(ThyBlackMan.com) On August 1, Donald Trump was indicted for his alleged role in efforts to overturn his 2020 presidential election defeat. This is his third major criminal indictment this year.
For most political figures their political careers would be over. However, for Trump it appears it is just the opposite. It seems the indictments only serve to rally his supporters to his side. The establishment and the ‘deep state’ are against him and against them, he maintains.
Political scientists, media pundits and others are forced to wonder why Trump’s support remains so high.
In 2011, Donald Trump caused speculation that he would seek the Republican primary to run for president to challenge then-President Barack Obama. Trump made a few speeches and visited a few states but announced early in the primary season that he would not be running for president.
From the outset very few people took his candidacy seriously. Most political observers felt that he was just seeking media attention to propel his business interests and television career.
When Trump announced a run for president in 2015 the prevalent attitude shared by many in the media and in political circles was that Trump was not serious. That he would once again withdraw from the campaign trail prior to launching a new television contract or some other business venture.
Although that perception was widely shared from the outset of his 2015 presidential campaign announcement, Trump using his acute media attention grabbing skills dominated the airwaves. The media could not get enough of him. He earned an enormous amount of free television time issuing bomcasted statements usually aimed at one of his opponents or some marginalized group.
The mainstream media was all too willing to dance with the devil. They felt he provided colorful quotes regardless of how outrageous and offensive they might be. They grabbed attention and that was all that mattered.
They were certain Trump was not serious about running and if he was, voters were not going to take his campaign seriously would not. So giving him airtime was not a big deal. He was not a serious candidate, voters would not waste their votes on him and he was good entertainment. No blood, no foul.
It was just a matter of time, the media thought, before he would announce his withdrawal from the race. In the meantime, they would cover his every colorful pronouncement.
Prior to the voting primary contests in states, Republicans held televised debates. Television audiences eat them up. It was great entertainment and Trump was the ringmaster.
Trump used his time attacking and demeaning the other candidates labeling them with embarrassing and catchy barbs and nicknames. The other candidates were rocked with lefts and rights falling back on their heels eventually taking a knee. Their fight was over and so were their campaigns.
When the votes were casted in the state primaries, Trump came out on top. It confounded the Republican establishment’s officials and their political operatives. Their favorite candidates for their party’s nomination had all been sent packing by Trump. Republican party officials were left resigned to four years of Hillary Clinton in the White House. Democrats were filled with glee that the weakest Republican candidate, Trump, would face Clinton.
There was no way that Trump was going to beat Clinton. It was just a matter of holding the coronation.
There was some consternation and hesitation from the Republican political establishment as to how much effort and resources should be expended on Trump’s general campaign. They felt it was a waste of money and time. They were also smarting from the beating he had handed them. A beating that they neither saw coming nor clearly understood.
He had made the Republican establishment the issue and showed his unrelenting contempt for that establishment. Because it was not reflected in their polling the Republican political establishment failed to see the consequences of Trump’s attack on it and how it registered with the Republican base.
Democrats would eventually make the same mistake. There would be no coronation for Clinton. Instead she would be subjected to the biggest political upset since President Harry Truman beat Thomas Dewey.
Unbeknownst to the Republican and Democrats political establishments as well as the mainstreet media, talking heads and pundits, Trump’s attacks on the political establishment had found a respective audience. An audience populated by millions of voters who felt alienated from their America. An audience that saw in Trump’s contempt their own contempt.
He had captured their mistrust, paranoia, suspicion, anger and hate. He spoke to it and to them.
They found his defiance, resistance, rebelliousness and contempt for established normals appealing. Trump didn’t care who he offended. He was the rebel with or without a cause.
Trump was the consummate salesman who expertly appealed to people’s egos, fears and unfulfilled desires.
It was less about concrete policy positions and more about their feelings. They felt that the world that they had grown up in, a world in which they could see themselves and their image, was rapidly being replaced. Their world had changed rapidly, too rapidly, and not for the better. Trump’s attack and contempt found a receptive audience across racial and religious lines but particularly with men.
They found his virulent masculinity fortifying and restoring in the age of the feminist movement. At a time when political correctness was used to erode the remaining constituents of their own masculinity.
These men and quite a few women saw women not just breaking glass ceilings but blowing them up and with it the world of their fathers, grandfather and heroes. They were not comfortable with that.
Some of those men saw Trump’s brand of entrepreneurial masculinity, his pursuit of financial success and domination of women as the pinnacle of success for being a man.
Among men who supported Trump were a sizable percentage of Black and Latinx men. Pollsters and pundits questioned how could Black and Latinx voters cast votes for a man who even prior to going into politics was a government certified racist the result of him and his father refusing to rent apartments to Black and Latinx renters? How could they support a man who launched his political career by spreading the lie that the first Black president was foreign born, probably a secret Muslim and not entitled to be president?
At the same time, such support should not have been surprising when one reflects on the number of mentions Trump had received over the last several decades in rap music. The same rap music that deemed and objectified women. The same rap in which the lack of money is the root of all the evil.
Unfortunately, Black and Latinx Trump supporters saw the meanness, the bullying, the selfishness of Trump and mistook it for strength, a kind of aberrant masculinity.
For men, regardless of race, who found themselves alienated, marginalized and disenfranchised, Trump was their hero. It was not so much about policy but style.
Trump understood their alienation and disenfranchisement, because despite his money and celebrity he had lived his entire life hoping to be one of the glamorous, powerful people. But he knew they would never accept him if for no other reason than his insecurities. The more he tried to break into their world, the more they seemed to resist and mock him.
His appeal to his supporters was not because he listened to their pleas, but that he was one of them. The Republican establishment, if they understood Trump’s appeal, could only take a knee to him. Otherwise, they would get knocked out the same way Trump knocked out Republican candidates on his way to the White House.
Staff Writer; Al Alatunji
Question? Comment? Regarding the above article. Feel free to send a message to this address: Alatunji@ThyBlackMan.com.