CommentsJUST SAYIN’--To what extent is the popularity of Donald Trump linked to generations of Americans being purposefully undereducated in what remains a de facto segregated and inherently inferior public school system. Has this public non-education system been designed to assure that the vast majority of this country's population never reaches their intellectual potential, where they might actually have the ability to challenge those in power? Does the candidacy of a Donald Trump count on the fact that those in power will continue to delude themselves with the notion that two plus two must equal four, even if it is clearly no longer the case for the now uneducated majority of our population that chooses to deny it and support Trump.
Unfettered by logic or the rational processes that a first-rate public education might have given them, all this majority of Americans know or sense is that they have been systematically screwed by corporate agendized government policies that remain the same irrespective of whether they are carried out by the Democrat or Republican elites.
So now these folks surrogate in the person of Donald Trump comes along with clearly irrational and simplistic ideas purposefully tailored to appeal to the uneducated now majority that has been so long systematically degraded by what remains the unaccountable and self-dealing power elite. For anybody who bothered to look, Trump's power derives from his putting into words the rage that those who support him feel, but don't have the education to understand.
Trump's carefully constructed candidacy is not an accident, but rather the melding of the fantasy world of The Apprentice- where this exploited majority has sought refuge from their objectively intolerable daily existent- and the present reality of Donald Trump as presumptive Republican presidential candidate with a good shot at winning, if those in power keep attacking him without offering any viable alternative.
Like the Greek mythology story of Antaeus, who only got stronger when Hercules fought and slammed him into his mother the earth goddess Gaia, Trump will only get stronger in the eyes of his long marginalized supporters if those in opposition just keep attacking him without offering any substantive redress of their grievances.
And yet, all the terrified and corrupt supposedly rational masters of the American political system continue to do is unleash a never ending and exaggerated corporate media attack on Trump without having the insight to understand that such an attack will not only be discounted by the masses supporting Trump, but will actually be seen by them as Trump's vindication in getting a response and engagement from those in power who never paid them any attention.
Add to this Trump's understanding that his politically incorrect positions on race, gender, and other hot button issues are actually more in tune with the reality of the real world that the majority of men and women live in. This unfair daily reality that people are at least tacitly forced to accept gives Trump a more realistic appearance than some idealized equitable reality cited by a Hillary Clinton, which remains somehow inexplicably unattained after all these years- except in an election year. The making of a national holiday for Dr. Martin Luther King rings hollow, when we take notice of just how divided our country still remains.
People who support Trump might be ignorant, but they are not stupid when it comes to knowing that by every indicator of well-being women, minorities, the working class, the middle class, and the elderly are worse off today with no chance of improvement as long as the Republicrats stay in power without any accountability. All Trump does is express and exploit the disparities of opportunity and wealth between his supporters and those in power. One might say he is the only rich guy that is listening to them.
Clearly the candidacy and some of the proposals of Bernie Sanders to create an equitable public education system, a single-payer healthcare system, and an FDR-like New Deal to revitalize the crumbling infrastructure of this country would go a long way to meaningfully undermining Trump's exasperated base. But Bernie Sanders has never been a serious candidate...or at least that's what the corporate controlled mainstream media keeps telling us.
(Leonard Isenberg is a Los Angeles observer and a contributor to CityWatch. He was a second generation teacher at LAUSD and blogs at perdaily.com. Leonard can be reached at [email protected])
-cw
Donald Trump: The Real Cost of Ignorance
