Dear America,
New Hampshire primary day is here and it looks like Trump and Sanders will be the winners. Though this primary doesn't determine who will be nominated by a long shot, the trends that are being manifested in the presumable result are long standing, and in that the New Hampshire primary will most likely just reify what the polls have been saying all along in the Republican Party, and for some time of late in the Democratic, we may be looking at a preview of the November election. While I am happy about the Democratic prospect, the Republican give me a sense of foreboding. Bernie Sanders has to convince a lot of people that his philosophy is sound, but Trump? Maybe not so many.
While Bernie Sanders appeals to an obviously substantial sector of the discontented populace, Trump does too, though perhaps not the same ones. But Trump rides on a rail that has become quite popular among the non-thinking, "patriotic" body politic. He is the very embodiment of what has come to be known as "American Exceptionalism." It is an odious idea in my opinion, not because I don't want to live in the United States, but because it is a conceit that brands us throughout the rest of the world. And while the rest of the world wants what we have and wants us to defend it, it does so with a certain kind of subtle, almost sub rosa loathing. That phenomenon is what makes ISIL so successful in its recruiting efforts, and it is what makes American tourists the laughing stock of the old world. We are seen as spoiled rich people who take everything for granted and display a sort of entitlement that no one else in the world can afford. We are a well endowed country in a world in which the vast majority of the people are not only not well endowed, if they are endowed at all, they are disenfranchised as well. That is something that Sanders supporters understand, but Trump supporters think it is their right, and what worries me is the count. How many of them are there, and how many of us? If it turns out that there are more of them, we might wind up with a Trump-Sanders presidential race and a Trump presidency. We might wind up where we were during the Nixon years when the purported silent majority took it upon themselves to plague those of us who did not agree with them that "my country right or wrong" is emblematic of patriotism. We might wind up again with a groundswell of support for American imperialism and dominion over the rest of the world because those who believe in American exceptionalism also believe that God is on their side. They are as committed as the ISIL lunatics who think that God is on theirs, and the fact that they call their God Allah is a distinction almost without a difference in some respects. There is not argument to be made against blind faith, whether it is faith in a Muslim caliphate or an American empire. Those on the outside reap the same whirlwind.
So, though I am optimistic about the coming political year, there is room for fear. Trump is supposed to have toppled into the political abyss by now according to all those of us who laughed when he demonstrated what seemed the embarrassing conceit that he would be running for president, but here he is...still ahead. And Sanders has had a similar history. What started out seemingly solely as an effort to bring certain issues to the fore...a symbolic campaign if not a shambolic one...gradually became a juggernaut, and its first casualty might be the then two times unfortunate Hillary Clinton. The political establishment will have two plates of crow to eat, and on election day, we Americans will get just what we deserve. What I fear is that we deserve Donald Trump, and I would venture to guess that I'm not alone. A Trump presidency would be a " 'uge" disaster, and it would unresponsive to any criticism, as the imperious Donald is. And worst of all, that man would carry "the button" with him wherever he went, presumably quite often to one or another of his golf courses. At least his focus, fortunately, won't be on running the country.
In the end, Rooseveldt's exhortation that all we have to fear is fear itself won't do this time. If Trump does become president, we will be lucky if we can avoid war somewhere: again in Iraq, in Syria, Crimea and Ukraine, or even in Russia or China. Trump is a bully, and someone is bound to resist his self-proclaimed strong-arm practices. I don't think Vlad the Putin is going to be as impressed by some billionaire piker who could have left daddy's legacy in the bank and been as rich as he is now, and avoided the three bankruptcies and the fraternal loans that it took him to get here. As to the President of Mexico, we have as much to lose from a rent in the fabric of our international relations with that country as they do. Don't forget that Mexico is an oil exporting country, and we are an oil importer...still...even though our petroleum giants are now going to be able to export petroleum for the first time in several decades. Then add in the relationships that so many of our manufacturing corporations have with Mexico and its labor supple, and the idea of Trump bullying President Nieto into building some preposterous wall to keep Mexicans out of the United States looks that much more absurd.
Even with all that, Trump isn't the idle threat we all though he was in the beginning of his run. Reason seems to have nothing to do with it. So I would suggest that those of us who see Trump as the threat that he is start wringing out hands now. It will be good practice if it turns out that our fears are justified.
Your friend,
Mike
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