(c) by Mark Dempsey
The interesting question is not "Who is going to win?" it's "Why is it even close?"
My friends in the Democratic Party have not been shy in expressing their distress about Trump, or in making fun of his many foibles. But the rush to denigrate Trump entirely misses the point. He's an agent of destruction, and the more chaotic and destructive the better.
Yes, this is a tantrum in response to Democratic malfeasance, not a sensible public policy solultion, but as one Australian observed "You Yanks don't consult the wisdom of democracy; you enable mobs." Americans are emotional about their politics.
What are people dissatisfied with? First, Trump is the anti-Obama in just about every respect. What's wrong with Obama? Not only did he not prosecute the war crimes of Bush/Cheney, he almost entirely ignored what is arguably the largest theft in human history--the "Global Financial Crisis" (the GFC is the subprime/derivatives meltdown).
Local Democratic loyalist Phil Angiledes conducted hearings about the GFC and even he expressed surprise at how little the Obama administration did. When Reagan/Bush 41 encountered what was then the largest bank scandal in US history--the Savings & Loans--their regulators reacted. They filed 30,000+ referrals for criminal prosecutions, and prosecuted 1200+ cases with a 90% conviction rate. They got big fish, too--Mike Milken and Charles Keating among them.
The GFC was 70 times larger than the Savings & Loans. So..how many referrals for criminal prosecution from the Obama regulators? Zero!
The GFC included 8 - 10 million fraudulent loan foreclosures that tanked the economy. Obama's response was to bail out Wall Street with the Federal Reserve extending, by its own audit's estimate, $16 - $29 trillion in credit to the same financial sector that crashed the economy. For only $9 trillion the Fed could have paid off everyone's mortgage.
No one went to jail, no one had to repay their bonuses. The typical story was the malefactor paid a fine that was dimes on the dollar of their loot. This is why ordinary people in Frank Luntz's focus groups during the Obama administration wept with anger and frustration--reportedly the first time Luntz saw that.
You might also see this (something I'd never thought of before): Hypnotic suggestion.
Update: An Anthropologist suggests five reasons peoplel support Trump.
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