The Onion's Co-Founder Scott Dikkers Thinks Trump Will Take The White House
Long before Donald Trump clinched the Republican nomination, The Onion co-founder and comedy writer Scott Dikkers penned a guide to living in a country governed by America's first orange president. Of course, now that we're only a few weeks away from the Republican convention, Trump's America: The Complete Loser's Guide is all the more prescient. We sat down with Dikkers to discuss Trump's meteoric rise, his chances in the general election, and the state of satirical news today.
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Are you surprised by his success? No, I knew it all along. That's why i did the book. There was just never any question to me that he was at least going to get the nomination, and I frankly think he's going to beat Hillary Clinton if she's the nominee. I think he's going all the way.
Why do you think he's going to beat Hillary? Because he's a winner [laughs]. By that, I mean his self-identity as a winner runs so deep in his psyche that he will stop at nothing. You saw how surgical and effective he was at eliminating his other competitors, just slapping them down anytime they even got close to him during the fight for the Republican nomination. He's not going to do anything different with Hillary. She represents the establishment. This is his moment and I think this is really gonna happen.
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But how can Trump win a general election when he, say, tweets a photo of himself eating a taco bowl on Cinco de Mayo with the tagline, "I love Hispanics"? I think the punditry, and I guess I would count myself in that classthe intellectual class of people who follow the news and comment on these things and are sometimes shocked and outraged by the crazy things that Donald Trump doeswe are in such a tiny, tiny minority. This is Trumps brilliance, he understands this. Most people do not follow the news, they dont care what the news says, they dont believe a lot of whats in the news, they have extremely short attention spans, and I dont want to put too fine a point on it, they are incredibly stupid. Theyre the great unwashed.
And thats his fan base. Thats his fuel, thats where hes deriving his power. He turned out a lot of themRepublican participation in the primary elections is way up. Because hes brought a lot of people out of the woodwork. And I think hes going to continue to do that. I dont think he needs traditional coalitions or any of that other stuff. I think hes going to do such an effective job of slapping Hillary down and competing against her that hes going to bluntyou know, her support isnt that enthusiastic as it is. Shes very much just another establishment Democrat, thats what we always get. Theres not a lot of Hillary fervor.
So hes going to take full advantage of that leverage and hes going to slap her down, and hes going to use all his wiles and all his charms hes already used to go from being a fringe clown to being the Republican nominee and getting well over a good percent of the Republican vote in his recent states, to squeak one out.
http://gothamist.com/2016/05/16/the_onions_co-founder_scott_dikkers.php
TexasMommaWithAHat
(3,212 posts)As it is, his chances of winning are already slim to none, imo.
monmouth4
(9,776 posts)bemildred
(90,061 posts)That doesn't matter, what matters is whether they purport to address long-standing grievances. The hoi-polloi don't give a rats ass about theory, they believe whatever they think will address what they are pissed about. And they are always pissed off.
Baobab
(4,667 posts)We could end up in a war with Clinton, who will also trade away our jobs for corporate interests- and use trade deals to make healthcare and education private and unaffordable for good.
or a nightmare of nationalism and xenophobia with Trump?
With either one we will probably lose the minimum wage, Hillary will just swing it so the WTO ends up being the "bad guys".
Which is "better" ?