From Under the Rubble, Episode 2: 2016 Presidential Campaigns
The 2016 Presidential campaigns have proved to be unusually entertaining, but the emergence of Donald Trump as front-runner represents the first serious challenge in decades to the hegemony of the Democrat-Republican party state.
Original Air Date: March 28, 2016
Show Run Time: 1 hour 5 minutes
Show Guest(s): Dr. Thomas Fleming
Show Host(s): James Easton
From Under the Rubble℗ is a Production of the Fleming Foundation. Copyright 2016. All Rights are Reserved.
Trump is proving to be his own worst enemy. It appears that he is going to lose Wisconsin. If he drops like a rock in the other primary states, Dr. Fleming’s scenario for the general election will not happen. Trump is badly flawed. Are there enough voters willing to ignore his flaws in order to overthrow the establishment?
Mr. Van Sant,
I do not think Trump is his own worst enemy at all. It would not matter in the least if the candidate is a high-pitched, successful, power point presenter like Ross Perot, a seasoned, savvy and erudite politician like Pat Buchanan or a rather garish but independent voice such as Mr. Trump. Once the folks who pick our candidates are determined, unified and focused it is almost impossible to stop them from the assassinations. Trump’s interview with Chris Mathews was quite compelling and not at all even remotely similar to what is being reported about it. He in fact made Chris Mathews look like a rather stupid but hardly clever, Roman Catholic, which is of course not at all difficult in our time. But for me, his flaws are those of all the candidates, in that they lack omnipotence, but in terms of politics and available choices he is as fine (or as flawed) as any in the race. I do think, however, that Bernie Sanders is more representative of the Left side, and Kasich the right side, of the current duopoly, than either Mrs. Clinton or Donald Trump.
Mr. Reavis,
I do not think that Trump’s target voters watch MSNBC. It is easy to make Chris Mathews look foolish. He has a one track mind that is off the rails. In order to defeat the establishment, Trump has to attract most of the grass root Republicans and a large number of crossover Democrats and independents. He has alienated a significant number of those voters the previous two weeks. In my opinion, a Trump nomination is essential (for now) to overthrow the establishment. Any other nomination will be viewed as an establishment victory. Trump’s recent wounds are self-inflicted. Who needs a rabid establishment opposition when Trump does what he has done recently? Of course, the probable victory of Clinton (or Sanders) in the general election will confirm how degraded America has become.
Mr. Van Sant,
I don’t disagree with a word you have written,( or usually ever write) except that the only thing which has happened in the last two weeks is the character assassinations and calumny have been more intense, relentless and focused. Nothing new here. Forbes spent enormous sums to take Buchanan down in Arizona in 1996 , and in 2000 the assaults were so pre-planned early and relentless he never even made a national debate. What my point is that it would not matter who or how refined and smooth the candidate, the adversary has never cared if the wounds were self inflicted, shrapnel from heavy, relentless, PAC, artillery, from either side, media sniper fire or local grenades from within ones own camp, so long as the candidate is eliminated in the eyes of ” the grass root Republicans and the large number of crossover Democrats and independents”, I don’t think it matters at this point who runs as the America First candidate. The problem has always been that at the first smell of real battle, “the grass root Republicans, the large number of crossover Democrats and independents” or what is sometimes loosely called the silent majority, always head for the tall grass and heavy cover. I have been advocating a strategic retreat from politics for years and for this very reason. As Stephen Hiener suggested some weeks ago on this blog, the big talkers who are always advocating a political solution mixed with notions of some past glory and gallantry of our ancestors, to the current spiritual problems of a disintegrating Christian culture, simply don’t have the stomach and or strength to support a real patriot. Thus we keep getting candidates we deserve. Each one worse than the last.
I think we are in total agreement Mr. Reavis. I just lack patience in waiting for the eventual downfall of the establishment. Perhaps I also overestimate the ability of the grass root voters to recognize what has been going on for far too long and their desire to rebel against it. And I really want to vote for someone who might make a difference.
The people supporting Mr. Trump intuit or apprehend, in part or on the whole, the following, although most of them neither comprehend or understand it entirely: that legal and illegal immigration – weaponized demographics – is a threat to what might be left of “traditional” America, although most could not define traditional America; that if the middle class, not only in economic but in cultural terms, is further weakened there is no depository for the remnant traditions, which can never be preserved by the underclass or the paper aristocracy; that the trade agreements now in force and those which are likely to come will destroy the very heart of our entrepreneurial capacity; that the spiral of counterfeit money which enriches the elites on its first cycle and robs the rest on its final inflationary spiral is impoverishing us all save for the aforementioned elites; and that our bellicose foreign policy of nation building and regime change is again enriching the elites and robbing the rest of us of money and more importantly blood as well as making us as Americans in whose name the government acts morally and legally complicit in the murder of innocents and will likely take us down the road to nuclear war with Russia. I do not believe that Trump himself understands or comprehends all of these things, none of us likely do in their complexity; but his instincts are right, not unlike the time I was hunting and became aware that I was being watched and stalked. Only later would I fully realize that it was a rabid fox, but I was better prepared for the actual encounter because my instincts, natural but trained, were working.
I agree with your observations Mr. Peters.
Coincidentally I was once stalked by a fox that was apparently attracted by the bag of rather odoriferous shells and other items I had collected for my daughters while walking a New Jersey beach many years ago. As I was leaving the area, the fox crossed ahead of my path, climbed a near by dune, and fell in behind me after I passed by. Keeping an eye on the fox as I continued on, I quickly accumulated a number of suitably sized rocks with which to defend myself. Fortunately, the fox lost interest and I still have the small collection of rocks to remind me of the encounter.