How did we get Trump?

Trump, WTF?

Dinner party conversations of late,

Q: “How the hell did we get Trump?”

A: The (Ivy League) elites did it.

Trump is not the problem. He is the walking, talking expression of the rage felt by a significant percentage of the population who have been ignored, humiliated and left behind – largely by the Ivy League elites who run the country, write the tax code, and make the laws.

David Brooks in the Atlantic, “How the Ivy League Broke America.”The meritocracy isn’t working. We need something new.

Malcolm Gladwell’s essay: “I hate the Ivy League: Riffs and Rants of Elite Education” argues that the American university system is built as an exclusive, status-driven hierarchy that favors the wealthy, neglects the middle class, and distorts educational priorities.

From Stanford Continuing Education class: “Will America Fail the Midterms?” (Fall, 2026)

Thomas Freidman, “Humiliation and dignity are the strongest forces in history.”

Condoleezza Rice: “The middle class and the poor are diminished by the elites. “

Trump’s MAGA base from the “fly-over states” feel belittled by the fancy-pants coastal elites with their big money, Ivy League college degrees, and their “statistically significant” expertise on everything.

Hillary Clinton: “They are a basket of deplorables.” That comment may have done more to elect Trump than even the declining economic prospects for Trump’s base.

Trump’s pledge: “I am your retribution.” His appeal is that he gives the middle finger to the elites, and especially Washington insiders. He does and says whatever he goddamn pleases (legal or not) then runs the lawsuits through the court system up to the Supreme Court where he gets exonerated by the conservative majority, many appointed by him. No wonder his base sees him as a Christe-like figure. (Thanks Ruth Bader Ginsberg for not retiring even as you were dying of cancer.)

Watch the MAGA base sitting behind Trump at his rallies. Watch their faces. The more outrageous he becomes (Ex: “Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?) the more gleeful they are. He is giving voice to their inner rage.

Where else have we seen this dynamic?

• The Columbine killers. They first went after the “popular kids” who had humiliated them.
• Germany after WW I and the Versailles treaty humiliation. They elect Hitler.

As Rice and Friedman point out, people can be humiliated only so long before they blow up with a killer rage.

Like Hitler, Trump was elected to give voice to the MAGA base that supports him – about 20% of the US population.

To see how we got here, check out The Powell Memo, 1973, titled “Attack on American Free Enterprise System”. Powell argued that the elites had lost “their country,” first with The New Deal, and then with the “Hippy Revolution” of the 1960s. Powell says it is now time for us elites to “take back what is ours.” He lays out a game plan for the rise of the conservative movement we’ve seen from Reagan to today’s “Project 2025.”

So what can be done?

According to Erwin Chemerinsky in his book,

No Democracy Lasts Forever  we need to:

1) Create a new  Constitution since the one we have is hugely undemocratic. We should have a new constitutional convention.

2) Get rid of the Senate. The founders invented the Senate as a buffer to the “riffraff”  of the House which could not be trusted. Vermont (644,663 residents) and Wyoming (588,753 residents) have the same number of senators as California (39,355,309) and Texas (31,709,821). Ridiculous.

3) Repeal Citizens United. No more dark money. All elections will be run by a nonpartisan government agency. Each candidate will be given the same funds to run their campaign. The middle class will then be on the same level playing field as the millionaires and billionaires. The wealthy will no longer be able to buy elections.

4) Get rid of the Electoral College. Presidents should be elected by a direct popular vote.

5) Gerrymandering. Current system to be replaced by independent redistricting commissions in each state.

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Can our country survive the rise of a well-funded (Musk) fascist drift to the right (Fox News, etc.)? Today we are split into warring factions that can hardly be in the same room with each other. I can hardly wait for the midterm elections next week. Civil War 2.0?

Let’s discuss it over dinner.