Why not Donald Trump?

If America hasn’t done well by you in the past decade, you’re probably looking for a different kind of president. Veteran pols and tired standard bearers like the Clintons just don’t cut it. It makes sense you wouldn’t want more of same.

So why not someone who is mind to mouth, sneering, infantile, bombastic, unscripted and tells it like it is? He’s crude, almost surely sexist, not necessarily a great businessman as he contends and, some say, a racist. When America looks for scapegoats, bear in mind no one better exploits whipping boys than Donald Trump.

Don’t get me wrong. I am firmly in Hillary’s camp because America has been very good to my family and I. No trade pact took my job although we journalists have been hammered by the Internet. I just happened to transition into covering technology 36 years ago which, for the most part, has made for a great living not to mention a satisfying career.

I am also a life long progressive and what comes out of Trump’s trashy mouth sends chills up my spine. His half-baked ideas if you can call them that jump all over the place and appear based on crude sound bytes that elements of the electorate apparently have been longing for.

But I don’t begrudge Trump supporters and certainly not Bernie’s. One article that sticks out in my mind (sorry, I can’t find it, but I believe it was in the Wall Street Journal) was Trump’s strong support in western Pennsylvania where foreign trade pacts were blamed for gutting good jobs.

Many had voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012. I feel their pain and certainly grasp why they feel betrayed by the status quo.

Trump is a con artist and swindler in my estimation. Were he president, I honestly believe things would get worse for those who’ve bought into his jingoism and scapegoat pandering. Trump on the world stage would be an embarrassment and worse, reckless. Do you really want his trigger finger on the nukes?

But those with little to show for the Obama or George W. Bush presidencies, I get it. Trump is a breath of fresh air (to me, hot air is more like it). You don’t have to like him to vote for him. He’s not the political establishment and that in an of itself is compelling if not a bit desperate.

Trump voters: be careful what you wish for.