Guest Editorial
By Lawrence Sellin, PhD | SEPTEMBER 9, 2015
Trump: The shot heard round the country
If Donald Trump did not exist, he would have to be invented.
Illegal immigration, China, the economy, radical Islam? Yes, they are all important issues, as are others, but they are mere talking points compared to what frightens the establishment the most; voter sentiments of which our "esteemed" politicians and journalists may not even be aware.
Trump has tapped into, but, as yet, not fully exploited the two most critical issues, not just of the 2016 election, but the ones that will determine whether or not the United States will survive as a republic.
They are also the two issues that, if not addressed, will make it impossible to solve any of the other problems the country faces.
The political-media establishment is hopelessly corrupt and, although we have elections, we no longer have representative government.
And the American people are fed up.
Every time Trump ridicules an establishment politician or slaps down an arrogant and biased journalist, we cheer and he gets stronger.
We are fed up with Obama's Islamo-Marxist government, the extremism and divisiveness it foments in the country, the intimidation it practices against political opponents, its suffocating promotion of political correctness and the vitriolic rhetoric it encourages among its acolytes.
We are fed up with two political parties, who represent only themselves and are identical in their practice of crony capitalism, political expediency and lying; all used solely to increase their own personal power and profit and that of their wealthy donors at the expense of the American people and the well-being of the country.
For Democrats, the only things Americans have in common are our differences. They attain and maintain power by practicing tribal politics, emphasizing and exploiting divisions based on race, ethnicity, gender and income. They foster a political environment of victimhood, grievances and entitlements for which no solutions are ever sufficient and where their demands become ever more extreme. In a united and healthy America, the Democrat Party would have no reason to exist.
In contrast to Democrats, Republicans have no principles at all, except those related to winning elections and retaining their position as the minority party from where they can perform their post-election pandering to special interests, while ignoring the needs and desires of their constituents. They don't want to challenge the Democrats, but join them as junior partners in a government ruling class.
We are fed up with main stream media outlets that are nothing more than propaganda machines for the Democrat Party and the Republican establishment using disinformation and manipulation in a fashion comparable with Soviet-run journalism, collaborators in perpetuating a corrupt status quo.
Americans flock to Trump because the country has a de facto one-party state, where all the traditional means for the people to seek the redress of grievances have been blocked by the self-absorbed, unaccountable, permanent political-media elite.
The establishment, its hair on fire, cannot decipher Trump's appeal because it is divorced from the people and increasingly divorced from reality. And that which the establishment doesn't understand, it seeks to destroy.
Like Lexington and Concord, Donald Trump has provided a spark and a rally point for the American people to regain control of their government.
Stay tuned, the corrupt political-media establishment is about to implode.
Lawrence Sellin, Ph.D. is a retired colonel with 29 years of service in the US Army Reserve and a veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq. Colonel Sellin is the author of "Restoring the Republic: Arguments for a Second American Revolution ". He receives email at [email protected].