At the local writer’s meetup I attended this year, the service providers would distinguish between those that wrote for notoriety, and those that wrote from compulsion. Among the authors seeking notoriety, the success of 50 Shades of Grey was a scandal. While I was never moved to read the book, those who did complained that it was just poorly written.
But if you’re writing for the masses, maybe that is how you write. You write in the way that the soccer moms and housewives actually converse. You use concepts and terms that are familiar in their discourse. You give them something to talk about.
While the pundits at MSNBC tend to view Donald Trump’s presidential bid as a parody of a political campaign, that may be intentional. Trump’s attack on politically correct speaking may reflect his style of problem solving. Rather than crafting a consensus position that offends no one, you speak ideas that give you power over the situation. You categorize people and institutions, and force them to react to justify their existence.
So the Hispanic community includes law-breakers – of course it does, given that many broke the law simply entering the country. But when does inclusion bleed into harboring? Are there segments of the Hispanic population that shield criminals from the police? Trump may believe that his statements force the Hispanic community to consider its loyalties.
So also with Muslim communities and the Islamists in our midst, whether those are home-grown or foreign.
To his supporters, Trump may articulate their fears, and so bring them into political dialog that “PC” (politically correct) standards of speaking have denied to them. His impassioned and thoughtless policy pronouncements may reflect the way that they respond to and internalize frightening events. Trump’s popularity may reflect the permission he gives disenfranchised citizens to participate in the political process.
In the aftermath of the Prop 8 vote in California, I told a lesbian friend that “The gay community and its supporters lost because of intolerance in specific communities. But as a result of the election, we know who those people are, and we can reach out to them.”
Following a segment documenting support among his followers for Trump’s proposed ban on Muslim entry to America, a Muslim spokesman offered this wisdom: Yes, we should ask Trump’s followers if they support his position. But even more: for those that do, we should ask them “Do you know any Muslims?” If they don’t, we should then encourage them to “Go out and meet one.”
So: treat Trump’s political theater as a symptom. It’s value is to bring to light the psychological needs of a misrepresented segment of citizens. Don’t criticize Trump for the service he provides: look beyond him, and offer solutions and solace to those he attracts.
everdeepening 
He is indeed like one half the wizard of Oz behind the curtain, except without genuine inventions. Compare him to Henry Ford, who also thought himself the best man for the presidency. Socrates questioned the poets, politicians and craftsmen, in Plato’s Apology. He found that the craftsmen did indeed know something, but it was made worthless by their thinking that they therefore knew everything else!! He is tyrant, a garden variety sort, but the wicked ones, the dangerous ones, are using his public appearance and riding his coatails. If they appeared in public, the people would not support them, because we do remember Adolph. His surprise would come when they eat him alive, but Mitt Romney and John McCain will save him from such a fate (though he may deserve it). We turned the corner on him, maybe, the other day in Michigan. We’ll find out Tuesday. All we have to do is mobilize some republican couch potatoes, as his support is not that great. and there are not that many more stupid people for him to mobilize! I think we are going to be all right, but we do have to do it, and it will not do itself. Come visit my old Donney blogs, if wordpress and Google will let you!
Now I must admit, MM, that you wing through associations at a pace that I find hard to follow! I think that I have a preferential bias for thoughts offered by people that I admire, and even of terrible events I look for heroes to admire. Maybe that’s why Trump bothers me so much!
Hmm. you mean I like McCain’s position because I admire John McCain? He is right about torture, and the intuition is that we will lose a war if do not uphold our constitution and do virtur. If we choose torture, vice, tyranny unlimited moneymaking, etc, we just might lose a war. The soldiers in the executive agencies seem to keep thinking of winning single events, like the Apple v. FBI issue, and seem unable to think beyone 2 dimensions. But that is why they are not the president, but soldiers, nor are they all 3 brances of government, just unelected agencies. That is why their constitutional obligation is to obey, and ours is not to elect a president who hands the oversight of these unelected agencies over to Dick Cheney. Now we have a national sin. Do you remember what George Mason and Jefferson taught about national sin? You like to gaze on the civil war? And know it was all avoidable if only we were nicer to the Africans that we dragged over here, and set them free to do free labor? That is the CLC position
My writing is perhaps not for those who have not spent their lives devoted to the liberal arts to read quickly.
I try not to go slow and make people comfortable, but to get at the truth before it is too late. Perhaps I should slow down and say less. I got thrown out of a bar the other day, not because I said anything false, but just because I tried to describe what is happening on the internet when I try to get work done. He was a techy microbrewer, and I showed him my webpage and explained that all my trafick was word-of-mouth. People plug their ears like four-year-olds. Like Socrates at the opening of the Republic, I hear polemarchus saying well, what if we just won’t listen if you try to persuade us that we cannot take you here or there?