Donald Trump has been a sensation this election year, with a devoted following and just as adamant opposition. For those baffled by his allure, they need not look far. As Judge Napolitano noted, Trump tapped into a vein of discontent the mainstream media and political establishments had ignored. It was the forgotten men and women of America’s working poor, semi-professionals, tradesman, and small business owners that propelled Donald Trump into the presidency. The same people who, with grit and determination, keep the wheels of commerce turning,.

Trumpers, those loyal minions in whose eyes Trump was savior, are nothing more than people who go to work every day, relax in sports bars, attend church, take their kids to soccer, and attend PTA meetings. These are the same people that were increasingly left out in the cold by the political class. While they pay the lion’s share of the nation’s taxes, their own pay has dwindled in purchasing power for over two decades. A steady noticeable decline in their standard of living that has only accelerated under Obama. Households, who once had two incomes to support them, are now relying on a single income, or have one person working part time. Victims of an economic malaise that has seen worker participation rates drop to the lowest in 40 years. As a consequence, the percentage of families living in multi-generational homes have skyrocketed. All the while, they have been being told all is well.

Historically patient people, not given to complaint, it appears their limits have been reached. Final straws were things like Obamacare and unrestrained immigration. Obamacare caused their insurance rates to double and then double again. Adding insult to misery, they were asked to not complain as newcomers, both legal and illegal, under cut them for jobs. Many have suffered from increased crime rates associated with illegal immigration as well. Those few who dared to speak up about this twin edged threat were called racist. During elections, these same people would hear politicians make promises to them, only to find it all a pack of lies. They watched as many of these same politicians grew rich in office catering to Wall Street tycoons, and handing out their hard earned taxes to wealthy bankers and stock brokers.

The frustration of these forgotten citizens, the quiet Atlases upon whose shoulders the country rest, had reached a crescendo when Donald Trump appeared on the scene. For them, Donald was the first one to give their worries and frustration a voice. A drowning man does not look at the resume of his deliverer, only the hand he is being offered. Trump was that hand, and grasp it they did. While for many Trump was far from the deliverer needed or wanted, for many of those too long ignored he was an answer to prayers.

For true conservatives, constitutionalist and lovers of liberty, Donald Trump was a deplorable substitute. A man devoid of the kind of ideas and principles needed to set the country upright. They also despised him for both shoving aside Ted Cruz, and the despicable methods he implored to accomplish the task. Many feared, and still do, that his populist politics would destroy conservatism in way nothing else could. Coincidentally, liberals despised him for similar reasons. Trump, the bombastic Neanderthal, offended their sensibilities and poised a threat to the “advances’ they believed Obama had won for them. Similar to Conservatives in the primary, they now also despise him for defeating their candidate, and the way he did it. Of course, that is where the similarities stop. Conservatives, even never Trump people, have taken his election in stride. Hoping to either steer the president elect, or retrench for the long haul. Liberals, like liberals tend to do, have turned violent. Some even openly calling for Trump supporters to be beaten with baseball bats.

Even outside the radical leftest response, there has been little real discourse on why Trump gained the spotlight. Most of the talk has centered on anger, but in some general sense. Others have looked to Obama’s over the top antics as the root of people’s discontent. The liberal press has even gotten blamed by those seeing Trumpism as a reaction to the unfair treatment he received. In the end, what those never on the Trump bandwagon need to understand is, while this was never an election about ideas or principles, it was not a reaction to a single event or person either. Neither was not guided by some moral compass, or wide eyed idealism. This election was a gritty gut response from those relegated to the shadows for too long. A minion of once silent voices who stood up in unison and said, “I am mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.”

“The Conservative Mind”

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