So far, it has since been a little over a year since Donald Trump announced his candidacy for the ongoing 2016 presidential election.
Even though his face and the ludicrous statements of which it spurts out have been a staple of the 24-hour news cycle, it's become quite difficult to say anything new or riveting about the Trump campaign because it's been so over-analyzed. Nonetheless, I am going to try my best to offer my two cents and provide a fresh, hopefully thought-provoking perspective.
Let's start with the media. We talk about this year's presidential race as if it's something incredibly unconventional. But, ultimately, how outlandish is it really? You have enormous amounts of money flowing into crazy people who are channeling populace of years past. The candidates aren't fully appealing to the voters' beliefs, but rather appealing to the voters' emotions. The media, as always, is focused on the wrong things and is fueled by an agenda that feeds off of conflict and sensationalism.
That is why Trump is such a hot topic for the press; how could they resist the living embodiment of those two things -- conflict and sensationalism -- stuffed into an orange leather bodysuit and topped with a hair transplant from a corpse of a 9th century viking?
Despite the media's obsession with Trump, that doesn't necessarily make them responsible for Trump's rise to being the projected Republican nominee. I don't think that a full court press on his lack of honesty would change his status in the race. He wasn't shaped by the media, and his ego isn't an act. He's being voted for, people like him, and it really isn't hard to understand why they do. Trump makes sense if you view our society through the toilet paper tube-size lens of talk radio. Talk radio is 24/7 of "Your country is being taken away from you," and this concept has been present in the political process for centuries. The conservatives on the right feel an ownership over America, an entitlement. They are the stewards and forebearers of this country. They love it, it's just hard for many of them to accept over 50 percent of its population.
And it's not as though this nativist outlook is inherent only to the U.S. Globalization has created this strange pushback throughout the entire world. You see a lot of countries retreating into nativism (*cough* Brexit), and you see several Trump-like figures in Trump-like positions of authority. In some ways, it's a natural reaction to fear. But when that fear, that "You are being run by a tyrant, your rights are being taken away, there are rapists and convicts at your border" fear is amplified and broadcasted into perpetuity, when that's what you're buying into, all these Trumps and their walls and Brexits and bans make more sense than anyone or anything out there.
Boris Johnson (Britain) and Silvio Burlesceni (Italy)
The thing I'm confused about is whether Trump is even eligible for President. And it's not a birther thing, but can we have a man-child as the leader of the free world? He is the most thin-skinned individual. Graydon Carter made a joke about his hands in a Vanity Fair article 25 years ago, and he's still not over it. What's amazing is how everyone is saying, "Don't worry, once he steps into the oval office, he'll mature." What does that say about his constituency if what he's saying to them is "Look, I know I'm this grotesque, unapologetic, unorthodox narcissist, but that's what my voters like. I'll make sure that once I have to appeal to everybody, I'll cool down."
"Make America Great Again." When was America great? What is this time he speaks of with such high regard? '81 to '88, the Reagan era? What are we talking about, and who took your country away? It's not okay to have nostalgia for the madmen society and to think that that ignorance is virtue. The media isn't at fault because they acknowledge what he says on a daily basis; the media is at fault because they have twisted it around so that his ignorant pronouncements are somehow a sign of great character. This results in a greater division, as it further strengthens the attachment of many individuals toward a societal paradigm that just doesn't exist anymore and probably never did. They will likely never fully understand or dedicate themselves to progression in society, because that is the soup they swim in, stuck in this incredibly corrupt and blind symbiotic terrarium.
