Thursday, March 3, 2016

The rise of the Donald

I ask myself what could account for so many Americans choosing to support a candidate like Donald Trump. I ask myself, not what this says about Trump, but what it says about America. These are some of the answers I get.

The Republicans, in pretending to "speak for the American people," have been obstructionist, rigid and pessimistic. They have failed their constituents and helped make Congress an institution despised by most Americans.

The Republican presidential candidates failed to break Trump's facade and expose the real Donald Trump. They descended to his level and were not able to present themselves as a viable and truly presidential candidates.

Donald Trump knows how to manage the media. He's egotistical, sly, unprincipled and a reality TV star.

The American public has been fed information in sound bites for so long, they no longer have the patience for or the critical thinking skills to do their due diligence in such an important election.

The news media have too often given up the opportunity to do the right thing in order to do the ratings thing. They lost control of the debates and reported on the juicy mudslinging instead of fact-checking and solid commentary. (It took a comedy show, The Daily Show, to show tape of Donald Trump actually meeting and talking to David Duke.)

And the American educational system; that's another story entirely.


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