The Don’s Long Con: How a Longtime Democrat Became One of the Most Right Wing Presidents in US…
Many people often wonder how a long-time Manhattan Democrat like Donald Trump became one of the most firmly right-wing presidents in US…
Many people often wonder how a long-time Manhattan Democrat like Donald Trump became one of the most firmly right-wing presidents in US history. How did he undergo such a political transformation in such a short period of time?
The answer might be rather simple…
He found the perfect marks for his grift.
You must understand, Donald Trump is not an ideologue.
He does not hold very many strongly held political beliefs, he does not have a guiding political philosophy, but he does have a philosophy… and that’s the philosophy of a grifter.
You see, Donald Trump is a con man.
Throughout his life he floated between various political tribes primarily to whichever one could serve his own needs and ends at any given time. For most of his career he was a Democrat because it served him as a Manhattan tycoon and entertainment figure. He even copped to greasing the palms of Democrats because it benefitted him directly in those days.
He identified as a Republican from time to time and even flirted with the Reform Party for a potential 2000 presidential bid. But he appeared to settle on the Republican Party for his political aspirations following the election of Barrack Obama, America’s first black president.
While his initial reaction to Obama’s election was rather restrained in light of a Bush presidency he openly derided, his tone shifted quickly. Perhaps it was the result of racism he harbored that most in public life weren’t really cognizant of, but he soon began to publicly call in to question President Obama’s legitimacy with birther conspiracy theories. At this point, the first seeds of his grift were planted.
While most in the public derided Trump’s conspiracies as the inane babble of a dumb reality TV star, the conservative audiences of Fox News ate it up. Trump became the face of birtherism and thus the vanguard of the resistance to Obama. Trump found his marks.
He would stoke that white grievance and racial resentment for the rest of Obama’s presidency and into his campaign. By the time he came down the golden escalator at Trump Tower, he already had a captive audience ready to accept his narrative thanks to the goodwill he earned among them by smearing their nemesis Obama with a racist lie.
Trump has a certain cunning to him. His primary skill is one of a con man. He knows how to work the long con. By stoking the racial fears of a white conservative base that was threatened by a changing racial makeup of America, he recognized that he could ride them all the way to electoral victory, or at least to a successful enough of a campaign to turn the venture into a financial windfall for himself.
He didn’t need to know about policy, he didn’t need to have governing experience, all he needed to do was just tell them what they wanted to hear. Fortunately for him, conservative media had already done a lot of the heavy lifting for him. These marks were ripe for the picking. He merely needed to parrot what they already heard on Fox News, Breitbart and the myriad of right wing extremists on talk radio.
What they wanted to hear was…
Hispanics were coming to take their jobs.
BUILD THE WALL!
Muslims were invading the country and destroying the fabric of Christian America.
BAN THE MUSLIMS!
Ungrateful black people hated America and our military.
STAND FOR THE ANTHEM!
Police were under attack by liberals and black rights activists.
LAW AND ORDER!
Corrupt Democrats, especially Hillary Clinton, were robbing the country blind.
LOCK HER UP!
The conservative base consisted of the perfect marks for his grift because they were so susceptible to such simple emotional appeals, and that’s what he was good at. He had perfected branding and messaging throughout his career.
He had successfully branded himself as a billionaire tycoon to the public through reality TV and tabloids, even though in reality he was a heavily indebted joke of a business man who survived solely on the basis of his skills as a con artist and willingness to engage with seedier elements of society to fund his ventures.
The truth of the matter is that this kind of grift wouldn’t have worked on a Democratic base because they were not susceptible to these types of appeals promising simple solutions to complex problems.
Conservatives had been bred over time to reject expertise, science, reason and truth. Only the deep well of cultural anxiety moved them.
He won the election by stoking these emotions in aggrieved white people, and he keeps himself alive politically as president in the same way even though he doesn’t have the faintest idea how to govern.
Culture War.
Political Theater.
The Big Lie.
The Long Con.