of their lives and world, but against those who are even more harshly victimized. Signs are familiar, and here it does evoke some memories of the rise of European fascism.”
