THE DONALD: The Rise of NASCAR America

 

The Donald: The Rise of NASCAR America

Well everyone, it’s official; Donald Trump has won the position of 45th President of these United States.  Wow… who saw that one coming?  Bet you wouldn’t imagine me saying so when I say; I did.  

If any of you actually had a face to face conversation with me about this recent election you’d know one thing that maybe you couldn’t tell from my Facebook posts… I predicted Donald Trump winning.  Why?  It has everything to do with his energy, the zeal, the donald.  

And, if you’re just reading this and don’t really know me that well I think it’s safe to say I am not a ready and willing supporter of the donald but I do have to appreciate the awe, splendor, candor, audacity and the certain level of genius he brought to the table.  Much the same kind of respect that goes to people like Mussolini, Hitler and the like, an acknowledgement that despite the horrendous nature of their handywork… it is impressive nonetheless.  Did I just try and make an actual comparison, albeit unfair, of the donald to some of modern history’s worst?  Sort of, well, yes I did but it was actually meant as a compliment.  Let me explain.

The Trump campaign, in my honest opinion, was a stroke of genius.  No, I’m not referring to his very blatant and public racism, sexism and the fomenting of distrust toward our fellow Americans.  I’m referring to the fact that the donald is filling a niche that would have been filled regardless of who was in it, and it likely would look very similar.  He as an opportunistic narcissist has the ability to spot things like that niche, he knows where he can be effective.  How do you fight a hard-left, socialist liberal like Bernie Sanders, or an entrenched part of the establishment that is… admittedly… part of the problem like Hillary Clinton?  You get someone like Trump to fire up America’s most powerful and most disenfranchised electorate.  I call them NASCAR America.  

First, let me just say that I can appreciate a NASCAR race, the thrill of the sport and the ability of the crews, teams and drivers aren’t what I’m talking about here.  I call this group NASCAR America because of one generally unknown fact; NASCAR is the biggest spectator sport in the United States.  Yep, Google it, it’s for real.  More than the NFL, NBA, MLB… it is THE largest sport, THE most popular sport in this country, and I’m curious how many of you know that?  

Now, why do I bring up NASCAR and how do I correlate it to Trump’s win last night?  Simple disenfranchisement, or at least convincing your base of disenfranchisement.  When they say ‘they’re taking our jobs’ he said ‘I hear you.’  When they say ‘taxed enough already’ he said ‘I know.’  Sure, the statistical liberal in me wants to counter each and every one of those statements with facts… but there my friends inlies the problem.  It doesn’t matter if you can downright prove that immigrants aren’t taking your jobs, it doesn’t matter if you can argue that everyone’s taxes are at historic lows… and have been since Nixon, it doesn’t matter if you point out that no one in fact has come to your door demanding your guns.  It doesn’t matter because it’s been repeated so many times it’s become the internal narrative.

If you convince that large of a power base that they are disenfranchised and that you can fix it, they likely are going to listen to you.  This illustrates the genius of the Trump campaign.  Against all odds the man rose to the top position on this Planet Earth… as scary as that is to me, I have to appreciate the concept… as it is absolutely historic.  Political Science classes will be taught on the Trump campaign and rightfully so.  

I digress.

A while back I made a few comments on Facebook about how dissatisfied I was during the Primary it looked like with the help of Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the befuddling of some Superdelegates the Primary was proverbially taken from Bernie Sanders.  Remember people… modern political parties are like clubs, they get to make their own rules and aren’t really subject to laws like many think they are… if they want a person that didn’t get the popular vote, well, they can ultimately put whoever they want up there.  That’s what happened with Clinton in a nutshell during the Primary.  The DNC decided they wanted Hillary instead of Bernie.  That I think was the biggest nail in the coffin for her… at least for me it was.  That was the moment I realized the modern DNC was no better and would resort to the same shady tactics that the Bush Jr. era GOP utilized in 2000.  

Of course then people will tell me; ‘well Brian, haven’t you heard what Trump’s saying?  You cannot vote for anyone but Hillary, it’s too dangerous to let him have that kind of power.’  

That may be true and honestly I tend to agree, if Trump did actually build a wall (there already is one by the way, which I found quite interesting in regards to the campaign narrative) it would put economic pressure on one of our largest trading partners in North America.  Or if he did enact a ban on Muslim immigrants what that would do for US Civil Rights… or what would it look like if he used executive power to go after Black Lives Matter and how would that be any different than Bill Clinton authorizing military force against the Branch Davidians?  Maybe that’s not a fair comparison but I hope you catch my drift.

So… now we have the donald as our top executive.  The man who publicly mocked a disabled reporter, whose answer to immigration is to put a bandaid on a bleeding wound, and encouraged his campaign supporters to bullishly mock anyone else, say nothing of bragging about tax evasion.  This is the man our country has determined can have the ability to wipe out every human on the face of the Earth, he’s now got the nuclear launch authority.  Interesting.  

One thing I can say in regards to his win and I think people need to understand the full meaning here in what I’m trying to convey.

Democracy is alive and well in America.