EMBRACING TRUMP--STILL THE LEAD VOTE GETTER

EMBRACING THE DONALD

My friend, US Army (ret) Colonel Ray Smith has a horrible, "banana slice" golf swing. Ray makes no bones about his slice. " I embrace my slice," he announces unabashedly, as he steps onto the tee box. He generally comes back to the clubhouse with a pretty good score too.

Approaching the tee box Ray, lines up in a strange way. He does not face down the fairway. On the long 12th, at Rolling Meadows in St Augustine, he he lines up facing away from the fairway, toward a line of tall pine trees along the left side of the fairway. He aims the ball right into the trees, then takes a mighty swing. We all gasp as the ball flies high and long, on a direct course toward the forest and high over the trees. Disaster?

"It's a goner!", someone yells out.

But Ray is not perturbed. He watches as the ball stalls high in the air, then slowly, the departing white orb begins to curve to the right. It continues a slow arching descent. It bounces a few times on the right center of the fairway..then rolls across the short green grass before it comes to rest about 180 yards away, close to the woods on the opposite side of the fairway.

Ray's "banana ball" and how he embraced it (and made good use of it) somehow reminded me of the current political situation in the GOP. Some days back, I opined in this column that the Trump phenomena was the result of the excessive power of the big donor class on the Republican establishment and its elites. The GOP has abandoned the so-called "Reagan Democrats" and Independents who for years back made up the actual voting cadre the party. The fact is that the "one percenters" can supply copious money but not votes. The GOP policy emphasis, nay its obsession, on "slashing taxes and entitlements" and "reducing government" are almost word for word the policy demands made by the big donor class such as the powerful Koch brothers, the Paul Simons and the single issue donor Adelsons as they hand over to candidates of their choice, their envelopes stuffed with cash. But the rank and file Republican voter, understandably, does not share the donor's special concerns. The fact that Donald Trump has remained at the top of the polls consistently since July is simply a measure of how angry and abandoned these voters feel.

A recent Op Ed piece in the NY Times, December 16, 2015, by Thomas Edsall entitled: "Can this really be Donald Trump's Republican party?" Adds some interesting facts to my original thesis.

Edsall gathers a slew of references to bolster his arguments. He notes that there are three current trends in voter resentment-all to do with "jobs": Immigration, job-offshoring and mechanization, as well as employment insecurity due to the 2008 Great Recession. He supports these contentions with studies that show that in fact illegal immigration does impact American workers. Edsall writes: "Illegal Immigration reduces the wages of native workers". This according to a study by Harvard economist George Borjas. This author claims that about $100 billion dollars a year are lost by native workers. But it generates increased profits of a similar amount (@ $120 billion dollars) for businesses and entrepreneurs. That may help explain the wild voter popularity of the Trump proposal to control immigration and build a "big wall".

Edsall also quotes the work of MIT economist, David Autor,whose study on jobs indicates that employment in middle skills jobs, like sales, production work, administration, and office workers have dropped from 60 percent of the total in 1980 to less than 46 percent in 2012.

According to Edsall, economic analysts at the Dallas Federal Reserve calculate as a result of the Great Recession of 2008, every US household has lost about $50 to $120 thousand dollars in income. The authors conclude that beside the financial loss, the Great Recession has had an enormous psychological and emotional impact. That, coupled with the "stark legacy" of the present economy and poor labor market and "reduced job opportunity" all combine to generate voter anger and resentment.

The economic fall-out from the Great Recession and the response of the GOP in its deference to the one-percenters, big donors, specials interest donors, and the party elites have set the stage for Mr. Trump's success. Big money has turned the heads of the party elites and the establishment. The regular guy and gal Republican voter have come to realize that the GOP has abandoned them.

Now the GOP faces a problem of division in its ranks. The elites and establishment will not support Mr. Trump, while the voters are clearly expressing their preference for him and the other "outsiders". Political defeat and disunity are on the near horizon...if party officials do not change course. The result seems to be lack of unity and political defeat and even dissolution for the party without radical change.

So perhaps, like my friend's banana slice, the party big hats should simply "embrace The Donald".

By the way, my golf buddy Ray, hit another rounder from that lie on the right side of the 12th to make a chip shot to the green and a par putt. He did OK. Trump may pull it out too.