Frank's Musings

Donald J. Trump seems to be deluded that he will continue to rule the Republican Party after he reluctantly leaves office in January 2021.  The American news media have reinforced his belief that his party’s elected officials, federal, state and local, owe their political fortunes to his formation of a new coalition of voters who have adopted capitulated to his solipsism.  Trump really believes that he was and should continue to be elected president because that is the order of things. 

Trump really only came into prominence in the American mind as the result of the brilliant idea behind the creation of a popular reality TV show, The Apprentice.  He didn’t create the audience for that show; he stepped into the role of an all-knowing business executive devised by the geniuses who recognized that there existed many television viewers who would be attracted to watching the contention of business aspirants with a potential unassailable boss. 

The genius of Donald Trump was to realize that if there was a massive audience for his entertaining portrayal of a an unapologetically contemptuous CEO, a large bloc of the voters in our electoral democracy might also select that character as their leader.  After all, most of those people think of politics as mere entertainment, and Donald Trump has the same personal values he depicted on The Apprentice.   

What is surprising about this is how many Republican officials have expressed fealty to Trump’s delusion.  It only shows how unprincipled many of them are.  Their most important objective is to preserve their jobs, which means that they view themselves as desperately in need of money in order to finance their electoral victories.  For many of them, those governmental jobs lead importantly to further lucrative positions in the private sector Raising those funds occupies much of their time during which they must confess their allegiance to the best interests of their donors.  Many of those officials rely on private business interests for most of their funds.   They have chosen to leave the collection of their needed funds to corporations and others who use the capital economy to earn revenue   

Of course, there is another way to finance a political career—appealing directly to individual voters   Some politicians are adept at doing that.  It naturally sets up a conflict between individual interests and corporate business interests.  Both have their merits.   Republican Party members have traditionally represented the latter category.   However, they have lately been confused by the success of Donald Trump into believing that he represents those interests.   Some of them, including Leader Senator McConnell, are beginning to abandon identification of their personal fortunes with the continued reality showmanship of Donald Trump.  At last, we’ve all had enough of his contempt.