May 4, 2016
With today's news of Donald Trump
becoming the "presumptive" Republican candidate for President of the
United States, I've thought a lot about how he got to that position. Everyone I know has different thoughts on
this, and I recognize that there are many, many factors that have led to it,
but in my opinion there are two main causes.
First, is the environment built over the last generation or so by the
Republican Party, and second is that like him or hate him, he is an extremely
savvy businessman.
After Reagan, the Republican party
began to lose its way. Reagan was a
mediocre President who suffered from Alzheimer during his second term. If it had not been for a super staff and a
very determined wife, he never would have made it to the end. When Bill Clinton became President, some people
saw an opportunity to get rich. Most
notably, Rush Limbaugh. I have to admit,
I listened to him in the early 90's, but through him, the Republican core began
their decline into incivility. Daily, he
bashed the President, showing no respect for the President or his office. Everything the President did was wrong no
matter what he did. This continued with
even more incivility with President Obama.
Limbaugh would also mock various
groups of people in the US. I can still
hear him mocking the poooor. Over a few
years, it became popular to show no respect for anyone in authority and to mock
anyone who disagreed with you. Limbaugh
at one time was considered THE most influential Republican, and gave rise to
many copycats such as Hannity and a host of others, including most of the
personalities on Fox News. Incivility
began to run rampant and out of control in the media. When was the last time you heard any talking
head refer to "President" Obama or "Secretary" Kerry. Most so-called "conservative" media
personalities have openly mocked the President and almost everyone else in a
leadership position. The Republicans
openly supported these personalities and adopted them as their
mouthpieces. Therefore, they created the
environment they now live in, and they will now pay the price with the person I
think to be the most uncivil of all: Donald Trump.
I have to give Mr. Trump a lot of
credit for what happened. He is a savvy
business man, who has made billions of dollars.
He's had a lot of failures along the way, but all business people
do. He saw and understood the Republican
milieu. He wanted to run for the Presidency, but history had taught him that
third party candidates, even those who are independently wealthy, don't get
media time, are not invited to debates and don't get very far. So, he, not known to be a Republican
supporter, decided to "attack" the Republican Party and essentially
caused a coup. He did this brilliantly
and used the milieu they had created against them. They didn't think he could do it, but he
did. The Republican party as we knew it
since the early '90's is dead and I for one am glad for it.
