Nearly seven months away, the American presidential election looms large, like a dirigible balloon over a sports stadium on a balmy afternoon on a city afternoon. While naysayers abound, the inevitable face off for the nomination seems to be between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton as they pile up delegates on their way to what might be the greatest show on earth, come November.
Then again, there are the anti-Trumpites who are determined to not see him gain the nomination of the Republican party, but instead are looking at a contested convention in Cleveland. Once there, they can either give a nod to the uber establishment hero, Mitt Romney, or give a rebirth to Paul Ryan, whose dash to the top might mean more than a trip to the gym.
While all sorts of scenarios abound, the likelihood of Trump and Clinton on the stump seems a reality, and one fraught with anticipated scenes of Trump scowling and snarling and making obstreperous comments about Clinton, with no holds barred. Clinton will, undoubtedly, stick to the facts and battle-scarred from previous campaigns like Whitewater, will try to keep her dignity, while husband Bill will call in every chit, to defend her against the rhetoric and the rancor, that he can muster.
Trump has earned the enmity of many women, racial minorities and immigrants, and if the scenes of the clash between his supporters and those who loathe him are to be repeated, then television cameras and social media will have a field day with the fracas, all of which is a marked departure from the decorum of the past, even without the angels of our better nature with the exception of the Chicago Democratic Convention of 1968.
While those who oppose Trump, are quick to point out his defects, the fact remains that his meteoric rise in the primaries and caucuses, are not without the support of the millions who cheer him on. The “divisions of the past” that Cokie Roberts alluded to in a recent NPR interview are more present than she so graciously allowed. Bearing a large placard, one Trump supporter, was pictured wearing a construction vest and tool-belt said that he is ready to build the wall. Before that a young Muslim woman is heckled and abused, blacks are escorted out of his rallies, and Trump himself says - though later retracted - that he would pay the legal bills of a supporter who punched a protester.
Just this week, when discussing abortions, an area that he once supported, he noted that women who receive abortions should be punished, thus earning him the enmity of women around the country, even those opposed to abortion. And, earlier, he defended his campaign manager against a charge of a female reporter being manhandled. He later denied the first assertion, and said, despite video evidence, that nothing had occurred.
So, where does this leave us? It leaves us with the lingering, yet persistent, actions of previous generations, and their progeny, possessing a durable nativism, racism and xenophobia, that lay under the social revolution of the 1960s. Some were previously or perhaps their parents, were Reagan Democrats. Enter the candidate who is ready, willing and able to play to their fears and prejudices.
For the most part these, the American south excepted, these seem to be people that live outside large metropolitan areas and whose residual thoughts and beliefs have lingered under the surface.
Their list of grievances is strong: Obamacare and its tentative, but mostly successful steps toward universal health coverage; “gay” marriage, women in the workplace, (for those evangelically inclined), affirmative action, climate change, a black president.
If the roots of their discontent is embedded in working class whites, (those deemed as not having a college degree), then there might be legions waiting to anoint Trump as The Great White Hope, which each day seems more fact than fiction, as his images and messages blaze across social media.
What this portends is more mudslinging and misogyny, even taking potshots aimed at Heidi Cruz, the wife of his rival. The future enmity seems unlimited, but also gives pause to not only the most jaded of pundits, but also makes one shudder at the coming months, as we contemplate how low can we go. Can the diatribes lead to one of the nastiest presidential campaign, the United States has ever known?
Some of Trump’s pronouncements have echoes of the past: Barry Goldwater saying that the way to deal with the Russians was to throw a bomb into “the men’s room at the Kremlin.” A direct hit on what he, and others perceived as President Kennedy’s weakness in the Cold War. Yet, Kennedy’s cool head kept us, and the world between us, from being incinerated; an all too real prospect in 1961.
Even a quick glance in the historical mirror reveals a resurgent nativism that has never died out, where only real Americans need apply. It seems to have morphed into a reality that shows that the revolution will indeed be televised.
Some Americans are thinking that Canada might be the best place to flee from the madness should “The Donald” be the leader of an increasingly less free world. The prospect for those that oppose him might not be as dramatic as that, but for those who feel that Jericho’s walls might take more than a few hurrahs and trumpet blasts to fall, November might be the D-Day.
While Clinton has been criticized as holding too firm to the center, history has shown, even with the Goldwater’s of the past, that extremists may get good play, they won’t reach the Oval office. It is a safe assumption to say, note historians, had there been no Dallas, Kennedy would have won hands down, as Kremlin bombs, and billionaire bullies don’t work for the United States.
