Trump and Blutarsky

It finally came to me this morning what  the Trump candidacy calls to mind – at least to me.  He’s Blutarsky in the famous scene from Animal House raving against the mistreatment dished out to the Deltas and inspiring them to go all out and  make a really futile and stupid gesture of defiance. The Deltas didn’t mind when Bluto said it was the Germans who bombed Pearl Harbor, and the people attracted to Trump don’t mind his garbled facts and bizarre notions. People see that Dean Obama and the assorted Marmalards and Neidermeyers of his administration have put the country  and much of what it stands for on double secret probation and worse, and they don’t like it. They feel cheated and abused. They sense that something really wrong and dangerous is happening. They see establishment Republicans displaying a pervasive phoniness and reacting to events with whimpering resignation and don’t like that either. Trump presents himself as someone who knows what is happening to America, doesn’t like it, and is willing to fight back. That alone may explain his popularity and why so many people are ready -  emotionally at least  - to sign up with him, Otter, and the boys and make this homecoming parade one to remember.

It may also be enough to keep Trump very popular and perhaps even in the lead until and unless one of the other, more realistic candidates grasps  the depth of the disgust, anger, and sense of betrayal at large in the country, understands and accepts  the desire of Americans to climb into the car with D-Day and yell “ramming speed”,  and offers them a way to do so productively and effectively.  Exhortations from the likes of Bush or Kasich to more or less remain calm because all is more or less well seem unlikely to  get it done.