All American Trump: Stranger In A Strange Land

From The Ugly American, by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer:

"For some reason, the [American] people I meet in my country are not the same as the ones I knew in the United States. A mysterious change seems to come over Americans when they go to a foreign land. They isolate themselves socially. They live pretentiously. They are loud and ostentatious."

Sound like anyone we know who's running for President?

Donald Trump seems to live in a foreign land, a land he does not really know, yet thinks he knows it implicitly. His bombast is aimed at that portion of Americans - the white, lower middle class wage earner who thinks that any man who says he's worth $6 billion is actually worth $6 billion. "The Apprentice" reality TV star and casino real estate mogul has so much to offer! In other words, Trump's base is most of the people who watch - and believe - Fox News.
"Trump, who believes that excess can be a virtue, is as American as Manhattan's skyline," wrote George Will. Of course, that was in the "greed is good" 80s. Trump's brand of Americanism is not as well respected today.

How well does Trump know America? He may know its crudeness, but not its sensitivities. He may know its bootstraps mentality, but not its compassion for the downtrodden. He may know its excesses, but not necessities.

He may know - and count on - some of its gullibility, but not its skepticism.

Banking On The Gullibility Factor

But Trump is second in the national polls! How can that be? Perhaps it's the gullibility factor that helped elect George W. Bush to a second term. But whereas half of America was blinded by shallow patriotism, right-wing voters are blinded by bravado.

Temporarily.

Sean Hannity should know, since he shares that bravado: “Donald Trump is telling a truth that you cannot stand. …Donald Trump is right!” His defense of Trump's "Mexican Rapist Speech" as it is could be called, is a show of solidarity for Trump's lack of knowledge of America. Hannity is no stranger to the kind of arrogance that makes up an ugly American.*

"The Republican clown car finally has a driver"

The bravado of Trump - the persona of a chest-thumping martinet - has begun to wear thin: his "who's doing the raping?" interview with CNN's Don Lemon proved to be nothing more than a shout back to a legitimate question.** And his "proof" - a woman in San Francisco killed by an illegal immigrant in what is described as a "random act of violence" - only proves that The Donald will shamelessly exploit just about anything for his kind of stereotyping.

His insistence that he and only he can secure the border, he and only he can create more jobs, he and only he can defeat ISIS will ultimately bore the American public who will hear his bloviations mocked repeatedly on late night shows.

Jay Dupless:
PLEASE let Don King be Trump's running mate!

And the DNC chimed in:

"Today, Donald Trump became the second major Republican candidate to announce for president in two days," DNC national press secretary Holly Shulman said in a statement. "He adds some much-needed seriousness that has previously been lacking from the GOP field, and we look forward to hearing more about his ideas for the nation."

Seth Meyers was way ahead of the game at a previous White House Correspondence Dinner (note Trump's stoic, humorless profile)

Bombast For President

How far will Trump's ego go on the campaign trail? Will it ever demure to serious questions? Will it ever address criticisms with anything but pompous anger? Will it admit to shortcomings? The fact that the answer is "No!" to all of these means that Trump will continue to entertain like some street lunatic screaming at a wall.

A wall he doesn't even know is there.

*Remember when Andrew Cuomo said that anti-gay conservative extremists had no place in New York, Hannity declared that he would leave. Jon Stewart of the Daily Show produced one of the best of mock pleas for Hannity not to leave ending with Nathan Lane saying, "Honestly, Sean, we don't give a f*ck what you do."

** Trump's statistics - a Fusion article that stated up to 80% of women coming into the U.S. from Central America have been victims of rape - had nothing to do with illegal immigrant crime.