Seriously, bear with me.
According to the polls, Donald J Trump (as he likes to call himself in the third person) is the most popular U.S. Presidential nominee for the Republican Party.
As the Republican candidates battle it out to see who will lead the GOP (Grand Old Party) into the 2016 election, it is this billionaire businessmen and reality TV star (The Apprentice) who has dominated the Presidential campaign.
USA Today says 68 per cent of his supporters would stick with him even if he left the GOP and ran as an independent.
Just in case you’re not up to speed, this is what those supporters are, well, supporting.
Donald J Trump has called for a ban on the entry of Muslims to the United States.
He has said he’s “the worst thing that’s ever happened to ISIS”. He has vowed to build a “great, great wall” along the southern border of the US and have Mexico pay for it. He has asserted on numerous occasions that countries like China, Mexico and Japan are killing the U.S. economically because America have not stood up for themselves. “Our country is in serious trouble. We don’t have victories anymore. We used to have victories, but we don’t have them. When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let’s say China, in a trade deal? I beat China all the time. All the time.”
Watch Trump say that the Paris Terror Attack victims ‘should have had guns’. Post continues after video.
He doesn’t think the U.S.’s nuclear weapon stockpile is good enough and wants to invest in it. He thinks healthcare is way too expensive and the Obamacare health reform is a waste of money. He could do it all a lot cheaper. “It’s going to get worse because remember Obamacare really kicks in in ’16. In 2016, Obama is going to be out playing golf. He might even be on one of my courses. I would invite him, I actually would say — I have the best courses. So I’d say, ‘You know what?’ If he wants to, I have one right next to the White House. Right on the Potomac, if he’d like to play, that’s fine. In fact, I’d love him to leave early and play — that would be a very good thing. But Obamacare kicks in in 2016 really big league. It is going to be amazingly destructive. Doctors are quitting.”
On Hilary Clinton: “If Hillary Clinton can’t satisfy her husband what makes her think she can satisfy America?”
On Senator John McCain’s (Republican nominee in 2008 election) war record: “He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”
On fellow GOP candidate Carly Fiorina: “Look at that face. Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that? The face of our next president? I mean, she’s a woman, and I’m not supposed to say bad things, but really, folks, come on. Are we serious?”
On Mexicans coming to America: “They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists, and some, I assume, are good people.”
On general “losers and haters”, he tweeted to his 5.2 million followers: Sorry losers and haters, but my I.Q. is one of the highest – and you all know it! Please don’t feel so stupid or insecure, it’s not your fault.
Watch Trump mock a reporter with disability below. Post continues after video.
He’s been called mad, dangerous, stupid, deluded, racist, sexist, everything-ist. JK Rowling said he was “worse than Voldemort” (her fictional evil villain), European political leaders have decried his anti-Muslim stance and even some Republicans have said he has gone too far, yet he remains the number one Republican candidate.
And I know why they love him. I’m no expert on the intricacies of the U.S. Presidential election system, but it’s clear the man has cut-through, and not just because of his miraculous Orangutan hair. Trump has tapped into the fears of the Americans, he constantly reminds them that their God-given right to world superiority, the one they possessed in the 50s, 60s and 70s, has been diminished by foreigners and he can get it back for them (his campaign slogan is Make America Great Again).
Most importantly, perhaps, he is unapologetically racist, sexist, mad, a bully, everything-ist, He is sincere and authentic. In other circumstances they are such lovely words to use. We are so used to seeing the world’s coming and going through filters: smart marketers, Instagram Valencia filters, Facebook life highlights and here is this man crashing right out of social media feeds and TV interviews and sound grabs and grabbing people roughly by the throats — in all his authentic, ginger-haired, spittly, dominating awfulness.
The reality TV star is giving him a very different version of reality. No cameras, plotlines, celebrity dramas, just one man and the reality of Donald Trump the person. And his supporters love him for it. There’s no feeling that the Trump you see up on screen is not the Trump you would get if you were both in a queue to get ice-cream.
“Seriously, the lazy idiots and ugly women need to get at the back, and the white males at the front because it’s not our fault you’re losers and have low IQs and want to kill us. We’ll have 72 cookies n’ cream. In cones. No homo cups for us.
“What? Only 70 cookies n’ cream? Bloody Muslims ate my cookies n’ cream. See, America needs to go back to what made it great. We used to be a country where you could choose your ice-cream flavour and get it. We didn’t let other people just waltz on in and take our cookies n cream from us. We used to be the kind of country that would shoot someone in the head for that. That’s what Donald J Trump wants to bring back. Pride.”
In a world full of well-rehearsed sound grabs and filters on filters and 1000 selfies to get the perfect one, Donald Trump crashes through. Add some ignorance, fear, misinformation, blame and people looking for simple answers to complicated questions to the equation, and you have the perfect storm for nomination as the 2016 Republican Presidential candidate.
Not even the hair can make that funny.
Does the idea of President Trump frighten you?