What a hoot to watch pundits clutching their pearls and whimpering for smelling salts aghast over the latest “shocking” thing Donald Trump said, while The Donald ignores them and continues to soar. Silly kingmakers just don’t know what to make of this. Well, we do!
The elites are shocked by Trump’s dominance, but everyday Americans aren’t. Everywhere I’ve gone this summer, including motorsport events in Detroit full of fed up Joe Six-Pack Americans, the folks I meet commiserate about wussified slates of politicians, but then unsolicited, they whisper their appreciation for Trump because he has the guts to say it like it is.
Trump’s unconventional candidacy is a shot in the arm for ordinary Americans fed up with the predictable poll tested blather of squishy milquetoast career politicians who campaign one way and govern another. But it’s not just how Trump says it, it’s what he’s saying.
Trump has tapped into America’s great populist tradition by speaking to concerns of working class voters. He talks about fighting to bring back our factories. When was the last time a candidate talked passionately about reclaiming our manufacturing base (and knew what he was talking about)? What other candidate chooses American workers over the multinational corporations donating to their campaigns? Who other than Trump is talking about the dangerous trade deficits deindustrializing America and stealing our jobs? The old Arsenal of Democracy that allowed us to win World War II is now such a distant memory that we can’t even build the parts for our own military equipment – we need China to manufacture them for us. How can a great nation maintain its greatness without a manufacturing base? Or without secure borders for that matter?
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