Donald Trump might not be the candidate we want, but he’s the one we need.
He shouldn’t be president, mind you. If spending hundreds of billions of dollars to deport every illegal immigrant and build a Berlin wall on our southern border is the way to “make America great again,” we should stick with mediocrity.
But while the pre-primary campaign trail is littered with candidates who make “Modern Family” seem like improv, Trump’s burned his copy of the script.
The first debate made clear he’s not beholden to the party. He wouldn’t pinkie-promise not to run as an independent if he doesn’t make the cut in the Republican primaries. When he claimed to have given campaign money to the other candidates, they tried to laugh the subject off, one claiming, “Not me,” and another blurting out that he’d take some. Whether or not Trump was exaggerating, money in politics is not a topic mainstream candidates want to discuss.
The Democratic Party is surely feeling the same discomfort from Bernie Sanders, who’s made vanquishing crony capitalism part of his platform. Much of Sanders’ appeal is his frank, impassioned disparagement of the political status quo.
Sanders pushes issues Washington-insider types like Hillary would rather leave well enough alone. The Democratic National Committee has scheduled only six debates, the first not until October — not much time for Bernie to make Hillary squirm onstage the way Trump did the Republican candidates.
But we need mainstream candidates to squirm. The Two Ol’ Parties — and the Commission on Presidential Debates, the organization that puts on the debates in the general election — have done a heck of a job keeping that from happening (for the most part) by limiting independent candidates’ access to the podiums.
Like Ross Perot, who ran as an independent in the 1992 presidential election, Trump has the bankroll to get himself all the attention he wants. If he doesn’t get the nomination, but carries on as an independent, he’d still have a shot at crashing the general election debates. Perot was the last independent to accomplish that almost a quarter-century ago and ended up pulling in close to 19 percent of the popular vote.
Voters saw Perot as an outsider, someone not interested in dodging the tough questions with meaningless generalities. He didn’t have to because he didn’t have to rely on campaign contributions and funding from either major party. Trump has that same appeal.
And The Hair’s campaign-trail popularity exposes another sad truth about the American political system: Our national elections are, in many respects, worth more for their entertainment value than for their substance. The absurdism that is an over-the-top reality TV star’s leading the polls shows how disenfranchised voters feel with dynastic political families like the Bush’s and Clintons.
Without candidates like Trump and Sanders, mainstream candidates could carry on with their talking points, and we’d get to choose between the lesser of two (or 12) evils. Maybe some of those candidates should apply for an apprenticeship.
