I am sure that you have heard all kinds of media discussing Donald Trump’s hold on the Republican base. Mostly the discussion includes consternation at the base’s willingness to accept Trump’s lies, arrogance, and criminality. For any other political pundit such obvious and consistent actions would call the end to a political career. The question becomes what is Donald Trump’s super power and how best to address it?
It is clear that he can defeat any and all comers in the Republican party. He did so the first time and he is in the process of doing so again. When Trump first ran for president there were as many as 18 other Republicans on the stage that agreed with him on almost all issues. There never has been much room for a Republican to have a contrary opinion on any issue that the RNC states. Such contenders would not receive the kind of funding that would help them get elected or re-elected. But Donald Trump did have one opinion that propelled him to become the nominee that was contrary to every other person on the stage. In fact, the competition would never have stated such an opinion for fear of losing money and not getting elected.
I have also been listening to MAGA supporters making the case for Donald Trump and what they usually state is that he is a fighter, that he says what he believes, and he has their best interests in mind. There is usually some kind of variation on this theme but the one thing they always mention without failing to do so is the “wall.” The “wall” and the “invasion” is omnipresent in every discussion with any supporter of Trump or any Republican representative trying to build a fire under the base. It was also the only contrary opinion held by Trump in the first election from all of the other Republican contenders. He was the only one in either party that was saying that he would fight for their jobs and that would be his priority. Not that he did, mind you, but he sounded like he would. Just being contrary to the Corporate Republicans who did nothing was enough. Ever since he was elected, no other competitor has stated what they would do to protect American jobs. Even Biden has only stated that some legislation would result in more American jobs...yet to be seen. Biden’s best proclamation was that the jobs that the legislation would create would be “union jobs.” But that does not address the “invasion” at the border. The real meat of the invasion at the border has very little to do with crime and everything to do with jobs.
There was a revolution by the Republican voters who finally realized that the Republicans were so corporate based that they were throwing their own voters under the bus. After decades of FOX news propaganda, the base could never vote Democratic and probably never will. When Hillary Clinton ran against Trump she was infamous for supporting offshoring and even stated that the Genie could not be put back into the bottle. Considering her husband, Bill Clinton, created more international ‘job killing” agreements than any other president, there was never any reason to vote Democratic by any Republican, Maga or otherwise.
I wrote a book back in 2016 about the same time that Trump was running for President entitled Offshoring The Corporate Guide Map To 1984. It suggested many methods that could be used to successfully address offshoring and inshoring. It was self-published because most of the publishing companies have become international and it became pointless to even approach them. Because of the lack of interest on the part of the publishers there has been a corresponding lack of interest in purchasers for the book. I am still glad I wrote the book and made the effort, but the lack of interest in offshoring and the mistaken belief that there is nothing that can be done has created the sense of hopelessness and anger that a large part of the American citizenry has developed toward government. It is probably safe to say that a large part of the population not only wants to see small government as a result but probably would not care if the government went under. When children are hungry because parents can no longer support them, changes will occur. Unfortunately that leaves room for a snake oil salesman named Donald J. Trump to fill the void and desperate people will grab hold of the point of a sword to keep from drowning. There will be those who will say it is not that bad, but how many created jobs are the kind that can support children? Bean counters just count jobs to make a political point. The quality of those jobs are not a consideration. Offshoring and illegal hiring have driven incomes down.
Simply saying that businesses are coming back to the United States is meaningless in a world of robotics, computerization, and artificial intelligence. Entire plants may be coming back to the United States but the reason is to eliminate Chinese and foreign labor, which originally was the reason to get rid of American labor. Bringing robotic plants back will only increase jobs for the citizenry in a meaningless insignificant way. The abused American citizenry understands that and also still sees the illegal activity occurring around them. The citizenry are not that stupid and such arguments by the Democrats are not sufficient to peel them away from the lies of Donald Trump.
In my book I made some predictions, some of which came true and some that did not. What I did not predict and never would have suspected was the role that the illegal hiring would have on the rise of racism in America. When there is an obvious and visible rise in migrant hiring, it gives some level of truth to the declarations that “You will not replace us.” The liberals and Democrats have not paid attention to this and attribute it to fascist level racism and white supremacy beliefs. Some of it is, but it was not just Trump that made such open racism acceptable and on the rise.
The fact that the government would do something that is not in the best interests of its own citizens could easily encourage large parts of the population to believe in a deep state and that the government became the enemy of its people. Once that belief takes hold, it is easy to believe that elections are fraudulent and/or stolen.
If the government is going to be supportive of those who are “illegal” then it has lost its credibility and right to require anyone to remain law abiding. That is why the “wall” is so angering to the Republican base. The people coming across the border are stealing jobs and doing it illegally and it looks for all the world like the government is corruptly complicit. The companies that are doing the illegal hiring are equally illegal. The obvious method to put a dagger in the heart of the “wall” is to increase the fines on the illegal companies doing the illegal hiring tenfold. The lowest fine for doing such hiring, the last time I looked, was $539.00. That does not stop any illegal activity and does not fund enforcement. If the Democrats were to legislate such a proposal and broadcast that they were doing so, they might become the party that was doing something about grievance and disenfranchisement. Right now it is only Trump. If they were to do so, it would also become clear to everyone that a wall is as silly as it sounds, possibly even to the MAGA.
In order to put a knife in the heart of the MAGA movement it is necessary to provide something substantial, that does not require the building of a wall and shifts the hatred to the entities that are engaging in illegal activities because of greed rather than those who are trying to feed their children. After all who is being protected by not doing so? Are we protecting the illegal criminals amongst us? What does that say about our government or the parties, Republican or Democrat and how can we complain about Trump’s criminality when everyone else is so corruptly complicit?