Rock & roll (R&R) exploded onto the music scene in the 50s and ignited a cultural revolution. New sounds with irresistible rhythms swept teenagers up in a whirlwind of passion. But parents of those excited teens weren’t so enamored with the new hip. In fact, they went from parental coaxing, to stern warnings, to banning the music altogether. But Rock & Roll was here to stay.
Prior to Elvis, kids sorta, kinda listened to their parents.The rules were familiar, standard across generations, don’t drink, smoke, do drugs, or have sex. In those days, adults ruled absolute, or so they believed. Of course, once out of sight, the teens waited a whole nanosecond before they lit up, chugged a bottle of Thunderbird, or got hot and heavy in lover’s lane. But their sins were on the sly, out of sight and out of reach.
Enter R&R and a generation of wild, erratic fans. Parents began to feel edged out, their authority threatened. At first, adults avoided direct confrontation. Revolution was in the air and they didn’t want to encourage that kind of seditious backlash. So they dropped a comment here, tossed out a criticism there and hoped the fad would fade.
The deal-breaker arrived in the form of a steamy, seductive rock star named Elvis Presley. Elvis brought his own style to the stage, electric performances filled with passion, energy, and, oh yeah, sex. No way a decent parent was going to let this guy with undulating hips, full lips, and an eye on their daughters into their happy homes.
Adults coalesced around a plan to stop the new R&R icon. Elvis was mocked, christened "Elvis the Pelvis”. Some radio stations banned his music. The press did their part, the Daily News writing, “He (Elvis) gave an exhibition that was suggestive and vulgar, tinged with the kind of animalism that should be confined to dives and bordellos.” It was an uneven fight, the whole established adult class vs. one guy. It was the Indians riding down on Custer, Santa Anna storming the Alamo.
Sound familiar? Donald Trump erupted onto the political scene with the same intensity as Elvis. Though he doesn’t rock his hips like Elvis, his candor violently shakes up the political establishment. He doesn’t bang and swipe the keyboard like Jerry Lee Lewis yet rattles Washington insiders until their eyes roll back in their heads.
The political insiders, media, and big-money types are frantic over the people’s infatuation with Trump. They try to explain to us,( the ‘kids’), that we’re just rebelling against the party, caught up in the latest fad, or blindly following our peers off the cliff. But their lectures fall on deaf ears.
The power-brokers are dumbfounded at their newfound irrelevance. Sure, they’ve had dust-ups with voters before but they always managed to get the situation under control. Case in point, 2012 primaries, when they laid down the law that Mitt Romney would be the nominee. But voters didn’t want Romney; it was like an arranged marriage with
Leave It to Beaver’s Eddie Haskell. We fought, offered alternatives but the writing was on the wall, Romney had the parent’s blessing and there would be no argument.
Moving on to the 2016 presidential primaries, political leaders again present their pick, Jeb Bush. Now Jeb makes Eddie Haskell look like a Hell's Angel biker. There’s no world in which the base can get excited over another Bush, much less Jeb.
Then a new sound hit the airways. Like Elvis, Donald Trump brings his own style to the stage, an energetic, in-your-face, New York style that drowns out the classic pop tunes of the day. Our self-appointed political parents bristle at the intruder, will not allow a Trump nomination.
Like censorship with Elvis, the political class worked to ban Trump from the race with new laws, loyalty oaths. Didn’t work, Trump signed it. So they joined with media to recruit hit men and women for debates, turned the three-hour affair into a dog fight. Trump again comes out on top.
So the politicos call in their muscle, the media. Today’s mainstream media is what Luca Brasi was to Vito Corleone, the mob’s go-to hitman. The Godfather might have determined who needed to disappear but it was Brasi who took care of business.
So the media goes to work. They’ve had no luck hitting Trump on what he says so they attack for what he doesn’t say. Every network, newspaper, and GOPe flunky rails about Trump’s huge error, fatal mis-step, etc. The crime? Trump didn’t defend the President.
But here’s where this stuff makes me dizzy. Back when the media tried to peel Trump off Bush’s decomposing carcass, they told Trump he should be attacking Obama, not fellow Republicans. Then they go psycho-nuts because Trump didn’t defend Obama. Round and round we go.
Anyway, the entire media consortium piled on Trump for the non-comment. Anderson Cooper of CNN had an embarrassing meltdown that rivaled Howard Beale on the horrors of not defending Obama. Chris Matthews of MSNBC joyfully exclaimed, “We nailed Trump!” after blanket coverage of what wasn’t said.
But as the players climbed off the pile of sweaty bodies, when Anderson Cooper, Chris Matthews, Megyn Kelly, and the rest stepped away, they found an unscathed, unrepentant Trump, full of energy and eager to get back in the game.
Desperate, the media doubles down, unloads rapid-fire on Trump to bring him down, ‘Carly’s surging’, ‘Trump’s fading’ ‘Rubio jumps in polls’ ‘Trump losing support’ ‘Polls Bad News for Trump’, etc. The networks line up rabid anti-Trump guests over and over to trash Trump, experts to explain Trump can never win, why he is losing ground.
Yet the voters stick with Trump though it all. Because, beneath all the chaos, the political/media class of today has one thing in common with those parents back in the '50s - they just don’t get it. They don’t understand or simply can’t admit that It’s not about them. This time, it’s about us.
We’re not picking a candidate to get back at Washington. We’re not ignoring the media out of spite or revenge, and we’re not using Trump as a proxy to teach the political king-makers a lesson. In fact, we’re trying very hard to ignore Washington and their media.
We like Trump, plain and simple. We like his fight, his call to action, his charisma. We like the fact that he’s in our world, not theirs, saying what we think and promising to fix what we know is broken. We like that he calls out the phony bought-and-paid-for politicians and that he doesn’t back down from a fight. We’re thrilled that he has over 4 million Twitter followers, that he works seamlessly with Jimmy Fallon, manages to have fun in an otherwise dystopian political world.
We love Trump’s new sound and, like rock & roll, he’s here to stay. We dance to the beat, soar in our new-found independence, and rise to his passion and energy. Finally, a Republican candidate we can get excited about. No, Trump isn’t going away just because Mom and Dad say so.
But hey, gotta' run. Here for the big rally and just heard the overhead announcement that brings ecstasy to fans and strikes terror in the hearts of former king-makers:
Trump is in the building.
