What Is Donald Trump Really Selling?

The problem with many people's analysis, in my opinion, is that they make Trump out as a great manipulator of people's logical thinking. I would not underestimate the masses that voted for Trump. There is an old expression called, "spite work." It has a more visceral meaning in Russian Yiddish, but perhaps, some/many of those that voted for him are doing it out of spite, for having seen their vision of America trampled on during the last eight years. In effect the message might be, payback is a bitch when one messes with the majority?

Why do you suppose so many people have left their common sense at the door and embraced the vaporous promises of a con man?

glitterbag wrote:

Why do you suppose so many people have left their common sense at the door and embraced the vaporous promises of a con man?

Like Trump, Sanders may be viewed as a "CON-MAN", full of "vaporous promises", none of which can ever be fulfilled. Moreove, Sanders is as full of BS as is Trump.

The only difference between these two New Yorkers could be that while Trump believes in God, Sanders does not .

When discussing how he'll make his revolution happen, one thing Sanders often talks about is mobilizing people who don't tend to turn out to vote. "Sixty percent of the American people are not likely to vote in the coming [midterm] election," he told a crowd in Waterloo, Iowa, back when he was considering whether to run. "You think you can bring around change with that dynamic? You can have the best human being in the world in the White House fighting all the right fights, and he or she will fail."

But beyond these vague and theoretical nonvoters — whom politicians of all stripes frequently claim they'll be able to conjure— Sanders has a very specific idea about just which demographic Democrats need to improve among: white people, especially older ones living in rural areas.

Here's how he put it in 2005, shortly after President George W. Bush's reelection:


Why is it that two-thirds of white, rural men voted Republican? Why? That’s what we have to address. That’s crazy. These people are working longer and longer hours. They can’t afford to pay $3.50 for a gallon of gas. They’re losing their jobs. So why do they vote for President Bush? And the Republican Party? We’ve got to address this…

What we have to do is knock on doors and go into communities where there are people who disagree with us on certain issues. And we have to talk to them. They’re our friends. They’re our allies. They’re our co-workers. We can’t see them as enemies. That’s easier said than done. All over this country you have progressive communities like Madison and Burlington, but we’ve got to go well, well, well outside of those communities. We’ve got to go to the rural areas. We’ve got to go where a lot of working people are voting Republican.

And when I sat down with him in 2014, he made a very similar point:


I do not know how you can concede the white working class to the Republican Party which is working overtime to destroy the working class in America. Of course we’ve gotta work with the African-American community and the Hispanic community and minority communities, absolutely, and I’m proud of my record on all of those issues.

But you can’t concede the white working-class community, which is hurting. You can’t concede the senior community. The idea that Democrats are losing among seniors when you have a major Republican effort to destroy Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid is literally beyond my comprehension.

To Sanders, this isn't just a theory — he believes he's already pulled it off in his home state. He thinks that because he's made his case on economic issues so loudly, he's repeatedly won double-digit victories in Vermont, the second-whitest, second-oldest, and second-most-rural state in the nation. He continued:

What I’ve said to people in Vermont is, look, we may disagree on this or that issue — my whole life I’ve been strongly pro-choice, I voted against DOMA when I was in the House, not many of us did. I am pro-gay rights. Not everybody in Vermont shares that perspective.

But what I have made clear, I think, over the years, is that I am pro-working families, I am pro-middle class, I am pro-senior, I am pro-low income. And as the mayor of Burlington, as a congressman, and as a senator I’ve carried through on those issues.

And I think what people end up saying is that, well, you know, I may disagree with Bernie Sanders on the abortion issue or the gay rights issue, but I know he’s fighting for me and my kids. And I happen to believe that if you are strong on those issues people will give you a little bit of slack on some of the other issues that you may disagree with.

He is either a liar or he is living in LA LA land.

I think he is mistaking his rallies for a revolution.