For years, while those in Washington were going along like business as usual, a boisterous movement was bubbling across America. In 2010, the tea party allowed into office conservative underdogs like Marco Rubio, and launched the political careers of the likes of Christine O’Donnell and Rand Paul. While the tea party wave of 2010 may have been an indicator of Trumpism to come, it wasn’t the birth of it.
In 2014, another GOP wave took America by storm, resulting in GOP control of both chambers of Congress.
In the 2014 cycle, Republicans ran on the platform of repealing and replacing Obamacare, building the Keystone Pipeline, and standing in the way of President Obama’s so called illegal, unconstitutional, and nefarious plan to give amnesty to the millions of undocumented immigrants residing within our borders.
I remember these promises quite well. Because while the Washington elite were sunbathing in the rays of power, I was getting sunburn in the rays of the sun — knocking on countless doors across the 12th Congressional District of Georgia peddling the talking points that, “Republicans can fix Washington this time” and asking them to give the party one more chance. They’ll repeal this, pass that, and get this done. Just trust me.
As I flowed through my talking points, the voters were almost uniformly expressionless. It was as if they’ve heard all this before, as if the phrases leaving my mouth had become horribly routine. Or they were wondering why I wasn’t in school.
At the time, their skepticism puzzled me. But fast forward two years, and the aforementioned promises were never kept. While the betrayals were new to me, it was a game that grassroots conservatives knew all too well.
Once again, the politicians had lied to them, failed them, and moved on. This disappointment turned into contempt.
Kendall Noble is a rigger for Huntington Ingalls Industries in the state of Mississippi. He works 40 hours a week, says he pays his “fair share of taxes,” and supports Donald Trump for President. When I asked about his frustrations with the GOP establishment and politicians altogether, he accused them of selling out. “They have put the almighty dollar before those they claim to represent. They preach during interviews and follow the money when it counts.”
He went on to say, “I am very sick of broken promises CJ.”
Noble wasn’t alone in his disappointment and contempt for the political class and Washington elite. It’s a sentiment shared by many in the grassroots.
Paul Eggbeen, a former president delegate for his local GOP chapter, expressed the same frustration. He said he was “extremely frustrated with the Republican establishment for their repeated capitulated to President Obama.”
He accused the party of being spineless and letting the Democrats “define them.”
The media will never understand this frustration. The pundits will never be able to explain this contempt. To understand it, you have to feel it. To explain it, you’ve had to experience it.
It’s exactly why when it comes to stopping Trump, the #StopTrump is trying to light a match in a dark room. The TV spots, the hashtags, the direct mail pieces — the grassroots knows this game all too well. When was the last time billionaire businessman Tom Ricketts made a phone call to an angry voter?
Even conservative hypeman Erick Erickson, one of the more prominent #StopTrumpers, hasn’t attended the county meeting of his local county party in years. Throughout time, the spokespeople of the tea party has created their own establishments. A monopoly — led by the likes of Erickson, Dana Loesch, and Glenn Beck have been more motivated by the allure of TV segments, retweets and clicks, than the interests of their own constituency. The GOP establishment betrayed the grassroots and now the leaders of the grassroots are doing the same to their rank and file.
The passion of Trump supporters has shown not only empathic anger towards government and the establishment but strong disdain for all elites — in both the establishment and the conservative movement. The same leaders these activists had marched behind in battle with them have been discarded in hopes of a new movement — a movement born out of the campaign of Donald J. Trump,
The establishment has set the stage for a revolution. A revolution that will surely be televised. 1.8 billion dollars’ worth of television. actually.
Donald Trump won’t be stopped by ads or think pieces. There might be a chance if the politicians did their jobs. But don’t bet on it.