In a rare, and perhaps historical, moment of truth telling in presidential politics, Donald Trump told 24 million Americans that wealthy people like him rig the U.S. political system—that big money controls everything, and that our system is, basically, a fraud. Trump crossed a line. Although the GOP enjoys the attention Trump brings to the party, you can be sure party leadership, and the big money behind them, will do everything they can to take him out.
Let’s review Trump’s fateful comments:
BAIER: And you said recently, quote, “When you give, they do whatever the hell you want them to do.”
TRUMP: You’d better believe it.
BAIER: — they do?
TRUMP: If I ask them, if I need them, you know, most of the people on this stage I’ve given to—just so you understand—a lot of money.
TRUMP: I will tell you that our system is broken. . . Before two months ago, I was a businessman. I give to everybody. When they call, I give. And do you know what? When I need something from them two years later, three years later, I call them, and they are there for me. And that’s a broken system.
Mike Whitney explains why, although way ahead in the polls, Trump’s statement doomed his chances to be the Republican Party nominee:
Dear reader, there are things you can say in America and there are things you cannot say. You can criticize the government, support torture, applaud the racist arrest and incarceration of immigrants looking for work, and cheerlead the bombing of civilians in the many countries around the world where the US has launched its vicious wars of aggression. But you cannot stand in front of an audience of 24 million Americans on national Television and explain in excruciating detail how the political system really works, how the tycoons and moguls pay for favors from the sock-puppet politicians, how the politicians do whatever they are told to do, and why the system is a complete and utter fraud.
The people who own the system will not allow that—after all, it is their system, a system which they created, which they control, and that provides the very foundation upon which their wealth and power depend. They have no intention of allowing a loudmouth, upstart casino operator to seriously threaten the credibility of their precious system by blurting out all kinds of insider information that exposes the rot at the heart of the machine. That’s not something they want to hear, and that’s not something they’re going to hear. Donald Trump is about to be crushed and destroyed in ways he never could have imagined. He’s about to discover a painful truth that the vindictive and merciless people who run this country are not to be trifled with.
For starters, we have the Megyn Kelly scandal. By Saturday after the debate, Whitney reports, mainstream media had published 2,105 articles covering the sexist remarks Trump made on CNN about Fox’s Megyn Kelly. These almost identical pieces repeated the same claims. Elites were using their media, the mainstream media they own, and a faux outrage at sexism against women, to shape the narrative about Trump. All 2000 plus articles followed the New York Times lead and suggested that Trump should be removed from the campaign because his presence in the primary field is “disruptive.” That was the main message of the Megyn Kelly story. Whitney continues:
The Times is obviously inserting itself into the process, just as Megyn Kelly inserted herself into the process when she pummeled Trump with one incriminating question after another and then proceeded to lob softballs to the dreary and utterly lifeless Jeb Bush.
This is why people are angry, right, because they think Trump was treated unfairly. And this is why they’re not buying the media’s BS storyline, because they’re sick of the media telling them how to feel, what to think and who to pick. They resent it, in fact, it pisses them off.
Now you’d think that if you had a brand-spanking media-machine that can crank out 2000 cookie cutter articles overnight blasting “sexist” Trump as a first-class scoundrel and praising the dainty Ms. Kelly as the unwitting victim of abusive male bullying, then dastardly Trump would plunge in the polls, right?
Wrong. Trump is still comfortably in the lead and more popular that ever.
Why?
Because people don’t trust the lying media. Because people don’t trust the lying liars who run the Republican party (or the Democratic party). And because people resent the fact that they’re being manipulated. Is that so hard to understand? The feeling now, is that, “if the assho**s who run this country are against Trump, then I’m for him. It’s that simple. It’s not about populism or channeling anger and frustration to a rebel candidate. Trump is no rebel, and he’s no reformer either. And he’d probably be a shitty president too. But Trump has one thing going for him that is sadly lacking in all the other candidates, all the party honchos, and all the flannel-mouth, stuffed-shirt fake politicians who are presently in office. What is that, you ask?
He tells the truth, at least it sounds like the truth to a lot people. And that makes all the difference.
I’m not really interested in Trump or the other personalities running for office. I’m more interested in the mood of the American people, how they view the candidates, and what happens to the economy as the election approaches. Something I think bears watching: the rebellion of the conservative and progressive base against the corporate leadership of the Republican and Democratic parties expressed in growing support for outliers Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. Across the ideological spectrum, people are saying “no” to business as usual, to a political system that serves the elite at their expense.
I never thought I would be quoting conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham, but she has her finger on the pulse of this election:
People have to get their minds wrapped around the fact that the seething fury at the leadership of the Republican Party is real, and it’s going to bubble over somehow with somebody, and right now it’s with Trump,” said the conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham, noting that there were “a lot of ticked-off people out there who are willing to throw both parties into the fire.