
One More Reason — And Maybe the Best One — To Hate Donald Trump
Trust me, I’ve got plenty of reasons to hate Donald Trump. Just off the top of my head, I’ll go with the fact that the man lies as regularly as he breathes. Oh, and then there’s the way he governs like a two-year-old at dinnertime: make a big mess of everything and, if you don’t get what you want, throw a tantrum. Even worse, this hateful man and his rage-filled disciples have me longing for a more tolerant, civil group of rulers…you know, like the Mongols.
The thing I hate most, though, has to be the way Lex Luthor’s less popular cousin continues to pretend he’s just a regular rube out there defending the world against all the career politicians and big-money fat cats who don’t understand the struggle of low-income life in America today. Remember, this swamp drainer has treated Goldman Sachs as though it was the farm team prepping rich guys to play for his administration. Trump understands the lives of average Americans about as well as Metallica understands the polka.
I suppose I should step back for a minute and explain why I take this particular scam of his — taking advantage of the underclass — so personally. (Note to America: eating cheeseburgers while spending weekends at one of your golf courses does not make someone a populist.)
In early 2015, it seemed pretty clear to me that few of us were thrilled with our choices for president. We were all convinced America was headed toward a choice between Hillary and Jeb, otherwise known as picking the evil of two lessers. Poll after poll found that voters wanted more presidential options, seeking a politician who didn’t seem like a politician. Someone who was more “like us.”
Given this sentiment, I decided it was the perfect time to explore every option we had that wasn’t a career politician. This meant combing through the Federal Election Commission records to find all those who’d filed the appropriate paperwork to run in 2016. (The total was just under 200 at the time, but would eventually balloon to around 1700.) Look, I realize we think these newbies are goofballs whose only purpose is to provide TV anchors with comic relief at the end of a newscast. I had no illusion that any of them would get a single vote.
Still, it wasn’t about that. Perhaps because the bulk of my activism consists of some sharply worded Facebook posts, I had to know what possessed this eclectic group of underdogs to wake up one day and say to themselves, “I’m going to do this thing that will cost me friends, family and my finances. The world will shun me. So yeah, sign me up!”
We all grow up being told any of us could be president some day, but let’s face it. That’s right up there with Santa Claus when it comes to lies we tell our children so they’ll behave. And yet, there’s this unique group of political daydreamers who still believe in that principle. It may be fashionable to mock them — but that’s exactly why I wanted to meet these people. We’ve all felt like outsiders at some point because of something we’ve said or done or wanted to do. And it hurts to be judged negatively simply for following your dream.
I admit that as I started my 10,000-mile trip across America to meet the 15 “can’t-idates” (as in they’re doing what everyone says they can’t) who I had determined possessed the best stories, I didn’t know if there would be a book in it. I was just following the instincts I’d honed during a decade reporting at People magazine: if you come up with interesting and compelling stories, readers will follow. And over the course of my three weeks on the road, I did find them.
None of these were people you’re likely to meet at your next dinner party or movie night meet-up. From the would-be rapper in Las Vegas to the Hell’s Angel in Boise to the street preacher in Cleveland to the reclusive rancher in Texas, they were just people you’d probably pass by at the mall. The one extraordinary thing they’d ever done in their lives? Decide to run for president. I talked with each of them for hours and the longer the interviews went, the deeper we got into their motivation. As it turns out, their reasons were far more personal than political.
The Vietnam vet and Agent Orange victim was tired of seeing fellow soldiers die because of VA incompetence. The karate instructor with four DUIs wanted to prove to friends and family he was capable of doing something great. The Hispanic jokesters, who were running a protest campaign as “Sydneys Voluptuous Buttocks,” were reacting to the racism they’d experienced growing up. The jobless single mom with a severely autistic teenage son was sick of being caught in a bind where she couldn’t afford care for her boy without a job — but couldn’t get a job because she needed help affording his care.
By the time I returned from my journey, I really felt like I’d stumbled into something interesting, amusing and educational. I began to write what would become my book, The Can’t-idates: Running For President When Nobody Knows Your Name, as the primary season wore on. The race would ultimately boil down to a battle between a political insider running against a political novice whose attributes were lots of money and a rambling speaking style that pundits deemed “folksy.” (And this was after another “outsider,” Bernie Sanders, pushed career politician Hillary as long and as far as he could.)
It wasn’t hard to sense a voter trend toward authenticity over experience. And yet, the experts missed it. But Donald Trump didn’t. He fully exploited it, riding the wave all the way to the White House. As disappointing as his election might have been for millions of us, I was at least hopeful he might usher in a new age of respect for political outsiders who just want their voices heard. After all, Stump Trump and The Can’t-idates had something in common: both celebrated that same “forgotten America” where people who felt they had something to say — but nobody was listening.
Now that he’s president, though, Trump treats these same folks the same way he treats marriages. They’ve served their purpose, so he’s off to the next, shinier object. He got what he needed from posing as a working-class sympathizer, so there’s no need to stick around. He promised them better medical care at a cheaper cost, and then started pushing for a bill that would do the opposite. He played the populist on the campaign trail, assuring the downtrodden that he would be their mouthpiece. Since then, he’s the guy who keeps adding sewer rats to the swamp and laughingly explained that he doesn’t want “a poor person” in his cabinet.
The man who really put the “bully” in bully pulpit proves on a daily basis that experience is a necessity if you’re going to be president. At the same time, though, he seems to have no regard for the very idea of experience. He treats the White House with the same reverence as a Waffle House, something none of my Can’t-idates would ever do. And that’s what really bothers me.
As my trip to meet this people rolled along, I started actually feeling like I was doing something important. I was giving voice to citizens who just wanted someone to listen. While some may see that as being just as crazy as running for president without experience, it meant a lot to me. That’s what I always figured good journalism was — opening up the world for the story subjects and for readers. And as the clinically depressed Eeyore in every room I enter, I fell for their optimism. They believe in the sanctity of public service far more than the guy who prefers paralyzing and polarizing the electorate. With Trump, hate is no longer an emotion we urge our kids to avoid. He’s made it the national pastime.
His rage is a virus that has infected most of us. Trumpsters hate the libtard snowflakes that voted for anyone else. The resistance hates all the deplorable racists that voted for Trump. We now get pissed at things that three years ago would have been, at best, a quick laugh around the water cooler. Like Kid Rock and his potential U.S. Senate run, for instance. In a pre-Trump era, this would have been nothing more than a publicity stunt by a forgotten rocker. These days, though, it’s the perfect summation of where we are as a country.
Look, I don’t like Kid Rock’s politics. I’m not sure the writer of such tunes as “Bawitdaba” and “You Never Met a Motherf****r Quite Like Me” qualifies as an eloquent statesman who represents our democracy. Still, just like the Can’t-idates I have such affection for now, he has every right to jump in the electoral pool. If we think he’s a fool, don’t vote for him. Convince everyone you know that his stance on issues is ridiculous. Laugh at every late-night talk show joke at his expense. Just don’t say that he has no business running.
Democracy only works when we have many options to contemplate. This was the whole point of The Can’t-idates. When I expressed this populist opinion in a blog, though, I was truly shocked at the volume of mean-spirited messages I received accusing me of promoting the “dumbing-down” of the electoral process. Would these normally smart and compassionate people have reacted this way if Trump hadn’t torched the presidency as he has? I don’t know. Would liberals and conservatives have reacted in opposite ways if, say, Moby decided to run for Senate as a liberal Democrat? Don’t know the answer to that either.
The thing is, the answer doesn’t matter. All that counts is letting anyone run who wants to run and respecting the choice before deciding whom to support. That’s what I wanted The Can’t-idates to encourage. I’d hoped it might show alternatives to this jaded contempt for elections and politicians. Now, it’s ironic that my premise has been taken to an extreme I’d never anticipated — an outsider won the presidency — and that’s actually sent it on the same trajectory as Donald Trump’s approval rating.
Still, foolish and lonely though it may be, I’ll continue to see the characters in The Can’t-diates as the sort of positive, hopeful dreamers Trump disrespects every time he appoints another banker to his administration. Want to find something positive in politics? Try talking to that a single mom in Arkansas with the autistic son or the Hell’s Angel in Boise whose job in the Navy was informing families their loved ones had passed away. They still have faith in the system — which is the one thing that will truly make America great again.
Craig Tomashoff’s book The Can’t-idates: Running For President When Nobody Knows Your Name, can be purchased at the Bobtimystic Books website here.
