Donald Trump Makes Sense – How to understand the attractiveness of the most frightening presidential candidate in recent memory (which is saying quite a lot since he is most likely to be running against Hillary Clinton in November).

Brown shirt sold separately.

A friend I greatly respect recently posted his frustrations over watching what had been billed as a debate among presidential candidates. Instead, “everything seemed to be turned into a petty argument.” He singled out Donald Trump as “especially irritating—constantly saying the same things over and over in response to questions.” He specifically questioned Trump’s claims to be “a unifier” who “can work with people.”

In Trump’s defense, then, I would argue that these very traits are not only evident, but chief among the key principles on which Trump’s candidacy, attractiveness, and electability rest. In fact, Donald Trump may have the greatest potential of any current, former, or potential presidential candidate for unifying people in the United States of America. Here's why:

Trump Makes Sense Because of “How America Got Great in the First Place”

Don't polish too hard.
The plating's rather thin.

First, we must recognize the structures and systems that have made America great. Granted, some criticize that we were never so “great” as we remember being. But we are, indisputably, far better off than the vast majority of others elsewhere in our world. The United States' corporate-controlled socio-political system has raised standards of living to dizzying heights. When we recognize the structures and systems that have made this possible, we can more fully celebrate how our greatness has been accomplished, and how beneficial at least one term of a Trump presidency would be.

Without a Trump presidency, would our socio-political system still continue to improve our standard of living? Yes. The machine abides, whomever rides its gears. It is delusional to believe that any candidate could preserve our America and yet obstruct the structure’s steady process of marginalization, exploitation, oppression, and depersonalization. Previously, though, we were able to provide extraordinarily high standards of living and other benefits to U.S. citizens at the expense of "other resources" elsewhere in the world. By redefining others as relatively more or less human than others, we have built the largest consumer economy in the world, while simultaneously excusing the destruction of whole nations, cultures, and people groups as arguably unfortunate, but unquestionably necessary.

"Whose land are you on? Whose land am I on?
From California to the New York Island...."

Sadly, for many of us, the flow of resources from disenfranchised two-thirds world countries into our own is no longer as unimpeded as it once was. And so…

Trump Makes Sense Because of “How to Make America Great Again”

Second, then, we must also recognize that the world-wide playing field has been leveled. The biggest bully on the block finds that the proliferation of many lesser bullies is becoming insurmountable. This is a result of improved technology and industry now available elsewhere in the world, coupled with our own insatiable aspirations to ever-greater luxuries here at home. Thus, those "foreigners" and "third-world" resources we once successfully marginalized, exploited, oppressed and depersonalized have developed the capability to more effectively resist our efforts at pillaging the global village.

Just. One. Guess.

Compounding our difficulties, the ever-increasing expense of our expanding military investments has proven ineffective in completely curbing these others’ uncooperative attitudes. Worse, as we have lowered the quality (and quantity) of life elsewhere, we have inadvertently depleted others’ resources to the point that too little is now available for enhancing our lifestyles. Our ability to further deplete the scarcity of those in other countries is no longer a reliable means to supply the never-ending increase in our excesses.

Therefore, if the quality of living in America is to continue increasing, then the quantity of those who are allowed such quality must be reduced. Crude efforts like mass deportations, refugee rejection, and immigration prevention (so necessary, but still unlikely in a single term Trump presidency) would not be sufficient. To support the comfort and convenience of most (and the luxuries of a few), some of those remaining within our borders (including what some may persist in defining as “citizens”) will need to be uncomfortably inconvenienced through the reduction of their basic sustenance. Though some of these may still be willing and able to apply themselves to supporting our economy, they cannot be allowed to hinder the progress that can come only as we “decrease the surplus population” (to quote St. Ebenezer of Scrooge).

By my count, we're batting .125
on defending the defenseless.
(.100 if you count North America.)

Trump Makes Sense Because He Defines “What America Must Become”
So, yes, I have no doubts in the accuracy of Donald Trump’s claims. From what I have seen and heard, I cannot disagree: he does unify and can work with people. Remember, though, what we mean by “people.” The framers of the United States Constitution meant something less than you or I might when they referred to the benefits they believe should be available to "all men." Those whom they claimed were “created equal” did not, in fact, include me—despite my highly-esteemed status as a middle-aged uptight white guy. (I am not, it may surprise you to learn, a land-owner.) So, were we speaking of this two hundred years ago, Donald Trump’s claim would be true, despite the fact that he might find me impossible to work with.

So, upon our nation’s historic precedent, preserved and defended, despite our occasional decisions to “officially” include others among the ranks of human persons, Trump makes sense if we are to become More American for Fewer AmericansÔ.  At this stage in our nation’s development, we can only become More AmericanÔ by ensuring that with each passing year, month, week or day (however frequently we can fuel the trains and the ovens) we create a land of Fewer AmericansÔ. When “the people” unify by disqualifying those whom Donald Trump can not work with, as I have said, Trump makes sense.

Edmund Burke would agree also.

An Alternative to Consider (Especially Among My Theologically-Conservative Evangelical Tribe)

Or, we could consider all others as they truly are: human persons, equally created to bear the image and likeness of one God eternally existing in three persons. While not all of us will agree on the theological foundations of this belief, here is what I mean by this:  We are all indispensably interrelated to all of the one anothers of not only our nation but every other as well.

Of course, if I were to realize how commonly human I am, and that all you others are, too, then I might also find it necessary to “do unto others as I would have others do unto me.” Sadly, since that’s even less popular than I wish Donald Trump would be, we may soon find ourselves no longer in the “land of the free and the home of the brave,” but where we continue to make America More American for Fewer AmericansÔ.