LETTER

The Genius of Dan-lad Trump

 

He is a genius. He knows how humans work. Here’s the thing: core beliefs. These are the underlying programs that drive a person. They aren’t always obvious, even to the person himself. They are feelings of insecurity, jealousy, anger, self-righteousness -- or positive ones like love and protecting your fellows, family or group.  It’s easier to play on the negative beliefs because they’re the ones to do with us personally; self-survival trumps everything else.

Here we have the genius of Donald Trump. In the primaries, he played on core beliefs like a fiddle -- xenophobia, our distrust and fear of different people. “We all know Barack Obama is not a US citizen. He wasn’t born here. He was born in Kenya.” This piece of kaka dominated every US news outlet, TV, the internet, legitimate newspapers, drugstore smut rags, barbershop discussions, bar rooms, and dinner conversations. It was so unbelievably stupid that it spawned a new word - The Birther Movement!

Or “How about those Mexicans! They’re drug lords, killers, rapists. They’re stealing our jobs. Our health system - they get it all for free, folks. They don’t even work! They collect welfare. They have babies just to collect baby bonuses! How about that, folks, can you believe that? They keep pouring across our border; we all know our border security is a joke. The Obama government is a joke. We’ve got to stop this. I’m going to build a wall; it’s going to be such a big wall, it’s going to be stupendous; you won’t believe it. It’s going to go from one side of our great country to the other. And you know what, folks? Mexico is going to pay for it!”  He aims at those dark beliefs we wouldn’t bring up in polite society. But the thing is, and it really bothers me to say it, when survival is on the line, a lot of us aren’t that polite. Don’t believe me? How about over half of America. And that’s the scary thing about Trump. Not so much him personally, but this is ‘The Voice of America’. He is America.

Bernie Nunn
Aylmer