For whatever reason, the election of Barack Obama was seen by many on the right as the most horrible, devastating thing to ever happen to the United States. There was almost certainly an undertone of racist bigotry involved, but there was a perception among the social conservatives that Obama personified all that was wrong with the country and represented all the "evil" that liberals intended to visit upon the nation. I say "social" conservatives because, among ordinary voters, both conservative and liberal, those who understand even basic economics are quite thin on the ground. Many in the blue collar work force are seeing their jobs move overseas or disappear altogether and have a resentment and suspicion of minorities and immigrants. Into this atmosphere the Tea Party movement was born. Basically the far right wing of the Republican Party, Tea Party groups started fielding candidates, often challenging and defeating incumbent Republicans in primaries. A fair number were elected in 2010 and 2012, including former Presidential candidate Ted Cruz. The problem with these newly-elected Tea Party people was that they didn't understand that they were now part of a system and that not everyone agreed with them. Most of the them did not believe in compromise, and stunts like threatening to shut down the government became commonplace. They did not believe in collaboration either, and many of them got little done because no one wanted to work with them. Few of them had anything beyond a middle school understanding of economics or of the vast size of the federal government. They eventually wakened to the reality that things just don't happen quickly in Washington; some, like Senator Cruz, made his name by doing nothing but complaining about the system that he was now a part of. The few who did adapt to the system were seen as traitors to the cause. The Tea Party revolution didn't happen.
So now it's time for the primaries. The angry Republicans don't want Jeb Bush or John Kasich and anyone with experience of any kind because they were viewed as part of the broken system. Of the group of inexperienced outsiders, Trump stood out.
It didn't matter that most of what Trump said he would do was wildly improbable or that his "solutions" were ridiculous or that the statistics that he quoted were often simply made up; he was saying what a significant portion of the right wing electorate wanted to hear: that he would fix the immigrant problem, the welfare problem, the jobs problem. And he said it with conviction. And, to his advantage, few took him seriously. No one countered his attacks, no one pointed out the obvious flaws in his so-called solutions, no one pointed out the factual errors or outright lies in what he was saying, no one took him to task for his name-calling.
The way that primaries, caucuses and fund-raising work also helped to weed out some of his opponents. Most candidates do not have the private funds to mount a presidential campaign and have to rely on donations, so when a candidate does poorly in an early primary the funding dries up, severely limiting what they can do in the next round. Trump didn't have that problem. He had enough money from his various companies to keep him visible throughout the primaries. Seventeen candidates went quickly down to twelve, to six, to three; Kasich held on despite winning only one primary and Cruz was still kicking even during the convention, but it was money as much as actual support that put Trump in the lead and kept him there. Trump, with the support of his network of businesses, kept himself in the public eye, even gathering more press by skipping a debate than the other candidates did by participating in it.
Once Trump became the candidate, or perhaps as it became obvious that his candidacy was inevitable, rationales as to why he was the best choice for President had to be constructed. One that doesn't take a lot of thought is simply that he's not Hillary Clinton. To some extent I understand this one. Personally, it will be a long time before I ever vote for a Republican, even for local office. Even though Trump is in many ways an unknown quantity, it is a virtual certainty that Clinton will appoint liberal-leaning justices to the Supreme Court, and if you're a conservative, you don't want that. While Trump may not be as conservative as the conservatives hope he is, the safe bet to see the next Supreme Court appointment be a conservative is to not elect Clinton. Frankly, I believe that among reasonably intelligent people, that's the reason that they'll vote for Trump. They so dislike Clinton, whether it's for her actual policies, or because they're bedazzled by the propaganda against her, that they would vote for anybody but her. Connected to the visceral dislike of Clinton, is simple party loyalty. Most party leaders, elected officials and party die-hards will vote for their party's candidate no matter what. What's surprising is not that there are many Republican lawmakers who support Trump despite loathing him and what he stands for, but that so many have spoken up against him.
For a lot of people, Trump's pronouncements are very convincing, and they are behind him 100%; they want a wall built and all the immigrants deported, they want to keep Muslims out of the country and to restrict the free exercise of Islam, they want to carpet bomb the Middle East, and they admire Putin. These are people who really believe that Obama hates America and that he was born outside of the United States, supports terrorism and eats babies for breakfast. He's saying what they want to hear. as much as calling someone a racist can be a mindless rebuttal, there are racists in this country and many of them are happy that there's finally someone who's coming out and saying out loud what they have felt too intimidated to say themselves.
Other people, the 'I'm not a racist, but...' people, construct seemingly rational arguments for supporting Trump. One is that, as a successful businessman, Trump would have what it takes to put the country in order. But is Trump a successful businessman? The record would suggest that he is not. Oh sure, Trump is pretty good at enriching himself, but the Trump business record is a history of a wake of destruction. Time after time, Trump paid himself lucrative consulting or management fees while running the underlying businesses into the ground. Time after time he failed to pay his bills to small businesses and contractors, casting doubt on his claim to "have the back" of the little guy.
Even his teleprompter speeches reveal a disturbing lack of understanding of global economics, international relations and trade & industry. His solutions are vague and often based on faulty assumptions. Why do people believe what he has to say? Because they want to believe that there are easy solutions to their problems. They want to believe that industries that are past their prime, or can't afford to operate in the United States anymore have been crippled because "the liberals hate America" and that they can be magically resurrected with rhetoric. They want to believe that the danger of Islamic terrorism can be wished away with tough guy talk.
They want to believe, and Trump has tapped into that desire, into the uncertainty, into the frustration and they don't want to think to deeply about whether Trump can achieve what he says he will achieve or even if it's a good thing.
So, it's not surprising that there's support for Mr. Trump. Scary and disturbing, but not surprising.
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