Trump, The Used Car Salesman or Why I Truly Lost Faith in My Fellow Americans

[retrowire]

In American pop culture, there is a trope, a character that we all know well.

The Used Car Salesman.

He's that character that dresses flashy, reeks of faux charisma and promises you that not only is he your best friend but he'll never let you down and you're the greatest most luckiest person alive for having crossed his path.

But the other thing about that character is that he's phony. If pop culture has taught us anything it's to never let your guard down around the used car salesman. Never believe a thing he says because, what the used car salesman is doing is playing a game of wits, and he's trying to rip you off.

The flashier and gaudier they are the more apparent it is. We, as TV loving, sitcom consuming, movie watching Americans know this. It's just engrained in us.

The devil himself is even dressed very well when it comes to TV tropes and such.

Months ago, during the primaries, I made this correlation before. And it was with this reasoning that I comforted people saying, "Trump could never win. He represents a character we were all raised to mock and never trust." I never ate my words so much as I let my jaw hit the floor. I felt anger and shame in people as a whole.

So why is it, that Trump, the gaudiest, greediest, suit wearingist, fake tan havingist man was trusted by this many? How did that many people overlook one of the golden lessons that entertainment has taught us?

A rich man in a suit will never be the best buddy to the middle class.

Why did they believe that?

A man who's had most everything given to him would never empathize with your losses.

How could they believe that?

I knew it before but this only solidified what I didn't want to accept.

I'm noticing quite a few of them truly were misled. They are the eponymous victims of the used car salesman. But hey, if the used car salesman's tactics didn't work, he wouldnt exist would he?

But then there's the most fervent supporters. The ones, despite all that's falling around them, still keep their bumper stickers and flags flying. Those that are still ardently demanding obedience from the rest of us.

The ones who not only didn't care but most certainly agreed with...

Grabbing women.
Mocking the disabled.
Beating dissidents.
Alternative Facts.
The xenophobia.
The racism.

Because for them, they WANT that beat up car that the used car salesman is selling them. They want that ugly vehicle to be what carries our nation. The naive? They thought it was something else but THESE supporters, they know what he's selling.

And they love a lemon.

They don't care what happens to the nation as a whole. They're damn certain their fascist ideals can make that hunk of junk run better than anything we've ever had.

And they believe that lie because of all the used car salesmen before Trump. But they're too stupid to learn from history and see what happened to the other used car salesmen of other nations past.

So in the end, there's a sucker for every used car salesman and some people truly believe the lie that they can make a lemon run where all others before have failed.

[cilla4progress]

1. Awesome post.

Also, they want to be used car salesmen, too!

[retrowire]

2. Totally agree with your addition.

And thank you. People confound me.

[cilla4progress]

3. Remember the musical The

Music Man?

Yes, as you say, common and longstanding trope here!

[gopiscrap]

4. I agree

[Martin Eden]

5. I lost most of my faith in the American voter when GW got a 2nd term

Not only is the rest of it gone now, it's deep in the red and will take a lot of filling to get back to zero.

[Jarqui]

6. I do not agree with this.

Unfortunately, to see my point of view would require looking at a mirror and on this site, we're limited on what we can say when we look in that mirror at the Democratic party and it's candidates.

In my opinion, the perceived flaws in our own candidate (that we are not allowed to talk about here) kept the race closer than it otherwise should have been. Along come the Russians and Comey (and arguably maybe other factors) to flip the result in a race that was closer than it should have been.

[retrowire]

7. I'm pretty sure you agree with this annnd feel that way as well.

Otherwise you disagree that Trump fits the used car salesman trope and I just don't know why anyone would disagree with that notion, criticism of our candidates or not.

[Jarqui]

8. I don't have that much of a problem with the used car salesman trope

And I think many Americans saw him something like that.

But there were a lot of Americans who saw a lot of flaws in our candidate. Therefore, for a bunch, it was closer to a case of them having to hold their noses as they voted - no matter which candidate they went for. That's why it polled closer than it should have in my opinion. I'm not going to try to come up with something that offsets 'used car salesman' for our candidate because that is just going to lead to problems for me and/or a rules violation. I think for most Americans, it wasn't as simple as "do I allow this used car salesman to scam me or not?" - something else factored in and you'll just have to use your imagination to fill in the blanks.

[retrowire]

9. This Bernie supporter knows.

But this topic has nothing to do with how closely the opposing candidates polled and only how people had the wool pulled over their eyes by Trump. So let's not derail.

[Jarqui]

10. It's not derailing

If you've got a limited budget (ie a limited choice) and you're down to picking between two used car salesman (or two people whose integrity has been questioned), it becomes a matter of picking the lessor of two kinds of evils. That's kind of how it got close with the non-Trump salesperson ahead. Then the Russians and Comey (and whatever you'd like to add) put their thumb on the scale of the election and tipped it in used car salesman Trump's favor. That's how I see it.

This was not purely a case of America just picking what Trump had to sell. Against most candidates for President in the past, GOP or Dem, I doubt the majority Americans would trust what Trump was selling. But our candidate got pummeled in the untrustworthy category - some unfairly with Benghazi for example and a bunch of it self inflicted. Her numbers there were worse than Trump's. So that makes what she offered a tough sell for those on the fence too.

I think it's foolish to try to keep the two things separate. It was a choice of one or the other. If most Americans had more salespeople to chose from, on the basis of trust, they probably wouldn't have bought from either one of these two. You can't ignore that. I've been a loyal Democrat for 55 years and when Bernie lost, it took me weeks to gather the gumption to hold my nose. And that was driven more by my outrage that Trump could be president - not so much how trustworthy our candidate was.

[retrowire]

11. This is derailing.

I'm merely talking about the spectacle that is Trump and you want to expound upon the battle that was lost.

I have my own issues with all of that but my sword is laid down. Nothing to be done about that particular chapter anymore.

Bernie laid down is sword in that fight as well. I'm following him. No use in bringing up the notion of Hillary in a thread that never mentioned her.

That's derailing.

[Jarqui]

17. You said you "Lost Faith in My Fellow Americans"

because of their choice of used car salesman Trump.

We both agree it was a terrible choice.

If faced with buying a used car from Trump or not, I think most Americans would walk away as of Nov 8th. Even more now.

But the law of the land basically said that they had to lease a president to ride for the next four years because the prior model wasn't an option. If they leased a lemon, you cannot ignore the limited choices and the perceived condition of the other vehicle when they made that decision. It was a significant factor. So my fellow Americans have some sympathy from me that the process did not deliver better candidates for them to choose from. That contributed to them making the decision they did (if the Russians or GOP didn't hack some of the votes - which I continue to suspect ...).

[lunamagica]

12. Close race? She received three million+ more votes than he did

Second only to Obama's first election.

You call that close?

I'm sure she had the EC too if it wasn't for the fraud and shenanigans that are becoming more clear with each passing day.

There is NO WAY. that each and every poll was wrong.

[Jarqui]

19. Well ...

2008 Obama won the popular vote by 7.2%
2012 Obama won the popular vote by 3.9%

2016 Clinton won the popular vote by 2.1%

That was the 41st lowest margin of popular vote victory in 49 US elections for president that had those numbers. There's no two ways about it - it was statistically fairly close.

When you get that low in margin, and you have an electoral college system, you have no guarantee. Five presidential elections have been won while losing the popular vote. Unfortunately for us Dems, two happened recently and delivered two pretty bad presidents in Bush & Trump.

[Vermijelli]

13. Trump is the real 'piece of shit used car salesman' n/t

[lunamagica]

14. Great post. Thank you

[BSdetect]

15. Liar in chief - no "legal" charitable donations or much of any

Rips off suppliers and contractors and individual workers

[JTFrog]

16. Well if anyone ever deserved the title of Piece of Shit Used Car Salesman it's the Orange Turd.

Unlike the assholes that used that term here to describe President Obama. I'll never forgive that fucking shit.

[Initech]

18. Hell, a favorite movie among the fundies is about used car salesmen.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0425027/

I shit you not - this is for real!

[elmac]

20. Morally, the US has been going downhill since the 80's

The moral majority movement destroyed religion and replaced it with a money laundering cult to get fascists elected. The worship of money and power in this and other countries like russia has destroyed the the very fabric of our societies, promotes poverty and widens the gap between the have and have nots. It also puts too much power into the hands of too few people. Democracy is dead.