What started as a joke for many people has left no one laughing. Well, except maybe Queens native Donald Trump.
After Tuesday’s big loss in Indiana prompted Sen. Ted Cruz to drop out of the race, Trump faced only Ohio Gov. John Kasich in the fight to secure the Republican nomination for president. Then Kasich shuffled off the stage Wednesday, leaving Trump no obstacles to the big prize in Cleveland this summer.
The city’s two daily tabloids—with doomsday front pages—are falling over themselves in an attempt to understand how this could have happened.
Have they not been paying attention?
Washington’s Beltway bubble mentality has been primed for a bursting for quite some time.
Long before the antics of Wall Street firms nearly brought around the destruction of the world’s economy, policy makers enjoyed their status as members of the 1 percent, or at least the 1-percent adjacent.
It was only three years ago that, finally, Congress members were legally prohibited from purchasing stocks on insider information.
After being sold a bill of goods on trickle-down economics, regular Americans realized not much trickled down. Instead, cost-cutting CEOs, who outsourced jobs, received huge salaries and bonuses.
The heads of the Big Three motor companies headed to the U.S. Capitol looking for government handouts to keep their businesses afloat, but stupidly flew in from Detroit on their private jets.
We could go on, but why bother?
And while, Trump is squarely a member of uber-rich American society—his comments about starting with nothing but a million-dollar loan from his father are out of touch, to put it mildly—his message is still resonating with a lot of people.
Last year, when news sites like the Huffington Post said they would cover Trump as entertainment, he went on the offensive. He talked tough, and seemingly, it worked. He said he would “stop illegal immigration once and for all.” To protect America from terrorists, he would “bomb the hell out of ISIS.”
In such statements, Trump diplays his biggest asset: He is not a politician and does not speak like one.
A similar rationale is behind the fact that Sen. Bernie Sanders manages to steal a primary away from Hillary Clinton every so often, as he did in Indiana this week.
We have had career politicians for the past 240 years, and look where it has gotten us.
How bad could a Trump presidency be?
It increasingly looks like we might have a chance to find out.
