AT THE root of Donald Trump’s meteoric rise in popularity landing him the GOP’s Presidential Nomination on Tuesday, lurks a widening gap between those who view him as a Patriot capable of restoring our national dignity, and those who view him as a dangerous Populist capable of fomenting a national rebellion.
It’s no secret that populist parties have been on the rise in Western Europe, tapping into the deep well of public cynicism resulting from economic stagnation and cultural upheaval due to mass immigration. (Consider the Brexit). And it only takes a brief course in history (consider Hitler) to confront the very real dangers of populist leaders and movements.
However, Populism as defined by Wikipedia is “a political ideology which holds that the virtuous citizens are being mistreated by a small circle of elites, who can be overthrown if the people recognize the danger and work together. The elites are depicted as trampling in illegitimate fashion upon the rights, values, and voice of the legitimate people.“
Today’s political elite contenders are just that; a small circle of people who seem more interested in creating and maintaining their own self-styled ‘rights’ (ObamaCare, Obergefell and the recent failure to indict Hillary to cite a few examples) than in honoring the voice and will of “We the People”.
That the populace has tired of Barak Obama et. al. is no wonder. The likes of Barak and Michelle, Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Eric Holder, and Loretta Lynch, smug, aloof and seemingly beyond accountability and reproach, represent the ‘elite’ the people are in direct opposition with.
It is this put upon group of Americans that recognizes the ‘Will of the People’ has been subverted and ignored and that free thought and speech are being increasingly censured under the guise of political correctness. And it is this same group that finds Donald Trump’s real speech (yes, at times offensive) along with the fact he is a political outsider as refreshing as a cool breeze on a hot summer day.
America, morally and spiritually degraded following eight years of Barak Obama’s radical, Saul Alinsky styled politics aimed at deconstructing democracy and rewriting the narrative of American Exceptionalism has rendered the populace nearly incapable of recognizing or experiencing Patriotism.
Such guilt has been imposed, so much toxic shame spread about our ancestry coupled with questionable narratives rewriting our history as a Nation, that we now regard a flag waving billionaire businessman who wants to restore American to the Land of Opportunity and Opimism with grave suspicion.
While Hitler scapegoated the Jews by accusing them of “eating away at the state” in order to mobilize the disaffected middle class to support the Nazi party, Trump’s call to end the entry of Muslim refugees into the USA until proper screening can be ensured is not a direct parallel nor adequate proof of Xenophobia.
Why? Simply because the Jewish population or even a minority of it during WWII was not engaged in terrorist acts against Western Europeans, posing a legitimate threat to the Western World at large. And while Jews maintained their own religious and cultural identity, in spite of being a minority group they were largely integrated as professionals and business owners within the larger community, adopting ‘Western Values’ sufficient to ensure a level of cultural assimilation, even shaping it.
To understand Donald Trump’s statement requesting a ‘ban’ on Muslims as purely populist, while failing to recognize that the Western World at large is experiencing a Jihadist War, whether or not they will name it, is to reach a judgement perhaps as rash as Donald Trump himself.
If Donald Trump is a populist, then he is so because of his campaign to undermine the political elite, not basked on his statements regarding the dangers of unvetted Muslim immigrants.
If Donald Trump is a Patriot, I would argue that he is so for his stand against both.