Tuesday, June 28, 2016

If Trump wins, it’s our own fault

Various polls indicate that likely Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump lags behind apparent Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton by significant margins, and also has an overwhelming number of people who can’t stand the thought of him.
TRUMP: Only apathy makes him president

Yet the Trump-types are an optimistic bunch, particularly in the way they regard that British trend toward dumping membership in the European Union as a sign of their own inevitability.

BECAUSE THEY WANT to believe that the same attitude that caused many Great Britain residents to break away from a conflagration of European nations working as one is the same as their own candidate’s attitudes toward wanting to bolster deportations and restrict who is even permitted to be in this country.

Xenophobia and nativism are the themes they want to believe will prevail over all else. And the Trump campaign has certainly become the preference of the xenophobic and nativist amongst us!

So just what should we expect of the Nov. 8 Election Day and how things will turn out?

It really is in the hands of the people themselves to decide what direction our nation will head. I really do sense a significant segment of society that, when they bother to pay attention, is appalled by the garishness of Trump.

BUT “THE DONALD,” so to speak, has the advantage of people who are all worked up over his cause. Perhaps they really view it as a crusade – getting Trump elected as president is their version of a 21st Century holy war.

They are the ones who can be counted upon to turn out and cast ballots. It seems the conservative ideologue types in recent election cycles are the ones who have been most determined to participate in the electoral process.

Whereas it is the masses amongst us who have become lazy, apathetic, generally sluggish in caring what happens on an Election Day.

Many are the ones who either don’t bother to vote, or perhaps they figure the number of people who are disgusted by Donald and the thought of him prevailing are so numerous that their sole vote won’t be missed.

HOW I EXPLAIN the large number of people appalled by Trump to the point that they give Hillary Clinton, who was in Chicago as recently as Monday, overwhelming leads (usually double-digit) in all the polls is that they reflect people who can’t be counted on to show up at the polling places on Election Day.

If people do turn out, then Trump gets his clock cleaned, his behind booted, his hair mussed up so bad that it will cost him all his millions to have a hair dresser come close to restoring his garish appearance.

In short, he loses.

But if apathy prevails, then we wake up on Nov. 9 with a national hang-over of sorts, a lot of disgusted people who can’t believe that the concept of “president-elects Donald Trump” has become a reality.

YET IF IT turns out that it is apathy that leads to a Trump victory, then who do we really have to blame but ourselves? God may have the whole world in his hands, as the old spiritual says. But the outcome of this election is totally up to us – the electorate.

Which makes this election cycle all the more serious. Apathy is what the Trump types are seeking from the masses so that their own hard-core can be a large-enough group to prevail.

Apathy is what Trump wants to prevail, which is something I have always thought of as a sad trend in electoral politics. People not caring enough to take a simple little action.

Because in the end, apathy is really nothing more than our own fault!

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EDITOR'S NOTE: The screaming-front page headline said it all: Hillary will never be president! Or so believeth the National Enquirer.

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