Victory for the Forgotten Man

Victory for the Forgotten Man

Chapter 2: the Celebrity Apprentice wins

Conspiracy Theorist

By Mark Luedtke

Publication date: 112216

In the wake of Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election, mainstream commentators galore have rediscovered the term “forgotten man,” but many may be confused about what it means because, as Wikipedia documents, “It was first used by William Graham Sumner in his article The Forgotten Man (published posthumous in 1918) to refer to the person compelled to pay for reformist programs; however, since Franklin Roosevelt appropriated the phrase in a 1932 speech, it has more often been used to refer to those at the bottom of the economic government whom the state (in Roosevelt's view and in the general social humanitarian approach) needed to help.”

Another example of progressives turning words upside-down for their own benefit.

The original definition applies to Trump’s victory. The forgotten man is not a silent majority, not even a majority. Clinton won the popular vote.

You shouldn’t believe anything the media tells you before elections, after elections, or between elections. The media never mentions Clinton was a terrible candidate or the role Trump’s celebrity and demagoguery played in his victory. Get ready for angry candidate George Clooney in 2020.

Sure, Trump brought voters out who never voted before, but that happens every four years. Polls were wrong, but not by much.

Most polls had Hillary Clinton slightly ahead but within the margin of error. The RealClearPolitics poll average had Clinton ahead by about 0.5 percent. She won by 0.3 percent. That’s spot on.

The only real surprise this election was Trump won all the battleground states and more. But those state polls varied wildly, nakedly reflecting the bias of the pollsters. That’s not much of a surprise either. Like historians, pollsters try to influence the present, not publish accurate information. They’re human. They advance their own self-interest.

Clinton was supposedly shocked at the outcome. I doubt that. Internal polling in both campaigns seemed accurate. Clinton knew she was in trouble in the battleground states so she sent her best proxies including President Obama into all of them the last weekend. Trump went to Wisconsin and Pennsylvania knowing he could win those states despite their history of going blue.

Now rulers tell us Trump’s victory is a revolution. Straight from his tanning bed, former Speaker John Boehner quoted Thomas Jefferson, “... a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.”

I’m skeptical. I was never a Trump fan. Don’t get me wrong, I’m ecstatic one of America’s premier serial mass murderers was denied the presidency. Hundreds of thousands of lives - maybe untold millions if she had provoked a nuclear war with Russia as her aggression was leading us - were saved by preventing Clinton from directly controlling the military. But every billionaire is a ruler.

Still, as with Brexit, this was a victory for the forgotten man, waking up to resist exploitation. And we learned this election, the forgotten man is not defined by race. Trump won more votes from blacks and Hispanics than Mitt Romney by presenting his anti-establishment case. America’s division is between those who suffer and benefit from government stealing.

Trump’s victory proves a core of Americans still understand liberty and free enterprise, not government, makes America great, secure, and prosperous. America is not defined yet by race or handouts. Progressive rule by both parties has beaten, bruised, and battered the American dream, but it hasn’t killed it.

But people who believe Trump will turn things around will be disappointed. The impending economic crash still looms. Trump can’t unprint the money the Federal Reserve printed. He can’t make unprecedented debt disappear. The best he can do is allow the crash to run its course without coercive intervention, allowing the people to heal the damage in a deep, painful, but short recession.

But unlike Presidents Harding and Reagan, Trump’s ego won’t allow a crisis to run its course. Worse, NBC News reports, “But despite Donald Trump's campaign pledge to ‘drain the swamp’ in Washington and his outsider campaign, many of [his cabinet picks] are clear Washington insiders.”

Lacking insider experience, the apprentice made a deal to gain the support of establishment leaders, warmongers all, and he’s paying them off. That’s why Boehner, Speaker Paul Ryan and even Obama suddenly treat him with respect. The establishment is already co-opting his presidency.

While Trump will never be as bad as Clinton - or another Bush - his deals with devils will harm us all. The forgotten man will remain exploited.

Originally published in the Dayton City Paper.