Last August there were 10 Republican presidential candidates, and in my judgment, nine were more qualified than Trump. His status as a non-professional politician was intriguing, but I hoped Ben Carson, Marco Rubio or Carly Fiorina would carry the day.
Then a strange thing happened. Trump kept prevailing - despite getting whacked on substance in debates, despite terrible polling numbers, despite ignoring all of the normal campaign traditions, and despite the lack of the Republican machine behind him. He didn't just win, record numbers of primary voters turned out to support him. Why?
I'm not clairvoyant, but I had an "aha!" moment a year ago into how this election might go, at least on the Republican side. My good friend, D, is one of the hardest working, most responsible and insightful American patriots I've ever met. He isn't educated beyond high school nor did he serve in the military. Yet he has more common sense and love of the USA than many folks I've met with lots of letters piled by their names or stars on their shoulders. His annual vacation is a week of solitary deer hunting on the Cumberland Plateau. He's worked for years for a major local business; he also farms and he pays his bills.
D knew I wrote columns for the Times Free Press, and he knew I like to stay abreast of political affairs. Humbly, he asked what I thought about his "friend" Donald Trump.
I was stunned since my friend has absolutely nothing in common with Donald Trump. What about Trump appealed to him, I asked?
He responded: I think he's the only one serious about keeping us safe and protecting American jobs. He isn't politically correct. He doesn't take money from lobbyists and special interest groups, and he's not a career politician. No one controls Trump. He's a business man and knows how to make money, not a politician who knows how to spend money. D had put a lot of thought into this.
I couldn't disagree with his points. I think I mumbled something in reply about lack of knowledge of foreign affairs, questionable morality, arrogance, lack of discipline, always shooting from the hip. My points paled in substance compared to D's.
I still think Trump is arrogant and impulsive; however, it appears my friend was more insightful. Trump has his finger on the pulse of our nation's deep-seated discontent more than the professional Republican politicians in the primaries, more than Republican elites like the Koch brothers and more than traditional Republican mouthpieces such as the Wall Street Journal. He certainly is more in touch with folks like D than the self-serving, status quo-maintaining Democratic candidate.
Trump is confident he is right, and I think those on both sides of the political aisle who treat him with such contempt know he is right as well. That is why they are pulling all the stops to defeat him. When did a sitting president ever make more disparaging remarks about a candidate than Obama has made about Trump? When have prominent members of one's own party turned their backs on their candidate?
Here's the dirty little secret. Those who hold Trump in contempt also hold people like my friend in contempt. Furthermore, they hold democracy in contempt. They think people like D are close-minded morons, incapable of knowing what is good for themselves and their families. People like D are so naive, elites think, that they don't trust big government to take care of them.
There are millions of people like D out there just below the pollsters' radar screens. They are not politicians, academic elites, socialites, liberal journalists or activists for the cause du jour. They are Americans concerned about their country, and they vote. It's called democracy.
Roger Smith is a retired U.S. Air Force officer, author and regular contributor to the Chattanooga Times Free Press.