What's Really at the Root of the Anti-Trump Sentiment?

(Before reading this, I want you to know that I am neither a Trump hater nor a rah-rah Trump fan. However, as I said in an earlier post, if he wins the nomination, I will vote for him.)

I have been involved with both the media and politics for a very long time, but I have never, ever, seen anything like this before.  First things first, the candidacy of Donald Trump.  He is without question the most unconventional presidential candidate in modern times, if not ever.  Actually, there 

may have been others, but they were fringe candidates.  Trump is the presumptive nominee for the Republican party, something that no one would have even remotely considered at the start of the primary season.  But for a variety of reasons, Trump finished the primaries not only besting all of his competitors, but he won more votes than any other Republican primary candidate in history.

That in itself was no small feat for a guy who not only broke every political rule and principle but turned the elite world of political consultancy on its head.  Practically every political pundit, analyst, and expert said that Trump didn't stand a chance.  Drawing from their infinite wisdom, they pronounced that without political experience or a political organization, Trump's candidacy would amount to nothing more than a novelty act, and when it fizzled out, we could get back to the business at hand.

But what was not apparent then was that voters wanted something different, anything other than a traditional politician.  And Trump is no traditional politician.  He eschewed the retail brand of campaigning.  There were no pie-eating contests or drinking beer with blue collar guys at a local tap. He didn't start speaking with a southern drawl, or affecting an ethnic dialect to make his audience believe that he was one of them.  He didn't spin hokey yarns, or dine with a family that "looks like America". Those are things politicians do.  Trump slugged his way to victory by simply being Donald Trump.

But being Donald Trump means that you are going to say things that are impolite and impolitic, and sometimes just downright silly and rude, like when he exclaimed "Look at that face" when speaking of then opponent Carly Fiorina.  But more than saying things that have offended, he has said some things that must never be spoken by anyone that seriously wants to become the president, certainly not in this transformative era (more on this shortly).

Trump has been able to withstand what no other candidate from either party could, a full-scale rebuke from his party's elite; incredibly one-sided reporting from the mainstream media and an assemblage of activists on the warpath to destroy his campaign.  Some activists, such as DeportRacism2016 used children in a pretty shameful way to make the point that Trump is a racist because of his comments about some Mexican illegals and his promises of deportation and constructing a wall.

But again, he's been able to withstand it all because he's not a politician, he's unscripted. Trump punches back when he's hit.  He boldly calls out his adversaries, something a traditional politician would never do.  Professional politicians are trained to rise above it, choosing instead to stay on message with carefully measured words in the hopes of avoiding controversy.

Donald Trump has also been able to withstand the fire because he's a really rich guy, making it a lot harder to control him. Which is why threats from the party to abandon him or withhold money during the primary didn't hold much weight because Trump didn't have to jump through hoops for their money--he could well afford to go it alone. And for the most part, that's exactly what he did. According to campaign reports, Trump spent nearly $56 million dollars, most of it from his own pocket (he loaned his campaign over $50 million dollars, and kept a pledge to not repay himself, forgiving the loan).  In the world of national politics, that's not a kingly sum, especially when compared to Hillary Clinton, who spent $179 million through April, but then again, Trump didn't need much in the way of paid media or campaign staffing because he displayed complete mastery at getting free media.

So what is it that about Trump that has made many people effectively designate him persona non grata, a political pariah, a virulent racist, a xenophobe, an idiot, a sexist and any other thing that could seriously hurt his chances of winning the presidency? Some might say there's too much to choose from. I've taken into account many of the things that Trump has said or tweeted, and yes, some of them have been real doozies. I'm not going to list them all (a herculean task no doubt) because you can use the search terms "Trump's outrageous comments" in Google and get 615,000 results in just 0.32 seconds and judge for yourself.  But what I've concluded, and it took me a while to figure this out, is that of the many things that Trump has said during the campaign, there are really just three things that have triggered the strongest opposition to his campaign. Actually, the three things can be grouped under one general theme.  Everything else that he's said pretty much generates a reaction, meaning people either want to support him, reject him, ignore him or laugh at him.

So what is it that Trump has said that must never be spoken, certainly not in this transformative era, by anyone that seriously wants to become the president,?  It's stopping illegal immigration, building a wall between the US and Mexico and banning refugees from Muslim nations (until they can be properly vetted). And Trump keeps repeating it, underscoring his commitment. These issues, along with the economy are the centerpiece of  his campaign and his supporters love it.  You're probably saying, "Come on Deborah, you can do better than that...have you forgotten that he said..."?  No, I haven't. But have you asked yourself why it is that so many Republicans are hellbent on stopping Trump from getting the nomination? Why the Never Trump "movement" includes many prominent Republicans?  I can understand it when rank and filers, everyday citizens say they won't for Trump because they don't like or trust him, okay, I get that.  But when so many of the party's movers and shakers prefer losing the election to voting for a historic vote-getter or threaten to vote for Hillary Clinton, something's wrong.

You may not realize it (I know I didn't), but enormous amounts of money, time and other resources have been spent over the years by very powerful people to see to it that the borders become even more porous, that a wall is never built, that immigration (legal or not) is greatly expanded and that the U.S. becomes home to many times more refugees (properly vetted or not). There are certainly regular Joes that feel this way too, but regular Joes lack the money and influence that it takes to derail a campaign.

Many of the powerful people that are aggressively advocating for open borders (though they typically use the more digestible term "immigration reform") include several individuals on Forbes 400 List (the so-called Billionaires for Open Borders) such as Michael Bloomberg, George Soros, Steve Ballmer, Rupert Murdock, Bill Marriott, Douglas Baker, Jr., Bill Gates, Sean Parker and Mark Zuckerberg, who even put up $40 million dollars of his own money to launch Fwd.us, a "pro-immigration" lobbying group.  In fact, in 2013, a bevy of fat cats, joined Soros' National Immigration Forum and the US Chamber of Commerce to lobby for amnesty.  There's also no shortage of political figures on both sides of the aisle that would like to see the US relax its border restrictions.  In fact, support for "immigration reform" is far broader than I realized and is supported by a broad range of groups.  Even Pope Francis has attacked Trump, suggesting that Trump is not a Christian for wanting to deport illegals and build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico.  Clearly, efforts to relax the borders have been going on for a long time, but they have accelerated in recent years. This may explain why the National Border Patrol Council, the people on the front line have endorsed Trump, marking the first time in the union's history that it has made a presidential endorsement.

The new reality is that a fundamental transformation of the country is underway.  The political class and their financial backers no longer share the same vision for America as most of the nation's citizens. In fact, the same thing is happening around the world.  Leaders are championing open borders but many citizens aren't willing to go along with this idea. This phenomenon was on full display yesterday with the BREXIT vote. Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron (soon to be former PM since he's announced plans to resign) wanted the country to remain in the European Union (which has never seen a border it likes), but the voters rejected that idea by a narrow majority.  Ironically, it was just a few months back when Cameron called Donald Trump a "hate preacher" for wanting a temporary ban on Muslims.  He also said Trump's ideas for building a wall and deporting illegals (and having them come back the right way) were divisive, stupid and wrong. I wonder if Trump will be tweeting any thoughts about Cameron today?

Yes, times are changing, and so are many of our leaders.  It was just eight short years ago when Hillary Clinton, sounding much like Donald Trump today, said that Mexico was indeed sending their people here and advocated for a physical barrier (a wall) to stop illegal immigration.

Today she says that we don't need to build walls (though she's voted numerous times in the past for building a wall). That's a pretty remarkable shift.  And then there's Secretary of State John Kerry who once advocated increasing prosecutions of American businesses that hire illegals.  Today, Kerry believes something very different.  Last month, Kerry delivered the commencement address at Northeastern University in Boston. Among other things, he talked about climate change and took a few shots at Trump.  But it's what he told the grads to prepare for that's quite interesting.

So I stand by my assessment of the anti-Trump effort's root cause.  When it's all said and done, a Trump presidency would be very problematic for lots of special interests and very powerful people. Having Donald Trump as president would slow, if not bring to a complete halt, plans for cheaper labor, newly-minted non-American voters, highly skilled foreign techies that wouldn't need H1B visas, greater government dependency, and other globalist ideals. Trump's a businessman too, but he's been crystal clear that he's committed to doing everything that he can to strengthen our nation's borders, economy and ultimately our sovereignty.

I'm not much for conspiracies, but when you consider that many of the people supporting open borders own radio, television, print and social media empires, it begs the question is the onslaught of negative stories about Trump the result of objective journalism or something far less noble?  While there is data that suggest that during the primary, there was more negative Clinton coverage than Trump, what the data (at least not in any of the stories that I read) doesn't reveal is the variety or mix of stories.  My guess is that most Clinton stories were about her private server, the emails, and her testimony.  Negative stories about Trump were wide-ranging and often had little if anything to do with politics. There were stories about ex-girlfriends, ex-wives, ex-employees, his hair, his dentist and his teeth (I learned that Trump insists on the whitest shade for his veneers). Yet, despite Trump traveling across the country meeting with the media to discuss his initiatives including his urban agenda, when asked, most people didn't even know he had one.  Hmmm, I wonder why?