Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Let Trump feed the GOP these words, "money is speech"

Donald Trump is an icon that represents money, money, money. He's a billionaire that inherited money from his family and used that money to make more money. Of course, few of us are aware that he's also declared corporate bankruptcy 4 times - corporations are people too, right? Few of us know this because Trump can use money to control the message from the press.

Since Trump has made incendiary and insult remarks about certain Mexican immigrants and calling a a sitting Senator and Vietnam POW a loser, it would seem that many Republicans are upset with Trump as a GOP presidential candidate. Some are worried that Trump is killing the GOP. Some are calling for him to quit the race.

But Trump says otherwise. He says that he is leading in the polls and that he finds ample support in many states for his candidacy. Trump swears he's not running as a Democrat plant.

There is no stopping Trump. Why not? He has money and he's going to use it to push his message. If the GOP truly believes that money is speech, then Trump is going to force feed those words to the GOP, although I'm not sure that's what he had in mind.

With his money, Trump can buy all the airtime he wants. With 90% of media ownership concentrated in the hands of 6 parent corporations, most of which are sympathetic to neoliberalism, Trump will also get plenty of free air time, too.

When the decision of Citizens United was handed down, the leaders of the GOP rubbed their hands together with glee. Will they still feel the same if Trump wins the GOP nomination?

On the other hand, we have Bernie Sanders. Bernie is not a billionaire and probably not a millionaire. He's not using much of his own money to finance his campaign and he's campaigning on the promise of refusing corporate contributions to his campaign. He's received his campaign contributions from hundreds of thousands of supporters in small denominations. $20 here, $45 there, and it all adds up.

Bernie doesn't have to pay people to show up and cheer for himbecause he's packing stadiums and auditoriums. Best of all, Bernie understands that this election is not just about getting him elected, that this election is bigger than that. It's about a social movement to end inequality fomented by public policy, to end The Conservative Nanny State.

Trump is all about inequality. His name, his casinos and his words underline his cause. He could be the best thing that ever happened to the Democratic Party if Democrats are willing to take advantage of it. All they have to do is nominate and support Bernie Sanders for president.

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