Donald Trump Is Nothing

Photo: FOX News

If one is to believe the polls proffered by News Corp.'s FOX News Channel, then Reality star Donald Trump is currently the candidate preferred by Republican voters out of 'a race of 20' others, mostly actual politicians. This is surprising historically for a number of reasons, but also has precedent in several other ways. Formal Bourgeois democracy has retained elements of 'spectacle' and entertainment probably since the beginning of the republic. This is evidenced by bandwagons, campaign-created sheet music, records, and the like. However, the political process (while serving as quite thrilling entertainment for Americans who consume news products) has stopped short of involving actual, active entertainers to play the roles of candidates (minus, of course, the cases of former Gov. Schwarzenegger of California, former Gov. Ventura of Wisconsin, and former President Reagan). 

American media speculate on Donald Trump for President, 2007. Photo: FOX News, America's Election HQ

Because Trump's rehabilitation in cultural prestige has been so tied up in a former that is quite prestige-less, Trump suffered from the start from a credibility problem. Add to that the perception by many that Trump has been gaming the American political system for decades by teasing a presidential run for several cycles and never following through. Each time, the American news media followed Trump breathlessly at his press-conferred and other events, half-unknowingly employing themselves in his public relations team. When these runs failed to materialize, these selfsame journalists rightly expressed that they had been used to promote his NBC show "The Apprentice," one of the 'original' shows still active from Reality's 'golden era.' As each election cycle passed, and Trump either made himself an active voice through the media commentating on events, or heavily suggesting that he would run as a candidate himself, he inserted himself more and more into the politico-media culture of the United States, thus undermining his damaged Reality-show credibility while positioning himself as a central 'outsider' figure seeking to reform the Republican party. 

The 2012 Republican primary candidates, oft-labeled as 'clowns' or 'sideshows'. Photo; RPR

Donald Trump has come to be seen as not only a realistic, but a leading candidate for the Republican nomination, Add to this the fact that the last two presidential elections have seen Republican primaries described as 'sideshows' filled with political 'clowns.' Donald Trump now not only fits in, but his certain brand of hanger-on-ism (standing on the margins of campaigns, milking them for his own benefit) is not only normal, it is political acceptable. Formal Bourgeois Democracy continues to evolve and advance forward, in the image of not the democratic ideal, but toward the image of a completely capitalized world: Elections are to be used for the promotion of products (people included). This is the situation Donald Trump has created, inherited, and stepped into in 2015. 

As journalists and pundits on American televisions actually began to realize that Trump's campaign was resonating with those polled, they began to change their tune. Up until the last few weeks, and the release of the FOX News poll, they had been summarily dismissive and skeptical of his efforts. FOX Business' Charles Gasparino was among those who have not shifted position as Trump rose in polling number, but instead still insists that Trump intends his campaign to be for promotional purposes. A vast many others are now taking Trump quite seriously, and this includes Gasparino's FOX colleagues. The change was so uniform, that one would be tempted to believe the issue was addressed in FOX's daily memos from above to journalists. For whatever reason, the most convincing being poll numbers (I presume), some Republicans are now hitching their proverbial wagons to the Trump Train. 

Gloria La Riva of the Party For Socialism And Liberation, is a non-Bourgeois candidate running for the presidency in 2016. Photo: PS Celebrities

Tomorrow, August 6th, 2015, the first Republic presidential primary debate will be broadcast on the FOX news channel. Donald Trump will appear where several other, far more sober, candidates (Businesswoman Carly Fiorina, For. Gov. Pataki of New York, and others) have been excluded due to poll numbers. It remains to be seen whether Trump's intentions will be made any clearer by this appearance, or whether he will come out stronger or weaker in his performance. None of that is of much importance unless one still buys into Bourgeois democratic politics. What I mean by that is if you believe which candidate is selected and wins is really of much consequence. When one develops what in Marxism is called a 'class consciousness,' it enables individuals (heretofore 'voters' or 'citizens') to understand that their interests lie not with the differently flavoured elites displayed on the stage, but with members of their own class, those invisible individuals of excellence, with the potential to trascend Empire and Capitalism and enable the country to survive. Those individuals are not selected by FOX to participate in the debate. These individuals won't be on television, or have Reality shows, or have enough money and connections to run. These individuals may not even vote themselves. But I am quite sure in the hidden, alienated masses there lies true leaders, like the PSL's Gloria La Riva. These unspoken, anonymous people are the latent potential of the American proletariat. 

Trump & co. are nothing more than expensive American post-modern entertainment. They are best to be not taken seriously, or if 'taken' at all, 'taken' as continued representation of the illegitimacy of the American form of government. Whomever of these elect few are, in the end, selected, they will continue to act as functionaries for their class, raping and pillaging American worker's wealth, sending it overseas to corrupt American client states, being used to attack independent Syria and other states outside of the American axis, and (most horrific of all) being used to maintain the Apartheid system in the state of Israel. 

Donald Trump is worth as much as the American political system. By this, I don't mean in dollars. Those will be worthless in the end as well. I mean worth as in historical worth, significance of moving history forward, helping man in society achieve his potential in the human project. And, by this definition of 'worth,' Donald Trump is worth precisely as much as the United States' Capitalist Formal Democracy: Nothing.