Donald Trump: The Republican Id

I have to admit that there are times I'm tempted to agree with George Will that Donald Trump is just trolling Republicans. But whether intended or not, he is demonstrating what happens when you take Republican rhetoric to its logical (?) conclusion.

What is it that Trump is suggesting he would do on the issues the Republicans are so concerned about. When it comes to Obamacare, he'd "repeal it and replace it with something terrific." Sounds good, huh?

And when it comes to the 11 million undocumented workers in this country, just round 'em up and get rid of them. If you think that Mexican immigrants are nothing more than rapists and murderers, that sounds good too, doesn't it? But don't bother fretting your pretty little head about how to go about doing that. Donald will "manage" it.

As I said, this is the "logical" conclusion of the path Republicans have taken. Climate change...deny it. Iran nuclear deal...oppose it. Terrorism...talk tough, but don't get into specifics. Their own party leaders are admitting that their agenda is being set by a conservative media that "doesn't give a damn about governing."

All of these issues - health care, immigration, climate change, foreign policy - are complex and require a lot of thought. Donald is just not into that. What he is appealing to has nothing to do with actual solutions. It has to do with emotions like fear and anger. In other words, what Freud called the "id."

The id (Latin for "it") is the unorganized part of the personality structure that contains a human's basic, instinctual drives...It is the source of our bodily needs, wants, desires, and impulses, particularly our sexual and aggressive drives.

The group of people that Trump is appealing to are scared and angry. They have an idealized view of America where white men are in charge, authority is unquestioned, and the world bows to our dominance. The fact that things are more complicated than that pisses them off.

Back in 2010, Republicans fanned the flames of that fear/anger and rode it to victory on the simple promise that they would stop anything the "Kenyan socialist" tried to do. Now The Donald is tapping into all that and showing what a scam its been all along.

Donald Trump will never be President of the United States. But what he is doing right now is embarrassing the Republicans because he is demonstrating the vacuity of their approach to politics over the last 7 years. Whether he believes his own hype is immaterial.