Trump’s Chumps: Victims of the Old Bait and Switch

 

"Many, maybe most, Trump voters voted for the billionaire buffoon to send a message to the various “establishments” or just because they couldn’t abide Hillary Clinton.

But there were also distressingly many Trump voters who really are “deplorable,” just as Clinton said.  She exaggerated their numbers, and there is little doubt that she would have been better off keeping her mouth shut.  But she wasn’t wrong.

Unless, as President, Trump is even more pernicious than he has so far seemed to be, or unless he cedes power to his most vile appointees, or unless his egotism spins out of control, those deplorables could turn out to be even more dangerous than he.

It may take them a while to realize it, but Trump has been treating them, along with all the other people who voted for him, as chumps.

If media reports are on point, some of them are already starting to figure out that they have been suckered.  The vast majority are still cutting the Donald slack.  Having defeated the devil they knew too well, they are adopting a wait and see attitude towards the devil they latched onto.

When liberals cut Obama slack, it was because they believed in his essential goodness; no need for a peace movement while he was calling the shots – evidence notwithstanding.

Trump supporters are similarly deluded — except that what they believe in is not their man’s goodness; they know as well as anyone that he is a badass.  What they believe in is his (magical) ability to restore outsourced jobs and to “make America great again,” whatever that means.

Sooner or later, most likely sooner, most of them will figure out that what they voted for is not what they got; that, in key respects, it is just the opposite. When they do, expect them to lash out.  There will be hell to pay.

Their disillusionment will harm Trump and the Trump brand, but probably not right away.  At first, the usual victims, the vulnerable communities whose wellbeing and security Trump’s campaign put in jeopardy, will bear the brunt.

Now they are suffering because Trump’s most nativist, racist and Islamophobic supporters are feeling empowered; it will be worse when disillusionment sets in.

Obviously, it makes no sense to blame everyone who is not white, straight, male (or female, but like-minded), Christian (or rabidly Zionist), and long in the tooth for Trump’s bait and switch.

But, then very little has made sense ever since, to everyone’s astonishment, the Donald’s efforts to turn the American political scene into a real world facsimile of a reality TV show transformed the 2016 election into a farce – and a cash cow for network and cable TV executives."

read more in the article by Andrew Levine​

Trump’s Chumps: Victims of the Old Bait and Switch