Cheese Whiz And Donald Trump – Why He Can Win

It’s that time of the year again … family visits. Oh, Alaska, isn’t it funny who shows up? Remember me?? Um…well, this is awkward – not really, but sure, we’ve got a spare room. Nice to meet you.

Here’s a specific hint to make these visits go smoothly. Don’t talk politics. I know, it’s a prime year for it, but try really hard. You might try something like, “Let’s make our family great again …, and not talk about crazy.”

Friday morning the world woke up in shock that Britain had voted to break up its longtime relationship with the European Union. It didn’t surprise me. The campaign to leave was fear-based and tapped into the base panic too many people are feeling on too many shores.

After breaking up, Brits spent much of the next days Googling “What is the EU?” See how that works? They voted for “Brexit” — which sounds more like a commercial stain remover than political divorce.

All the same pollsters and talking heads who said Brexit would never happen are saying Americans couldn’t possibly vote for Donald Trump. Again, this is a topic we’ve agreed we should keep between us and not at family dinners.

Let’s think about this. I actually think Trump has a great chance of becoming the next, and possibly last, commander and chief of our already sometimes great country. I’m not voting for him, but when was the last time Alaska voters decided a presidential election? Seriously, the U.S. Supreme Court has decided more elections than Alaska has. We know who the president is before our polls close.

You could look outside our border for examples of major upheaval recently. Canada has elected a major liberal and tossed the old guard to the curb. The Philippines have decided it wants a crazy conservative over reasonable governance. People all over the world are fed up.

Rather than paying attention to academic reasoning or historical analysis, I’m basing my predictions on the fact Americans eat spray cheese. You know, that orange stuff that comes in a can with the same propulsion mechanism as hair spray.

Wait. Don’t dismiss me quite so fast. In a big ol’ store full of all sorts of cheese, hell, they have cases of cheese in the deli, bags of sliced and grated familiar flavors hanging on pegs, bins of cheeses from goats or cows or whatever else they’ve figured out how to milk; yet, people will walk to the aisle to pick a can to purchase. Spray. Cheese.

That’s why Donald Trump can win. I’m not suggesting this because they seem to be a similar color. It’s rather that even when there are lots of better choices, in fact, one would argue no worse choices for cheese, they still go for an imitation chemical compound that has more in common with WD-40 than brie.

How did we get so far out on the ledge that George W. Bush seems like the darling of decorum in retrospect? My sweetheart blames a Hollywood strike. Not the one led by then Screen Actor’s Guild president, Ronald Reagan in 1960, but the 2007 Writers Guild of America strike.

While no one was writing for sitcoms or movies, the producers figured out a way to skip that part of the process. Reality Television. What a discovery! You can put any clown on television, and because that’s just so fantastic you can make them eat bugs or pick someone to marry. That makes sense.

Now you can elect one of them. Hollywood producers figured out they had been overestimating the intelligence of the American people by providing them with smart writing and stories — silly artists. Just give them a human train-wreck to watch and count your money. It hasn’t taken too long for the politicos to figure out the same trick. We’d rather be entertained than led.

Trump landed in Scotland the morning after the Brexit decision to promote his golf course. He said it was “a great thing” even though Scotland had voted against it. According to his logic, it is all the fault of Obama and Clinton, the pound collapsing will make him a ton of money because it will make Great Britain great again, cheap, and … people will come play golf.

H.L. Mencken said, “No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.”

Now let me ask you — who are the better underestimators here? The polls and pundits? Or the creators of Reality TV and spray cheese?

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