They that sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind

A rather revealing admission by the winner of the Nevada GOP caucus. At first glance, Trump appears to be denigrating the very people who are propelling him to victory, and that is how a number of news outlets are spinning his words today. This would seem to reinforce an already existing narrative about Trump, one that is best illustrated by an internet meme that has been floating around for months:

As much as Trump's opponents would love to believe that he actually called Republican voters the "dumbest group of voters in the country", there is absolutely no evidence that he ever said it. The quote has been thoroughly debunked by now, but continues making the rounds on social media. But even if it were an accurate quote, I seriously doubt that it would make the slightest difference to the people who are supporting Donald Trump. They appear to be completely impervious to any of the arguments being made against their candidate. In fact, I suspect that they will embrace the status of having been "poorly educated" as a badge of honor. And why shouldn't they? After all, they have clearly backed a winner in Donald Trump.

The Republican Party has been courting a disaster like this for decades now, and it has finally come to fruition. I don't know if Trump actually holds his supporters in contempt, because of their ignorance, but I know for damn sure that the GOP establishment certainly does. They have courted those poorly educated voters by appealing to their emotions, rather than their intellect. GOP candidates play to their anger and fear by invoking things like abortion, gay rights, and immigration. They get them all fired up, and collect their votes on election day, but then proceed to do absolutely nothing about any of the issues they campaigned on. What they do instead is pass regressive legislation that disproportionately impacts the very people who voted them into office. The author Thomas Frank did an excellent job of explaining this dynamic in his book titled What's the Matter with Kansas. I read it 10 years ago, when it was first published, and suspect that it only become more relevant with the passing of a decade.

English Only

I came across an interesting bit of presidential trivia earlier this evening. If Donald J. Trump becomes our next president, his wife will have the distinction of being only the second First Lady that was born outside of the United States. Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, wife of President John Quincy Adams, was born in London on February 12, 1775. She was the daughter of an Englishwoman and an American merchant. John Quincy's father, John Adams, was the American consul general in London during the 1790s, and that is how his son made the acquaintance of Louisa Catherine. Interestingly enough, John Adams initially objected to his son marrying a woman born outside the United States but eventually relented and welcomed her into the family.

Melania Knauss Trump was born on April 26, 1970 in the town of Sevnica in what was then Yugoslavia. At the age of 16, Melania began working as a model and would move to the United States in 1997 to continue pursuing what was already a very successful career. She met Donald Trump in 1998, and the couple would marry on January 22, 2005. They have a 10-year old son named Barron William Trump. Melania Trump is fluent in no fewer than five languages: English, French, Slovenian, Serbian, and German. And Teresa Heinz Kerry, the wife of Secretary of State John Kerry, can also boast of fluency in five languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Italian.

However, I highly doubt that Trump will be trumpeting his wife's remarkable linguistic abilities on the campaign trail. His presidential campaign contains very distinct strains of both nativism and xenophobia, and Trump has loudly championed an "English only" policy for this country. He actually scolded rival Jeb Bush for having the temerity to answer a reporter's question in Spanish. And I distinctly recall Teresa Heinz Kerry being viewed with suspicion, rather than admired, for her very exotic background. She was born in Mozambique, in 1938, when the country was still a Portuguese colony. During the 2004 presidential general election, President George W. Bush, and his wife Laura, were presented as the "true Americans" by virtue of the fact that they rarely traveled abroad and only spoke English. Bush's rival John Kerry spoke French, and was widely mocked because of it. A commonly heard joke among Bush supporters was that Kerry even "looked French". But, so far as I'm aware, Donald Trump is himself untainted by any contamination with other languages. And you can be damn sure that the only language we will hear coming out of Melania's lovely mouth will be her heavily accented English.

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