Explaining the Trump Phenomenon

by Daryl Dominic Tan

I would be lying if I said I saw Trump's victory coming. I was honestly expecting Hillary Clinton to win. Like everyone else I was surprised, albeit pleasantly. Read my previous blog post to find out why. What surprised me even further was the immense magnitude of Trump's victory. Even if I had predicted that Trump would win, I would have imagined a narrow victory at the very least, but Trump didn't just win narrowly - he resoundingly defeated Clinton, even in traditionally Blue states.

Most people are flabbergasted and cannot seem to grasp or comprehend what led to a decisive Trump victory. The only thing I am reading thus far on my Facebook feed are posts littered with the following - "White nationalism", "Xenophobia", "Whitelash", "Racism", or "Russia".

Here are my thoughts on what led to a decisive Trump victory. The key factor, in my opinion, that led to Trump's victory stems from what I would term a "cultural" backlash. There has been a tense cultural warfare taking place within the occidental hemisphere for quite some time, and it seems that the only ones actually aware of such a conflict taking place are the participants themselves. Either no one else knew, or those who knew were complacent and did not realize the severity of the situation until Brexit was made a reality, and it's why Trump's victory occurred today.

The media has been covering up the reality of this cultural war to promote the facade that multiculturalism has been going along just fine, when it really hasn't. Don't get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with multiculturalism per se, but when force fed down throats like ducks being stuffed with feed to produce Foie Gras, one's liver ends up swelling, and for us humans who are in the position to actually kick free and say "Enough is enough", that's exactly what we do. When multiculturalism is force fed in the form of allowing an insanely high number of refugees into one's country without any plans whatsoever for properly resettling them (as per the case of Europe), it contributes to a deep-seated anger. When refugees come in the droves, unprepared for what awaits them, and bring with them their alien cultures (and I don't use the term "alien" in a derogatory manner - but I'm using it simply to mean "unfamiliar"), hosts of states in which they migrate to feel threatened. This has nothing to do with intolerance or racism. It's simply highlighting what many people consciously or subconsciously hold dear to them - the preservation of their own cultures and the fear that their cultures will slowly be diluted and eroded with the influx of mass uncontrolled immigration.

This is not in any way a justification for a nation to adopt ultra-nationalistic policies by banning immigrants completely (especially if they are legal immigrants) and so on & so forth. This is clearly not what I mean. Immigration is good, but only when it is controlled. Immigrants bring with them a fresh air of diversity, new outlooks and perspectives, tasty cuisines, new skill sets, etc. and when they migrate to a nation in a controlled manner, they are very often willing to learn more about the culture of their new homes, and vice versa. It is a process that consists of a few stages until an immigrant becomes cognizant of the culture of the country he or she is in and understands certain customs. However, as can be seen in the Western hemisphere, immigration is hardly controlled. While undocumented immigrants have swamped the southern border of the United States in droves and thus giving those applying for citizenship via legal means a more difficult time, the same thing is occurring across the Atlantic in places like Germany, Sweden and France just to name a few.

What has tipped many of these people who want to preserve their culture and customs over the edge is when their governments authorizes and approves of such proliferation of peoples through their borders. For example, Obama and Clinton were in favour of large-scale amnesty programs granting undocumented workers a legal pathway to citizenship. What does this, however, mean for the traditional principle that has served as a bedrock for the foundation of the United States of America for so long - the Rule Of Law? What happens to immigration laws if they are not to be enforced?

Now this is not exactly the problem per se. The problem arises when having or possessing these sort of beliefs or views (as laid out above) is construed and labelled as being intolerant, divisive, racist, and xenophobic. Once these terms are slapped on to a person - it sticks in the most ugly fashion. We must also see this in light of an already creeping cultural progressivism and political correctness that has wrapped its vines around Western society. There seems to be this pervading one-size-fits-all political ideology today that demands objectively what is right and what is wrong and promulgated by a bunch of people I term the "Politically Correct Police". Their mouthpiece? The Mainstream Media.

The Mainstream Media, whether it likes it or not, unwittingly created the Trump phenomenon. The Mainstream Media hated Donald Trump because he wasn't part of the Establishment, so they misconstrued everything he said and painted him as a Fascist tyrant. They smeared him in the ugliest ways imaginable; and back then (not any more evidently), the Mainstream Media always had its way. People practically believed anything they read without doing their own research, and society used to go along with whatever the Mainstream Media told them. The Mainstream Media would buttress this with having celebrities on board to further this insidious agenda. You get celebrities from Hollywood - good-looking & incredibly wealthy men and women with no inkling of what's happening to the common man on the street - and yet telling that same common layman WHO to vote for and HOW to vote. The Mainstream Media grew complacent and increasingly arrogant. Since people were so focused on what the Media and celebrities were disseminating to them, this led to the rise of a new segment of society - the politically correct progressives also known as the cultural progressives. These members of society essentially acted as enforcers for the Mainstream Media and made sure all dissenters towed the line of the popular views as espoused by the media - by harassing, cyber bullying, or outright ridiculing members of society that did not agree with them.

So, if someone were to air his opinion on unfettered immigration being something that is out of control - cue the enforcers. The terms "Xenophobic", "Racist", "Intolerant" are fired out automatically and plastered onto that same person. Now, that someone would eventually shut up in fear of being smeared further. One would run the risk of losing friends who disagreed with him if he were to publicly air his views, close ties with family members could be severed, etc. This person would eventually be bullied into complete submission. This, compounded with the fact that so many celebrities like Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga, Funny or Die, Jay-Z, Robert de Niro mock the unhappiness faced by Small Town Americans as pointed out by Greg Gutfeld on Fox News, has contributed to a growing silent anger - an anger that grew into a silent rebellion.

Who's at the helm of this rebellion? Voices that have been drowned out, People in support of Trump but are too afraid to speak out for fear of backlash, humble small-town Americans being pressured by celebrities to vote in a particular manner, individuals sick of Political Correctness permeating every aspect of their daily lives. This segment of society, in partnership with disenfranchised blue collar workers in the Rustbelt states that saw their jobs taken away and their steel mills closed, and the people that have long been forgotten by the Clinton, Bush and Obama administration - the rural dwellers, as well as the Veterans, led to Trump's victory. Trump provided a voice for the voiceless. Trump was a walking megaphone for people too afraid to speak up. And as Greg Gutfeld aptly says - "Trump's victory is a F____ you to popular culture", as well as the establishment.

The very people the Mainstream Media sought to destroy or cower into submission metamorphosed into a sleeping giant, and on the 8th of November 2016 - a day that changed America's history - that sleeping giant was awakened.