President Obama has not withheld his distaste for Donald Trump’s candidacy. Like the cool politician he is, he snubbed Trump’s seriousness without taking a direct shot at voters.
No one denies that being president is a tough job. President Obama is right to say that his position doesn’t require branding experience. A president doesn't need marketing skills as much as sound leadership and balanced judgement.
However, his statement of faith in the rational decision making skills of the American people is misguided here. It is clear at this point that the Americans standing behind Donald Trump are not using their sensibilities. There is no logic or rationality in Donald Trump’s campaign. Those who continue to support someone who makes the outlandish and false statements that Trump does have left logic behind.
There is no sense in voting for someone who openly mocks other people. There is also no sense in voting for someone who is happy to discriminate against whole groups of people. But showing support for the people who speak about what makes voters angry feels good and that is the point. They are relying on pure, unadulterated emotion.
It’s the same kind of emotion that sends gold prices skyrocketing and oil prices tumbling. Certainly, politics is always emotive to some extent. President Obama’s first campaign is a living legacy of just how powerful the electorate can be when their hearts are involved. But too much of this tactic has proved to be dangerous for a system that is unequivocally broken.
Donald Trump does not exist in the political sphere because he is a billionaire. It is not even because he is a media personality. His campaign is a success because Washington politics paved the way for his particular brand of crazy. Sarah Palin and her Tea Party cohorts have made it possible for politicians to say anything as long as they believe it to be true. The result is facing an electorate who does not know what to believe.
When no one knows what to believe, it is easier to side with someone who is validating their feelings. Because at the end of the day, feelings are easier to register than rhetoric.
The question right now is not whether Americans will be sensible in November. The question is which candidate will wake up and realize they played a part in Donald Trump’s success. Only when the establishment realizes that it has no one to blame but itself can it began to heal. Without this healing, the voters will continue to rely on what they know. The only thing many voters know right now is that they are angry.
In an ideal world, voters will wake up and begin thinking about the impact that their emotional decisions could have on their country and on their children.
Certainly, not every decision needs to be rational. But voting to fill the position of president of the United States should be.
Unfortunately, there is too much hurt, too much distrust and too much resentment among the voting public. More unfortunate is that the only person willing to take advantage of the sentiment to enact change voters’ desire is Donald Trump.