The politics of fantasy

Recently, Donald Trump has surpassed Hillary Clinton in the polls as being more trustworthy. There is no doubt that Hillary Clinton has provided fuel for republican attacks on her character and trustworthiness. And, the Republicans have done a good job in capitalizing on this opportunity. What is hard to understand is how the voting public views Trump as authentic and trustworthy. Beginning years ago with his position that Pres. Obama was not born an American citizen, a position he has never repudiated, he has been a total bullshit artist. His campaign has been based almost entirely on an immigration policy that wildly overstates the problem and offers no solutions except a wall. Apparently he has never heard of aircraft, Boats and the Canadian border.

What we are increasingly learning is that the American public believes in fantasy. The biggest fantasy is that the best qualification for the most difficult job in the world, the presidency of the United States, is a total lack of experience. That fantasy extends to the proposition that there can be a massive, undefined change in the entire political and economic system of the United States. That change is undefined but is expected to produce miraculous results. Fantasy politics was successfully employed by the Republicans starting with the Ronald Reagan administration. The fantasy there was that a tax cut would solve all problems by shrinking Government and that everyone would be better off, no matter where the tax cuts actually occurred. It became quite apparent that telling the American public that the best thing they could do for their country was to pay less taxes was a pretty easy sell.

Notwithstanding his surrogates denials, trump's position on immigration is constantly changing. In fact, it is changing for the better .But other than building the wall, it is little different than the policy of the current administration and all those Republican rivals that Trump belittled during the debates.

We can now hope that having raised a great deal of money, the Democrats will saturate the air waves with clips from all of the things Trump has said in the last year. If, having watched them, the voting public still believes Trump to be trustworthy and authentic then we will know for sure that fantasy and delusion rules the day. On her part, Hillary Clinton has got to step up to the wicket , confess her previous mistakes and affirmatively push her policy agendas. Finally, during the debates the moderators must ask tough questions and demand answers.