The meaning of Trump

Donald Trump is stealing the show on the Republican side because, like Bernie Sanders on the Democratic, he is perceived as "authentic" in an age of pervasive inauthenticity.

In Trump's case, this authenticity manifests itself in an apparent willingness to say things many Americans are feeling but are afraid to say.

Liberals claim that the Trump surge lays bare the essentially bigoted nature of the GOP base. More likely is that his appeal flows from a societal revulsion against a smothering political correctness that has shut down debate over issues that go to the heart of what America is and will become.

By far the most common response I've heard about Trump is that he "says what he thinks," with the implicit suggestion that the rest are quislings who don't. That Trump doesn't seem to be intimidated by the forces that intimidate others is separating him from the carefully positioned pack. His fans find his brash "speak his mind, take no prisoners" style refreshing by contrast.

Republican candidates know that Trump has struck a powerful chord on the immigration issue by bluntly expressing views that have been widely held by ordinary Americans for a long time now. Indeed, it is difficult to think of any issue for which voters feel more strongly than illegal immigration, as they watch our southern border dissolve, jobs allegedly taken by illegals, and the rule of law openly flouted by those entrusted with enforcing it.

At the same time, Trump's more respectable rivals also know that too candid an expression of such sentiments has the potential to alienate Hispanic voters who will be crucial in the 2016 presidential race and beyond; hence, their bobbing and weaving as they try to carve out some kind of compromise position that satisfies Trump's followers but doesn't offend Hispanics.

This has, in many respects, been the conservative dilemma on immigration all along, only now brought to an inconvenient boil by Trump.

By looking at how he has used immigration, one senses that Trump has also found the formula for keeping himself in the headlines (always his primary goal) and whipping up still further support--identify an issue that a majority of Americans feel passionately about and which their would-be leaders are cowardly ducking, say things about it that are politically incorrect but contain a kernel of truth and then double down in the face of criticism.

No backtracking, no retreats, and no groveling with the usual insincere apologies. Just barrel forward and bravely speak "truths" that the rest are unwilling to speak out of fear of PC mob reprisal.

When considered more broadly, Trump's appeal therefore stems from a growing discrepancy between the views and values of ordinary Americans on the one hand and the views and values of American political elites (the "establishment" or "ruling class") on the other.

What might be considered a new "silent majority" has been looking for someone to represent them, to express their fears that their country is changing, too rapidly, and for the worse. They feel abandoned and perhaps even betrayed by their leaders and, adding insult to injury, pressured by the strictures of political correctness into a frustrated silence about it all.

They want, in other words, a champion, and they're willing to find him wherever he can be found. Trump knows this, and with his entrepreneurial skills and capacity for opportunistic self-promotion, has hastened to fill the market niche. President Barack Obama and other liberals might dismiss such voters as "clingers," but Trump sees in them a political gold mine.

Trump is an unscrupulous blowhard, ultimately interested only in what advances his own interests, but also clever enough to have figured out what people want and to find a way to give it to them with gusto.

But to dismiss Trump as merely the latest in a long line of populist demagogues reinforcing the "paranoid style" in American politics is to overlook the factors that produce such demagogues, and the way in which they arise to shrewdly fill unoccupied but popular political space.

Trump's appeal might therefore have a much longer shelf-life than many analysts are predicting, to the subsequent detriment of the party whose nomination he is seeking. The more Trump spouts off, the more "truth-telling" he does, the more he stands out from the pack and the more pressure he places on his rivals to either denounce him or embrace his positions, a Hobbesian choice if there ever were one. Heads you win, tails I lose.

For a long time now, well-intentioned and reasonable Americans have been discouraged from saying what they think about not just immigration, but race, crime, Islam and a host of other topics.

They have been warned not to believe what their eyes and ears tell them is true. They know that the emperor has no clothes, but have also discovered how dangerous it can be to point it out.

In other words, Trump is what you get when you allow the thought police who man the barricades of political correctness to shut down freedom of expression and the marketplace of ideas.

There will be a reaction, a push-back. There will eventually be charlatans that seek to lead it.

There will eventually be Trump.

Freelance columnist Bradley R. Gitz, who lives and teaches in Batesville, received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Illinois.

Editorial on 07/20/2015

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