Why Donald Trump Exists and liberals can't stop him

What if the current sentiment that is fueling the Trump campaign and supported the Tea Party and other hyper-conservative movements in America (as well as their counterparts on the left) is the result of the unresolved trauma of 9-11 and the 2008 recession (differentiating it from other recessions where you didn’t see your two neighbors across the street simultaneously lose their jobs and their homes)?  If we see the American public as individuals who were abused as children, we can understand why now many of them dream of a prince charming who will magically save them instead of looking at the reality around them that is saying “the trauma is over and we survived, albeit with some serious bumps and bruises, which in time and with a little innovation, can heal”.  Instead, we’re like the older teen who runs away from home to live with the 27-year-old “bad boy” who promises us the world, only to get us hooked on drugs (pre-Trump) and pulls us into a cycle of domestic violence (post-Trump). 

But, if my analogy is apt, then Hillary Clinton is not the answer either and not, as my wonderful husband contends, because she is “too cozy with the banks and the Saudis”.  It’s because she is a “policy wonk” at heart, as was her husband Bill.  There are times in history when we need policy wonks and times when we need inspiration.  At this point, she could do all the things she promises and, for the sake of argument, let’s say they work – we won’t feel any better and it’s how we feel that is the problem, it is our perception and dropping sense of optimism that is hurting us, particularly as it comes from the country’s base, white men.

I’ve been telling my liberal, non-white, nonChristian, and LGBTQ friends for the last year, white men get a cold, we get pneumonia and a war – insecure white men are simply scary and do scary things.  Unfortunately, my liberal friends, who see themselves as covered in a cloud of self-righteous indignation following, like the early Israelites in the desert, another cloud they have mistaken for truth when really it is their own snobbishness kicking up dust.  If Clinton wins, they will brush the crumbs of their gluten-free bread off their hands and trot off to buy a latte in the delusion they beat the evil menace.  If Trump wins, they’ll rally the troops for a million-human march, screaming and shouting until the country falls into an economic and international handbasket.  All the while, the core problem, the trauma we have all experienced which still haunts us because a failure of our leadership to not only protect us but to support us emotionally, will continue to eat at us all, liberal or conservative, queer or straight-acting, religious or not – it will continue to eat us all alive. 

I wonder if Anthony Bourdain knows any good cannibals.