Donald Trump: The Paradox of the Presumptive Republican Nominee for 2016 White House?

Keywords or Terms: Governor John Kasich; Indiana loss; Senator Ted Cruz; Dynastic Bush 41^st and 43^rd; RNC Chairman Reince Priebus; ‘9-11’ experience; FOXNEWS; Schism and entombment; Republican Party; Plexiglas window; Multicultural Society; Monoculture society; and White House

Yesterday, May 4, 2015, Governor John Kasich, the last remaining rival of Businessman Donald Trump for party nomination after the exit of Ted Cruz a day earlier, rose to the podium and declared that he was suspending his campaign for the White House oval office. The former ninth-term US Congressman and Governor of a Midwestern State, found there was no path for him to the nomination as Republican Party flag bearer in 2016. The humiliation was too much that he submitted his spirit to the good Lord as to his future in politics. As if feeling the weight of the Indiana loss and the misfortune of a broken dream, Governor John Kasich of Ohio looked loss and dumbfounded, probably close to tearing up. He had remained statesmanship all through the exercise, refusing to engage in a ‘tit-for-tat’ name calling shenanigans between the party’s presumptive nominee and the rest of his rivals on the campaign trail; yet, the oracles had not worked in his favor.

To have Donald Trump as the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party in 2016 has sent shock waves through establishment Republicans and the nightmare was becoming a daylight reality that many supporters of Donald Trump had predicted, but few establishment Republicans, couldn't imagine or stomach. That is why you heard Dynastic Bush 41st and 43^rd withholding their endorsement of any aspirant, or this particular presumptive party nominee, for the 2016 general election. Concurrently, the Koch brothers, establishment Republican money bags, cannot bring themselves to support Donald Trump, neither can the likes of conservative talk show hosts and newspapers conservative Republican editorial errand boys and girls, Bill Kristol, Fred Barnes, Maureen Dowd, David Brooks, George Will, and Glen Beck, among others.

No matter what RNC Chairman Reince Priebus says about coalescence around the presumptive party nominee, the damage is just too much; the structure of the Republican elites in some states and congressional districts, make it rather difficult for establishment Republicans to believe the party can win the White House going into November with Donald Trump. The DNA of Glen Beck, who had been among talk show hosts in the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, who barraged and constantly disrespected the office of US Presidency in the last eight years, are now in a confusion as to how their chickens had come home to roast? Can anyone imagine three or four years ago that Glen Beck will liken the birther’s head boy, Donald Trump, as dangerous? Would any Republican imagine waking up in 2016 to find Glen Beck likening a group he had helped build, called Nazi Brown shirts, rude, and vile. These are the presumptive Republican Nominee supporters. To quote Glen Beck appropriately: 1) “There is a storm coming of biblical proportions, a storm coming beyond recognition. When the economy collapses, when our currency is worth toilet paper, who do you want, who do you want handling our nation? You want somebody who has divided us, who is grooming Brown shirts? I was at the caucus last night. I had never seen anything like it. These Trump supporters were beyond recognition as anything I’ve ever seen – rude, vile, nasty.”; 2) “Donald Trump is a dangerous man with the things he’s been saying;” and, 3) “I am against Donald Trump”.

All these coming from a man who once likened President Obama's policies to: “9-11, except that we didn’t have the collapsing buildings.” How about rephrasing that in the context of the reality that Donald Trump is 2016 presumptive Republican nominee? How about: “knowing rank and file Republicans are completely in support of Donald Trump as the party’s flag bearer is like another 9-11 experience for establishment Republicans, except this time, the party is not experiencing buildings collapsing but a minor schism and probably an entombment of the party of Reagan? The next disaster in the offing, is probably a debate between Hillary and Donald that will tell the world, the establishment Republicans’ fear, is not an ordinary apprehension, but a nightmare of incompressible proportion for the lucid minded average American voter; or, an anti-thesis of the emotionally induced political position on matters that directly and indirectly impact the welfare of most voters. After the alienation of Mexican Americans, a group establishment Republicans had been working hard to court most recently, the denigration of blacks, disabled, females and Muslims, with his now sparing walk back of initial position on minimum wage – the grounds that the presumptive nominee had been standing appears to be giving way – and with statements as, “I’m not just ready to back Donald Trump” coming from Paul Ryan, the Republican Speaker of the lower chamber of US Congress, it appears all is truly not well at Mayberry.

Trump’s supporters however, do not give a damn that a huge chunk of establishment Republicans are not backing their party’s presumptive nominee; that exactly, was what they prayed for; exactly what they anticipated, to bring the establishment to their knees and a new reality: it is time to shake up the whole party and or system. It is time to call out the Congressional Republicans for knuckling under the current White House’s pressures. It is time to hold many congressional Republicans responsible for the lackadaisical achievement in managing congressional affairs. Because Donald Trump, the presumptive new leader of the Party, is an outsider, he is more likely to change the course of the party and reshape the structure of Republican power brokers. To this group, Donald Trump is likely to turn up the heat under the predatory establishment Republicans, who had taken the rank and file for granted for far too long. The sorry event of allowing the government of the United States to default due to foot dragging and my way or the highway doctrinaire under the past Congressional Republican leadership, including some rabble riser’s newbie, Ted Cruz, is not acceptable any longer, it is time to bring a deal maker to clean the house.

US Congressional House Speaker wants the presumptive nominee to unify all wings of the Republican Party and the conservative movement and run a campaign that all Americans are proud to support and be part off; however, that exactly runs afoul of what the new rank and file of the party want; they demand a complete change of course, they demand, a discussion of the national debt that has piled up under the last Bush Administration, they want a fight against radical Islam, they don’t want to be talked to as bigoted and unruly, always ready to throw tantrums and skirmishes at rallies; they are tired and frustrated with the phony conservatism and the neocon foreign policy of wars and interventions; they begrudge the elite congressional republicans position on omnibus budget or, their foot-dragging in considering the vacant post on US Supreme Court bench; they want a complete halt to illegal immigration and unamiable right to second amendments protection; they are not ready to disavow Trump’s personal insults and incendiary rhetoric; they are tired with many  condescending rhetoric’s and labels from upper echelons Republicans who see them as dumb and stupid; they want a voice for the voiceless conservative wing of the Republican party, even if it takes running the ship into an iceberg; they want the K-street and professional political pundit class, with their friends on wall street, out of business; they don’t care if their demands and rise to power of their beloved Donald Trump, bring down the predatory establishment Republicans in congress.

Clearly, all these wants of theirs, the conservative wing of the Republican Party sees as embodied in Donald Trump’s candidacy for the White House oval office. Never since 1964 Barry Goldwater run for the White House, has the voice of the conservative far-right Republicans been heard loud and clear, just as the candidacy of Mr. Donald Trump in 2016. Donald Trump represents the inner person of the perceived disadvantaged male White Anglo-Saxon and the candidacy of good old Donald Trump, reaffirms the disdain of the gradually scalding political power of the extreme republicans in recent memory. As many far-right conservative Republicans as support Donald Trump’s candidacy, support many of his rhetoric, even when they do not voice them. This is why Donald Trump’s candidacy is an inner self that appears to have been lost for several years by the far right; a self, now affirmed in the campaign language and TWEETS of Donald Trump, no matter how offensive some parts of America see them.

The real lesson inherent in Donald Trump’s rise to power and representation of the Republican Party in the November general elections, regrettably, if one will say, is the fact that, he comes off as rocking the boat. His campaign and support from rank and file Republicans, is a reminder of an America that was once, and now seem forgotten. An America so racist and sexist, that multiple of its constituents, still feel they are disadvantaged to a Tea, in the political party structure and hierarchy arrangement, even within the republican party. An America so rich, so plentiful, yet so disenfranchising of many underclasses. It is an America hardly embraced by the establishment Republicans or Democrats, out of the fear of being labelled as not politically correct. An America treasured by the conservative wing of the Republican Party, filled with the arrogance of use of dastardly rhetoric at the expense of many minority groups; one that the outside world perceives as confrontational, arrogant and exclusive. Most of us outside the realm of conservative far-right Republican Party, see Trump’s supporters through a Plexiglas window; we stand with bewilderments wondering why these people are flocking to his candidacy. We reflect on the essence of inclusiveness in a thriving multicultural society; however, these group sees an erasing glacier of privileges once Germaine to a mono-culture that once ruled America, even in the face and presence of growing minority groups within the democracy. But the paradoxical window doesn’t exist for Donald Trump’s supporters. The loss of political power and middle income status, due to the changing economic structure, from an industrialized to an information society is too over bearing, too complicated, too disadvantaging; and as member of a once privileged group, who had enjoyed a lifetime of stable jobs till retirement, are finding themselves without a job and going on unemployment and food stamps, it is time to move along, it is time to call to question that arrangement of the structure and classes, that have now replaced their former privileges. A few of them have taken solace and satisfaction in listening to conservative radio show hosts like Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity, disparaging and insulting minorities among us; and, that was okay with them. However, when they find themselves at the receiving end of some of the languages used by these radio talk show hacks regarding the welfare programs that is now sustaining these far right groups, they begin to ask questions about the messaging of over-paid privileged cohort of conservative journalists,  working for the rich establishment Republicans; and, asking what is in this for us? This is why Donald Trump can readily assert that these people have not been taken care off by their government and he is ready to change that. He is ready to build a wall that will prevent these people from losing their jobs to illegal immigrants, he is going to confront China and make them pay back all they have taken from America; he is going to make past allies pay for the military security America provides for them, even if at fifty percent of cost; and he is going to make America great again!

This is the paradox of having Donald Trump as the presumptive Republican flag bearer. Most of the rhetoric he has spewed out in the past fourteen months, are representative of the inner self of conservative far-right republicans. It is the paradox of the cultivated abuse of minorities, which many establishment and mainstream Republicans deny severally, and want to go away. The fact that one of the establishment Republican, Governor John Kasich, feel like a fish out of the water on the rostrum as he declares he was withdrawing from the race for the 2016 White House, attest to the ambiguity of being a member of a party, whose rank and file seem so foreign to people in his class; even as he speaks and uses language of moderation in his campaign; hoping to win over votes for his candidacy. He continued to see a fight back, a fight back that says, we are not part of that shroud anymore; and he wonders, where did our establishment Republicans go wrong, where did my class within the Republican Party, dropped the ball? Moderate and liberal Republicans that support Governor Kasich candidacy during the campaign exercise, are now endangered species in the Republican party of today. However, if Governor Kasich, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus and other establishment Republicans take time to listen to the new far right, if they take time to understand what makes them tick the way Donald Trump has done in his campaign for party nominee and probably for the November general election, maybe they will be able to repair the party under the leadership of the presumptive party nominee and eventual leader. However, if they don’t, just like Donald Trump once said, they will have to pay a prize. Please don’t ask me what that prize will be, I am a liberal Democrat!