How Donald Trump Can Personally Take Over the Republican Party in 2020
Trump has mobilized the millions of dispossessed voters we call the populists. This is his golden opportunity.
They have no spokesman. They haven't had one ever since Huey Long was assassinated in 1936.
They will not conform. Not now. Not any more. They have found out that there are millions of people who feel just like them: fed up.
JOE BOB BRIGGS VS. GARRISON KEILLOR
Joe Bob Briggs, who used to write the great column on drive-in movies and low-budget films, has written one of the finest pieces of social analysis I have ever read -- a true masterpiece. It is here. It is on Trump's supporters, who are sick and tired of being pressured to keep their mouths shut.
There are all kinds of ordinary people who are gonna vote for Trump, and they're not chasing a mythical golden age, and they don't wear hard hats, and they don't wanna live under a dictatorship. They're what's referred to in the mainstream press as "working class"--a strange term implying that they're to be feared because they're out there working instead of doing what the other classes do. Running Silicon Valley start-up deals? Managing trust funds? I don't know why the Democrats, especially, equate "working class" with the Angry White Man, but they do.My point is that the Donald Trump voters have consistently told us why they're voting for Trump, but it doesn't fit any of the stereotypes and so it's never mentioned. What's the first thing out of a Trump voter's mouth when he's asked about it?
"I like him because he says what's on his mind."
"He'll say anything."
"He doesn't sugar-coat it."
"He says things no one else will say."It's a political movement based on the First Amendment.
Briggs is the Right-wing version of Garrison Keillor, who truly hates Trump. Basically, Keillor's comic character is a milquetoast Joe Bob from Minnesota. Briggs is actually John Irving Bloom, who grew up in Little Rock, and who attended Vanderbilt on a scholarship. Both men have developed comic personas. I am aligned with Joe Bob.
Trump's troops are in this for the long haul if he guides them. They are not going to go back into the shadows if Trump will give them some leadership. They are no longer afraid of the media. Joe Bob has spotted their commitment:
Shouldn't we, at the very least, be looking at why 40-plus-percent of the American population would feel stifled and silenced? Shouldn't this be what we're examining instead of the cerebral cortex of Donald Trump's addled ego? Wouldn't this be the reporterly thing to do?So why do they feel muzzled? It probably started with something minor. Their third-grade son gets sent home for calling a girl "fat" in the school yard. But it doesn't end there. The parents are called in. The student is required to attend Soviet-style reeducation classes. When the parents complain that "you're making a big deal out nothing," they are reminded that their progeny may have damaged a tender young girl for life.
(What the parents could have done is use the episode as an opportunity to explain libel law. If the girl was in fact fat, then the remark was protected speech because true. If she was not fat, or her weight was considered merely chubby, the remark might be actionable in a civil court and best avoided. This would be separate from the traditional reprimand of all moms to "respect the girls, including the fat ones.")
And so, from a very early age, their kid is taught that he has to shut up about certain things. When a guy named al-Khalifa Mustafa bin Muhammad bin Chaka Khan shoots up a synagogue in Atlanta or slits a priest's throat in Budapest, most Americans assume that a) he's a Muslim, b) he's a radical terrorist, and c) he should be shot on sight and his associates should be jailed or executed. But don't say this out loud. There are local committees--and, again, it's likely to come from the school--imploring our communities to "assume the best about all religions" and "resist the temptation to profile." After all, there might be radical Jews or radical Christians bursting into mosques with AK-47s.
Most Americans have no problem with profiling. Most Americans would willingly submit their data to a profile if it made the community safer. But again, they feel they're not allowed to speak up about that.
They are not going to sit down and shut up if Trump tells them to stand up and shout: "The system is rigged!" Because it really is.
TRUMP'S CONCESSION SPEECH
That's why he can take over the Republican Party if he loses on November 8, and then gives his non-concession speech, which I outlined here: //www.garynorth.com/public/15380.cfm.
All he has to do is to announce that he is running in 2020, and he will drain off at least 20% of the Republican Party. He has a huge mailing list. He has attracted an army of fed-up voters. He has the largest voting bloc within the Party. They will not abandon him if he loses this year.
No other Republican politician has a dedicated army of millions.
All he has to do is persuade 4% of them to attend precinct meetings. No one else has supporters who will do this. He needs to train them in basic political action. He needs to post tweets. He needs to stick needles into Clinton's side for four years.
There is no way that any other candidate is in a position to take away the nomination in 2020 if the economy heads south, as it will.
He should focus on the economy. That is her Achilles' heel. (If he is elected, it will be his.)
For the next four years, he only has to pin the tail of "helpless to deal with recession" onto Hillary's donkey, and he will get the nomination. He will get elected.
If he acts on November 8 to announce his candidacy in defeat, he will block out every other Republican candidate. They do not have mailing lists like his: immense.
The media will not be able to stay away from him. They are like moths drawn to a flame. They will give him four years of free publicity. All he needs to do is say outrageous things. They will quote him verbatim. His followers will rally to him for having said such things. "Trump said this!" "Trump said that!"
Trump: "Just Don't throw me into the briar patch."
When people are truly fed up, they don't care about political correctness any more. They just want someone to stick a finger in the eyes of the self-anointed Insiders who run the show, loot the government, hand out the benefits to their cronies, and pretend they are doing the will of the People.
I don't know if Trump, age 70, has the stomach for this sort of four-year project. But if he is willing to stick it to Hillary for four years, tweet by tweet, he will win in 2020.
The downside: he would have to become a politician. He would even have to hold office. I much prefer him as a guy who is utterly irreverent to politicians, and who drives liberals nuts by saying outrageous things.