Trump is the "Fuck You" Candidate

Today we're going to get the first GOP debates for 2016, and as it stands Donald Trump of all people is the leader of the polls.  For the last several hours, conservative media people have been running around with their hair on fire about how Trump is just a plant by the Clintons in some secret conspiracy to destroy the Republican party's chances of winning the election thanks to the fact that Bill encouraged him to run in a phone call.

They can't stand the thought of Donald Trump, and that's not really surprising.  Donald Trump is an egomaniacal asshole who could bankrupt the only lemonade stand operating in the middle of the biggest heat wave anyone's ever seen.  And if that isn't explicit enough as to whether or not I think of myself as a Trump supporter before we get into the rest of this, here it is in plain English: no, I do not think Donald Trump would be a good President. I don't think he's trustworthy. I don't think anyone should vote for him.

But he does amuse me, and every day I see the Right's reaction to him is another day that I find myself closer to cheering him on just on general principles.  Because with few exceptions the Right, and especially the GOP, still does not seem to understand what's happening here. They seem to think that this election is about policy and visions for America and who will be the best leader to bring us out of this seemingly interminable malaise.  It isn't.


This election is America voting for the Prom King. (Or the Homecoming Queen if we need to make this all girl power like for you SJWs out there.)  It's a popularity contest about who makes people tingle in the right places. That's it.  That's why Romney got his ass handed to him last time even though most people agreed he would be better at literally everything than Barack Obama.

Many of us hate that notion.  We'd prefer the choice of the most powerful person in the world to be a discussion about what is best for our country going forward, but that's not the world we live in right now.  After decades of systematically beating the idea of intelligent debate out of the populace, progressive liberals have taken that away entirely.  If you want it to change, you'll have to fundamentally alter the culture we live in today, and since the Right usually has to be dragged kicking and screaming into engaging in the culture, that isn't going to happen any time in the near future.

So instead we're going to have an election which, just like the last one, will come down to one thing, and one thing only:  which candidate best reflects how people feel right now.  And right now, people are pretty fed up with pretty much everything.

Now here comes Donald Trump.  Everyone is aware Trump is an egotistical assclown and they don't care.  They know he's not really a Republican, and they don't care.  (In fact it works in his favor.) They know he says stupid ridiculous things, and they do not care.  You can make whatever argument you want against him and they just don't care.

It's not out of some strange stupid hero worship or whatever you want to call it.  No, they don't care because Trump in word, deed, and very existence reflects the main sentiment that a good chunk of the population wants to express right now, and that sentiment is "fuck you."

And boy does Trump know how to sell "fuck you." He did it for years on The Apprentice, cleaned up as "You're fired." He's going for force the Mexicans to pay for a wall at the southern border? That's not a serious policy statement. That's "fuck you, amnesty proponents", and whether they realize it, admit it, or not, that's exactly what people want to hear.

They'll tell you, "He takes it to Obama and Hillary. He fights!" but what they they really mean is "Fuck you, Democrats, and fuck you, establishment Republicans."

"He can't be bought!" Fuck you, lobbyists. Fuck you, corporate interests.

"He's not a politician!" Fuck you, Washington. Fuck you, pollsters.

"He stirs things up!" Fuck you, pundits. Fuck you, media.

Fuck. You.

Meanwhile that message is totally lost on his opposition, which hammers his supporters, whines about him getting coverage, and runs around flinging Kool-Aid about the Clintons at people.  All any of that does is make more people want to say "fuck you."  That's why his poll numbers keep going up and will continue to go up all things being equal.

Now it's possible in the debate he'll do something to unravel people's sense that voting for him is the way to say "fuck you".  Another candidate might be smart enough to position themselves as a better, more interesting "fuck you" than Trump to steal his thunder.

But in the end, the people are going to say "fuck you" one way or another.  If they have to stay home, vote third party, or even go so far as to vote for Hillary to express that feeling, then that's what they'll do.  So if the GOP wants to win an election, they better figure out how to make people feel like "fuck you" is what they have in mind too.

And if you don't like Trump?  Well then you better stop wasting time pissing people off by attacking them for supporting him and find someone who's better at saying "fuck you" to give them.

Because as John Goodman put it in The Gambler, the United States of America is based on "fuck you."