The Hidden Reason Trump is Winning
After Trump’s latest round of gaffes and insults, he is proving to be the political equivalent of the cockroach that can survive a nuclear blast. So the question that continues to hang over the Republican nomination process like dark cloud is why would anybody in the right mind vote for Trump to be president. There is a genuine answer and it has to do with the mind. One of the real perks of all this is watching the experts squirm as their credibility is challenged by their inability to answer this question to anyone’s satisfaction. There are those that think they know mainly because they are paid to know but really they don’t know. Vast numbers of voters, pundits, members of the media, political junkies etc are completely dumbfounded regarding Trump’s staying power in this race. It is fun to see the smug in the ranks of the talking heads having their smugness wiped off their faces. This conundrum and the possible implosion of the Republican party are probably the only two things of value Trump has brought to this race to be president.
The reason they are swinging and missing at this question is they all insist on breaking it down from a strictly political perspective. The starting point for all human activity is filtered through the human mind and heart. Media outlets should really be bringing in psychologists not pundits to answer this daunting question. It took months before the “experts” finally acknowledged or really caved in to the fact that voters are angry with the force of a tidal wave. Back in September an article of mine on the Huffington Post’s blog boldly predicted that the candidate that best addressed voter anger had the best chance of winning the presidency.
The problem with pundits now applying anger into the political equation is that they apparently do not understand anger. Just because we all experience love and anger does not mean we really understand the patterns that are integrated into these emotions. Psychotherapists admit that one of their hardest tasks is to address and resolve is the anger of their patients. It is typically a tangled web to unravel and remove. Dealing with anger leads to unpredictable behavior. This brings us back to politics. It is not a coincidence that unpredictable behavior is dominating a very angry electorate. In politics like anything involving human behavior, anger is a big wild card. Anger has the power to burst through delusion and bring clarity. However, that is the exception to the rule. This happens either because someone is lucky or has disciplined themselves to be self-aware. People like Trump supporters who appear inclined to manipulation do not, as a rule, have enough self-awareness to stop their anger from controlling their behavior.If anger is not directed by an inner strength, behavior typically becomes self-destructive. This is why Trump is still winning. Angry voters lacking discipline and awareness of their core motivations are allowing their anger to manifest in the self-destructive act of voting for Trump. This is self-destructive because Trump is a raging ego-maniac. There is little doubt he will make compulsive ego driven decisions that could easily lead to catastrophe. There is also the high probability that he will completely abuse the formidable power of the presidency of the United States.
Trump is using a stream of racist rants mixed in with some outrageous lies to collect votes. He is quite a good con man. The bigotry of Trump and his supporters is a particularly loathsome manifestation of anger because it is so very cruel, unjust and predatory. Bigotry at its core is cowardice as it is cowardly to prey on the vulnerable. The white “majority” that are drawn to
Trump like flies to honey want to gang up against the smaller minorities of blacks, Latinos and Muslims. Trump and his followers want to blame others for their problems. It is the coward’s way to deflect personable responsibility for one’s life by blaming others. Bigotry is a symptom of low self-esteem and the con man in Trump is manipulating these selfish weak minded voters.
If you analyze how politicians and their cohorts, manipulate voters they use anger to exploit discontent but it is not the money shot to control behavior. Fear and greed are the emotions used to close the deal and get voters to do what they want them to do. Anger is too much of a wild card. It is only used to nurture anger at just the right level to inflame fear and greed. Once this recipe is cooked, voters come to the conclusions they want citizens to believe. As this process gets repeated over and over again, the manipulation gets easier. Once this pattern is established in a voter quite tragically, rational thinking, wholesome emotions and morality are not their compass. It is fear and greed that guides them. It is fitting and ironic that after many years of this brutal manipulation, millions of voters led by Trump are on track to implode the Republican Party.
A prime example of how the GOP gets voters to vote against their true self-interest is their successful selling of “the trickle down theory of economics.” Thankfully this has finally been disproven by Thomas Piketty for those into facts. Those promoting this theory want voters to believe it is best to screw the poor, love corporations and the rich, hate unions, and destroy government regulations. This is all geared toward taking power away from the masses and giving it to a small number of power brokers. What Piketty has disproven with research, the economy is disproving with misery.
For those afraid that Trump will become president if nominated there are numbers that should be of great comfort. Latinos make up 27.3% of eligible voters in 2016. This is the voting bloc that Trump starting his run for president by claiming that most of them coming to the US are rapists and criminals. Millennials will account for half of the eligible voters. This is comforting because millennials are known to have sharply tuned BS radar. Trump’s main pitch to voters is selling piles and piles of it. Trump running as the Republican nominee for president should help shatter previous turnout records. Power in numbers can be intoxicating and this could start a new era of voter engagement that might usher in a golden age of politics in America. So there is one more thing Trump might add to the body politic.