I’ve waited patiently for people to understand the Trump phenomenon. Months. Many months.
I wrote this here on Bearing Drift in July of last year:
Reagan wasn’t fit for the Presidency, said Ford’s team, and the press turned up the volume on it. Scenes like this replayed over and over.
Reagan struck oil when he turned to foreign policy, where he said the President had “given away the store” to foreign countries and let us slip behind. He said it is “dangerous, if not fatal, to be second best.”
Reagan adopted the campaign slogan “Make America #1 Again.”
It’s no coincidence that Trump’s slogan is “Make America Great Again”
Any of this sound familiar?
Know what makes a movie blockbuster? Timing. Take a hit movie and release it the wrong year, and you have a bomb on your hands. But if you’re lucky enough to tap into something the public has silently been waiting for, it’s like you’re printing money.
Neither party understands what made Trump, and because of that, they can’t fix it.
That’s because the Parties created Trump.
I grew up in Philadelphia. Our parents had blue collar jobs (some of which were union), shared a car, went to church on Sunday, and valued family. Not a lot of money for restaurants or vacations. Just visited the Jersey shore every summer and stayed at my aunt’s house.
When they voted, they voted Republican. But no one really made them excited about it these past few cycles. Social issues became less and less of an issue over the years, and none of them made so much money that tax cuts meant a whole lot.
They loved Reagan. He got the jobs coming back for people like my parents.
They cheer for Trump and have been since he announced. Trump isn’t new to people up north. They’ve seen him over and over for thirty years.
And they know he’ll bring jobs back.
They don’t believe the Democratic Party cares about them anymore. They’ve shifted way too far left. And Republicans say the right things, but the middle class is tired of waiting. They’ve elected Republicans and the talk is still there. Just not the results. People are tired of waiting and tired of the talk and the games.
Party bosses can attack Trump all day and all night and it won’t matter, because this is as much about the parties as it is about Trump.
You can say anything about Trump. Call him names. Say he’ll start World War III (like RWR?). He’ll destroy the Party. The nation. The world.
People will say “he’ll still bring the jobs back.”
They know Trump knows how to create jobs and put these folks back to work at real salaries. Mitt Romney said so himself four years ago when he grinned with glee at Trump’s endorsement.
This isn’t very complicated, folks.
The electorate has been changing before our eyes. This is a block of voters that are up for grabs and the Republicans have them at the door begging to come in.
The Republican Party can go with these changes and prosper or fight them and wither into a permanent minority. We can keep running the old playbook or start campaigning to what voters want.
The Party went with the changes from 1976 to 1984. It resulted in the Republicans winning 49 states in ’84. Can you even imagine a candidate winning 49 states today?
Opportunity is knocking, folks. Are we brave enough to answer?
