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A Match in Common Made in Haste

One of the hardest things for a politician to do is to persuade voters that they should do something they are not sure they want to do.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt comes immediately to mind.  Americans had long believed that we were effectively isolated from the rest of the world, buffered by two oceans, and that, coupled with a Chosen People complex, resulted in a determination to stay away from whatever problems Europe and Asia had.

The National Socialists in Germany might be killing Jews, but that was Europe's problem.  England might be in danger, but that was not worth going to war overseas, again.  We had tried that.  If Hitler invaded Russia, that was Russia's problem.  If Japan was fighting with China, that was not our business.

People did not want to go to war in Europe, or anywhere, except possible here in the Americas, if that became necessary, because this was our continent.

Then the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, in Hawaii.  Most of us had to find a map to locate Pearl Harbor.  Then it became clear that Germany and Japan were our enemies.  We geared up, perhaps reluctantly, but necessarily.

I don't know what Jeb Bush wants for America, other than being its third Bush President.  Scott Walker seems scarcely to know the difference between going to war against public school teachers and ISIS.  Carly Fiorina is still angry because Hewlitt-Packard fired her, and suggests that women scarcely deserve maternity leaves.  I cannot even remember the names of all the Christian Soldiers who want to become the Republican nominee.  

Donald Trump does not have that problem.  He is not trying to convince people to support him.  He already has a constituency.  He is just saying what they already think, or what they would think, if they thought about it.  His supporters have been fussing about at least since the John Birch Society, and its drifting off into the Tea Party.  They are already there, and do not need to be convinced of anything they do not already think.  And if they had the money to do it, they would do exactly what Donald Trump is doing, including his scorn of immigrants, and his--shall we say--use and abuse of women.  Maybe get a hair transplant, too.

If Donald Trump finally realizes that he is never going to be the Republican nominee, not because they necessarily disagree with him, but because he is not electable, he might go to Atlantic City, but his supporters in the Republican Party are not going to go away.  They are there.  They might only represent a quarter or a third of the Party, and the Party might only represent a third of the electorate--that is to say, about one of every ten voters--but they are there, looking for a spokesman [gender intentional].

Jeb Bush has to explain what he wants to do as President.  So do all the other candidates, but Donald Trump just has to use a few code words and the one-tenth of all of us cheer:  "Send the immigrants back across the border!  Build the wall!  Walk proudly, and carry a very big military stick!  Admire women and tell them what their place is!  Damn the stupid politicians!  Tell them what their place is, too!"

You cannot be elected President with one-tenth of all the voters, but it is more than anybody else in the Party.  And that is not just a Republican problem.



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