Trump Appeals to the “Victims”
The main fuel of Donald Trump’s campaign is emotion. He is capable of connecting to a crowd and to his supporters in a way that creates a seemingly unbreakable loyalty to him. At first glance, this makes Trump seem like a complete political oddity — all flash and emotion, with little substance compared to the other candidates. However, voters should be reminded that this tactic is not new; Trump simply employs it more than most.
Trump speaks casually to a crowd, and gives the feel of a friendly conversation. People who may fear or distrust a career politician would not feel the same way about Trump.
Politicians are meant to correct injustice, among other things, in their country. And Trump has gained unexpected traction promising to “make America great again.” This is ironic given that his massive fortune puts him comfortably in the 1% and his comments about women and minorities place him among misogynists and racists. But Trump provides something that many of his supporters have been craving. He acknowledges the reasons they feel victimized, and builds momentum around those reasons.
Donald Trump’s biggest appeal is to the white middle and working class. This is the demographic that is shrinking the quickest in the US right now, but feel most like Washington is not really going to bring about the changes they want. “Politicians spend no time helping them,” a Trump supporter wrote to The Atlantic regarding the middle class. “Black lives matter more and illegal immigrants who break the law get a free pass… All the while, politicians they voted for to represent them just plain don’t.” Trump promises to help.
At a Trump rally in Las Vegas, recorded by Sean Dunne in a video titled “Trump Rally,” one supporter recounts the story of how an illegal immigrant was not held accountable for hitting him with his car. “All he had to do was move,” the man said. “He wasn’t liable.” This man also spoke about how he has seen illegal aliens take jobs from American citizens. The loss of jobs, either to Mexican illegal immigrants or factory workers overseas, has been a focus of Trump’s campaign. He promises to build a wall and have Mexico pay for it, claiming that the Mexican government has taken advantage of Americans for too long.
Trump aligns himself with his supporters by making him feel that he is one of them. At a rally at Plymouth State University, Trump began his speech by saying that wealthy donors had bought up all of the seats at the GOP debate the night before. “They were supposed to have young people from the college” Trump lamented “and what happened was all the rich donors and special interests and the lobbyists bought all the tickets.” The audience booed to show their sympathy for Trump. He made the same complaint during the actual debate as he was booed by the audience.
When Trump talks about illegal immigration, he says that the Mexican government is taking advantage of the US. In his often inflammatory speech, he blames immigrants for bringing drugs into the country. “Some of them are rough dudes,” he said of illegal immigrants. He vowed that under his presidency, if people in the US are looking for illegal drugs “they won’t find them.”
China is also a big source of material for Trump, and he’s been capitalizing on it throughout his campaign. On his website, he makes it very clear that he wants to declare China a currency manipulator and “bring them to the bargaining table.” According to Trump, we have been too soft on China, while they have put too many tariffs on our products that are in their favor. Because of these tariffs, it’s nearly impossible to send products to China. “You can’t do it folks,” he said.
Large companies from foreign countries are also antagonists to Trump. As an example, Trump told a story about a business owner who simply could not buy from Caterpillar, an American construction company, because Komatsu undercut their prices too much, and the poor man was left with no choice.
Trump is also alerting Americans to the high drug prices they pay compared to other countries. He said that many donors to other candidates are from large drug companies, and that the head of Johnson & Johnson, for example, supports Jeb Bush. “Do you think Jeb Bush is going to make drug prices competitive?” Trump asked the crowd. They responded with angry yells. “We pay about 300 billion dollars more than we’re supposed to,” Trump stated. He thinks that if “we negotiated the price,” drug prices would not be so cripplingly high.
We pay about 300 billion dollars more than we’re supposed to.
Through a completely ironic twist, Donald Trump, billionaire, has become the candidate of the downtrodden.
Trump promises to help his supporters rise above all of the things they feel are beating them down. With more criticism than concrete plans coming from Trump, the biggest questions now are how he will do this, and whether or not his goals are actually what the country needs.
