Explaining Trump to My Foreign Pals

Hi There Friends-

I am not particularly shooting for having a political blog, nor do I think I have anything that's a lot smarter or more well-researched to say about the current political goings-on in America than the experts whose articles and blogs I read.  That said, I have a Facebook feed full of friends from (and in) other countries who are clearly mystified by the popularity of Donald Trump, and so I write this mainly to address them directly and try to break it down (as I understand/observe it) so that it makes sense, because, as horrifying as he and his candidacy are, they make perfect sense:

We have two parties, Democrats and Republicans.  Abraham Lincoln was a Republican; it started as a progressive party, the slogan of which was "Free Labor, Free Land, Free Men." (Thanks to Kyle Saulnier for hipping me to that.)  The 'Free Labor' doesn't refer to slavery, but to the idea that laborers should be free men, not slaves actual or otherwise to their employers.

At some point around the time of Nixon (the 1960s), the parties flipped, for a lot of complicated reasons, but mainly because Democrat party was split between Northern progressives and southern populists who also happened to be the strongest supporters of institutional racism, segregation, etc.  Nixon's 'southern strategy' of catering to racists and conservative religious people basically flipped those people (southern Democrats) into being Republicans.

Now, in 2016 in the Republican party is basically a combination of people who want to make (and keep) as much money as they can (to the detriment of everything else,) and people who have an ideological opposition to the federal government, taxes, etc.  But there aren't enough rich people and/or people who don't want the government to do anything in this country for Republicans to win elections based on their votes. So they need to bring in more people.  Firstly, they brought in religious people, who will pretty much vote for anyone who says that they are against abortion and gay marriage.  So as long as you don't have a conscience, it's easy to get those people on your side.  But even those people are not enough to do it.

So to get more votes, the Republicans started appealing to uneducated white people. Now, uneducated white people generally are helped by government programs like social security, Obamacare, unions, etc, and the money/we-hate-the-government people that run the Republican party don't like those things.  So in order to get uneducated white people on their side, they have to convince them of a few things that are not true.  (This apparently not terribly hard, given their lack of education and desire to blame someone for their problems... that last bit is pretty universal.) So the money/government-is-bad people tell the uneducated white people who are struggling to find good jobs, save money, retire, etc, that the reason they are having those struggles is because the government is taking money and resources from them and giving to even poorer brown and black people, and immigrants.  Then they say they're going to 'make America Great Again,' which is a sort of code for 'we're going to crack down on black and brown people and immigrants and keep them from getting the stuff the Democrats want to give them, and it'll be like it was before the civil rights movement.'

Of course, the real reason these poor uneducated white people can't get ahead is because their job got moved to India or China, they can't afford to go to college, and government programs that would make healthcare and childcare and public school better are being blocked or destroyed by the traditional money/anti-government Republicans.  But the uneducated white people would much rather blame the people who make them uncomfortable anyway, mainly the black and brown and gay and foreign people, and the white people who make any effort to get along with those people.  (You have people like this in your country too, they're everywhere; I think in Europe they're generally called 'nationalists,' but mainly they're just mild-to-medium racists who believe people who are not like them are a danger to them.)  So the Republicans tell the uneducated white people that that's who's to blame, and then tell them that if they just get the Democrats with all their help for black and brown and gay people and regulations on bank and business out of the way, the uneducated white people can all start small businesses and become rich.

Enter Donald Trump, a rich white man who tells poor white people that the problems in this country are Mexicans, Muslims, and liberals, and that his solution is to make the federal government less like a government and more like a business, which will then make everyone rich winners.

You have probably observed that this is what he says, and what he is doing.  I'm just letting you know that he's only saying what Republicans have been saying for 30 years, but louder, and meaner, and more plainly.  He didn't come out of nowhere.  He makes perfect sense.