Donald Trump is a liar and scam artist, but he’s speaking to working people in a language they understand, and if Democrats don’t start taking him seriously, he’s going to be your and my president.
Last night, liberals and progressives in the media did something that I found extremely disturbing.
After Donald Trump gave what is in effect a victory lap speech, liberals and progressives in the mainstream media laughed at him because he was bad at reading the teleprompter.
You really couldn’t ask for a better example of how the mainstream media still doesn’t get it when it comes to Trump.
Sure, he isn’t the best prompter reader, but he’s nothing to laugh about.
Trump is far more dangerous than anyone thinks he is, and by dangerous I mean he could very well end up as president.
And that’s not because of any real weaknesses on the part of Hillary Clinton, it’s because he’s shouting out to the people I grew up with.
He’s speaking to working-class people who’ve been screwed over by the 30-plus years of Reaganomics, and he’s speaking to them in a language they understand about issues they understand.
If Democrats don’t start talking about these issues, Trump is going to walk away with the election This is what politicians, pundits, and the Democratic Party intelligentsia who live in the D.C. bubble apparently don’t understand.
Working-class people, the people I grew up with in a blue-collar part of Lansing, Michigan -- they know what Trump’s talking about when he says the factories are disappearing and they know what he’s talking about when he says we’re getting ripped off by so-called free trade deals.
They should know -- they’re living it every single day of their lives, and they’re getting more and more desperate.
They also don't care about Trump’s delivery or his terrible prompter skills.
They like the fact that he’s not a polished politician, because they’re not either.
But here’s the rub: Trump is lying. He doesn’t intend to any of this.
Trump, after all, is a Republican, and Republicans have shown time and time again that they simply have no interest in rebuilding our crumbling bridges, bringing our jobs back home, and ending so-called free trade deals.
Remember: It was Republicans who filibustered Nancy Pelosi’s infrastructure bill, it was Republicans who blocked Obama’s jobs bill, and it is Republicans right now who are working the hardest in Congress to pass the TPP.
Trump might act like he's all about blowing up his own party’s orthodoxy, but that’s not going to happen.
The billionaires still own the Republican Party and Trump is either their useful idiot or their brilliant front-man. His populism is just the reality show version of the fake populism that Republicans have always sold the American people.
But that doesn’t mean Trump can’t win.
Even if he’s completely full of it - which he is, by the way - Trump is still speaking to a lot of people, the people I grew up with.
This is incredibly dangerous for Democrats.
Back in the FDR days, this wouldn’t have been a problem. Democrats could point to his shady business dealings and easily expose Trump as the charlatan he is.
Today, it’s not so simple.
For all her very real gifts as a politician and leader, Hillary Clinton is very much a part of the Democratic Party establishment, a Democratic establishment that has been almost as complicit in the destruction of the working-class as the Republican Party.
Working people know this, which is why during the primaries so many working-class voters were stuck deciding between voting for Donald Trump or voting for Bernie Sanders There’s only one way for Democrats to prevent working-class people from jumping ship and voting for Trump in November: they need to start talking like Trump.
And no, I don’t mean they need to start spewing racist conspiracy theories or locker room sexism.
What I mean is that Democrats need to start talking about trade and economic issues like Trump does.
They need to start talking about them like they’re the most important issues in the country, which, for large chunk of the electorate, they are.
Democrats need to start talking to regular people like regular people.
Too much is at stake in this election to laugh Donald Trump off as an idiot.
He’s tapping into something that, if left unchecked, represents an existential threat to the Democratic Party.
Let’s hope Hillary Clinton, the DNC, and liberals and progressives everywhere realize that before it’s too late.
