Donald Trump, you are winning the PR game. You are a modern-day P.T. Barnum, proving his tenet:
There’s a sucker born every minute.
But America’s problems won’t be solved by you or any other candidate alone, because it is our government that is broken. So, before we hire a new clown, we have the fix the circus.
Your campaign has energized a nation of jacked-up Americans who are mad as hell and are not gonna take it anymore. Millions of people are angry at the rising violence, income inequality, wars, terrorism, but mostly the general feeling that our elected leaders no longer represent us and are only in it for themselves and their corporate masters.
You are channeling that anger to a tee and you’re also adding a bit of the old Southern Strategy, using race-bating and stoking people’s innate prejudice to galvanize them to your side.
And, like a commedia dell’arte master, you always play it for maximum effect. You totally understand that, like the show tune says, You Gotta Have a Gimmick to stay on top of the 24-hour news cycle and get plenty of media coverage. So you make crazy, outrageous statements and watch the media coverage explode.
You’re also giving us that archetypal character we love so much: The anti-politician, a rugged individual who claims to be an outsider, talks tough and speaks his mind. He will clean up Washington. You’re today’s Joe the Plumber.
And it is working. Millions are buying your schtick. I bet your campaign spends little or no money on advertising. You just say something crazy and you get more media coverage than you know what to do with.
I know that, in the end, these are all empty words and you don’t mean a single one. You’re simply throwing out some “red meat” to rile up the masses. You’ll never deport 11 million people, or build a wall on the border or go to China and yell at them. You just make us believe that you will with that tough talk that thrills us so!
So congratulations, you are winning the PR battle. Every day, every minute, we get our fill of your picture and your insane comments on millions of screens streaming around the world. Some people are laughing, some are cheering, some are shaking their fists at you. But we are ALL watching because. We love it that you never apologize like all the rest of the politically-correct wusses, you double down on your macho talk and we eat it up with a spoon. It’s fascinating to watch it all unfold. We are a Reality TV Nation ready for a Reality TV President.
Donald, you are also the gift the keeps on giving for the media who are all now getting up early in the morning and checking their Daily Trump Coverage agendas. Because of you, we are seeing journalists asking tough questions and challenging politicians and candidates. We’re not used to that!
And, comedians now have a reason to live and I’m sure they all thank you.
I myself thank you also for creating an entire cottage industry among my people. We are all getting such a great shot in the arm creating piñatas, paintings, videos, songs and web sites about you. Other Latinos are getting great PR writing you open letters, not unlike this one. A lady even saw your face on a tub of butter.
But mainly, thank you Donald for galvanizing the Latino electorate so we all finally register and go out and vote!
Latinos hold a grudge a long time. You are now so infamous in both languages. (In Spanish, they’ve taken to calling you “Trompa,” which means “big mouth.”) Maybe we’ll all hold the grudge until November 2016 and go out and vote for pete’s sake!
Congratulations too, because, as far as I know, none of the Latino employees in your hotels or other businesses have quit in protest of your comments. Whew. Something like that could really hit you where it hurts you the most.
So far so good, Donald. You’re at the top of the GOP field, and, if you survive, you’ll need to start sounding more sane as the months go by so that, in case you are the nominee, you have a shot at the general election.
In the stretch, you’ll need to make grand gestures of reconciliation to Latinos, women, Asians and everyone else you’ve offended and make a last-ditch effort to shoot the moon. Good luck with that, though because at the end of the day, we need a new plan, not a new clown.
Donald, the news media run after you breathlessly because your tone is the only thing selling politically right now. We’ve had it with the rest of the candidates. We’ve had it with the status quo. Time to fix the circus.
We all know that each candidate now has his personal billionaire benefactor or network of millionaires filling the coffers of his Super PAC so he/she can each spend obscene amounts of money to get elected. And we know that once elected they will probably stay bought and paid for. And once again, the cycle will commence.
That’s why you fire us up! You make us believe in the “lone cowboy that comes to save the town” myth. You’re not Clint Eastwood in High Plains Drifter, but you’ll do for now.
And, I’m sure that, if you get elected, you’ll go and do what most politicians do: Settle into a corrupt system of big money and political patronage that you won’t be able to resist.
That’s why we need to fix the circus before we let in a new clown Donald.
Because the truth is that our current system of government favors only a small number of Americans. The lack of congressional term limits has created a byzantine system of political patronage where career politicians’ main purpose is to raise money for re-election campaigns from large donors, whose lobbyists are then permitted to write tax laws and other government regulations in their favor.
On top of that, many of our state and federal laws, systems and institutions were created in the 19th and 20th centuries by men of a very different world. They are no longer working. Add the two ossified, entrenched political parties that will not allow a third party to survive, so that every election cycle is predictable. Americans are usually caught having to vote for the “lesser of two evils.”
In addition, America has been undergoing a gigantic social transformation, driven by the growth of the multicultural millennials, the aging of the white population and the advent of technologies which now allow consumers and citizens a louder, wider voice as well as much more information about our government institutions, companies, banks, etc. The curtain has been pulled and we can all see the crumbling timbers of laws, systems, agencies, institutions, which are no longer serving We The People.
Because of you, Donald, we have also learned to recognize the hollow words of those who continue to promote obsolete and anti-human policies.
The people are waking up and you are one of the alarm clocks. But damn, you sure are loud. I’m hitting the snooze button now.
Gabriel Reyes is president and founder of Reyes Entertainment, a PR & Marketing firm in Hollywood, specializing in Hispanic media and entertainment.