\u201cA rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”\u00a0 What\u2019s in a name?\u00a0 Well, it\u2019s the start of trying to define what we are talking about.\u00a0 And what we are talking about is the movement that Donald Trump has conjured out of thin air.\u00a0 He has breathed life into the Right after the establishment Republicans had managed to beat it and its proponents into the ground over the course of the last sixty-five years.<\/p>\n
Why he did it?\u00a0 I wonder how many people actually have the answer to that question.\u00a0 Maybe even Trump doesn\u2019t really know why.\u00a0 How he did it is clearer.\u00a0 Trump is a salesman or more accurately he\u2019s a huckster, a flim-flam man.\u00a0 He sells snake oil.\u00a0 And because of that training he could see that the Republicans and the Democrats were conning us.\u00a0 And because they weren\u2019t conning us out of our pocket money but out of our freedoms and our descendants\u2019 well-being, he decided to expose them.\u00a0 And the results were tremendous.\u00a0 He has pole-axed every fake conservative that has faced him.\u00a0 Think of Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney if you need examples of his victims.\u00a0 These men were the most respected conservative leaders of their time.\u00a0 Now they\u2019re laughing stocks and walking\/talking memes for what a fake conservative looks like.<\/p>\n
So, does Trump have a political philosophy?\u00a0 If he does, it\u2019s very pragmatic.\u00a0 I think he looks at himself as our business agent.\u00a0 He\u2019s trying to cut the best deal for the American people that he can.\u00a0 And I don\u2019t think he cares whether he treats the rest of the world fairly.\u00a0 He\u2019s a cutthroat dealer and screwing over the other guy is just part of that trade.\u00a0 But he\u2019s also experienced.\u00a0 He knows that China has some very strong cards and that he has to be realistic when bargaining with powerful and savvy adversaries.\u00a0 He may be pro-Israel but he realizes that making a good deal with Iran is in America\u2019s interest.\u00a0 He has no desire to fight anymore middle eastern wars.\u00a0 The same with Ukraine.\u00a0 Tying himself to that slaughterhouse is a mistake.\u00a0 Enabling some kind of deal is the smart play.<\/p>\n
But there is some part of me that hopes he\u2019s also doing all this because in some sense, no matter how vague the link is, he thinks of himself as one of us.\u00a0 Maybe not a regular guy.\u00a0 Maybe a prince to our paupers but still a fellow American.\u00a0 Someone who could sit down at a table with one of us and eat a McDonald\u2019s Big Mac and talk about what it was like to be a New Yorker growing up in the sixties and seventies when the city was a train wreck but the working class people living there still had a popular culture that was quintessentially American; the melting pot and egalitarianism and neighborhoods where the people actually knew who their neighbors were.\u00a0 These were the people who built his hotels and skyscrapers and casinos.\u00a0 Mob-connected construction bosses, ironworkers, masons and laborers.\u00a0 Actual people who also happen to be Americans.<\/p>\n
So is Trump a populist, a nationalist or a fascist?\u00a0 No, he\u2019s just Trump.\u00a0 But he is an American and he\u2019s doing something that no one else would.\u00a0 He\u2019s giving us a last chance to get our country back.\u00a0 I hope he succeeds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cA rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”\u00a0 What\u2019s in a name?\u00a0 Well, it\u2019s the start of trying to define what we are<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[1241,1151,453,39,16],"class_list":["post-33294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-trump","tag-fascism","tag-maga","tag-nationalism","tag-populism","tag-trump"],"yoast_head":"\n