BBC Newsnight: Emily Maitlis- Interviewing Kurt Anderson: 'On Donald Trump and Fantasyland'

Source: BBC News- Kurt Anderson, being interviewed by BBC News, in Washington.

Source:The New Democrat 

"When Donald Trump won the US presidential election in 2016, Kurt Anderson was halfway through a book that he would title Fantasyland. It put the birth of fake news and false claims into a wider historical context. Kurt Anderson argues America has long been a place where renegades and freaks came in search of freedom to create their own realities. Emily Maitlis spoke to him in Washington."

From BBC Newsnight

Donald Trump and Fantasyland? Donald Trump is Fantasyland! Donald Trump is the President of Fantasyland! The United Donald of Fantasyland is the country that he presides over where facts don't matter and even exist. "If Donald Trump says it, it must be true." According the citizens of Fantasyland which is a fairly big country. Roughly 60 million people give or take voted for Donald Trump for President in 2016. If there was an amusement park called Fantasyland, Donald Trump would run the place. Well, he would probably just own it and instead hire someone who knows what they're doing run the place for him instead.

About 46% of the vote, voted for Donald Trump for President. Not talking about Lebanon or some other country that might have an authoritarian government but is so small as well as poor that it doesn't represent much if any threat to even its neighbors, let alone people around the world.

Fantasyland is a country where everything that Donald Trump says especially about himself, of course is true. Because again we're talking about Fantasyland where everyday is a marijuana high. Where facts don't matter. If Donald Trump had to operate in the real world, take Planet Earth to use as an example, he would fail miserably because he would have to deal with truth all the time. Which is generally bad about him because lack basic human values: Like commonsense, maturity, character, decency, and unfortunately I could go on but I'll spare you.

Albert Einstein once said about the truth that: "whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters." Donald Trump is a man who can't even admit the simplest mistakes that he's made in life. Like falling asleep one night on his phone when he was in the middle of tweeting something around 2AM. Or claiming that he had the largest crowd size ever for a presidential inauguration with the National Park Service, that was only in charge of the event contradicting the President of the United States hours later.

Donald Trump simply a man because of lack of knowledge as well as honesty, who mentally doesn't operate in the real world. Says and sees things about himself and others that simply aren't there. In some cases he's simply lying, which of course is not uncommon with politicians, but in other cases he simply doesn't know any better.

When you lose touch with reality or simply deny it and Donald Trump who is only the President of the United States unfortunately qualifies on both scores, you can't be trusted. Because you're dishonest and irresponsible. Anyone who trusts a dishonest person is asking to be screwed by that person: "I'm an idiot because I trust you, do your worst to me." And the same goes with an irresponsible man who sees pigs flying in the air, three-million Americans voting illegally with absolutely no evidence to back that up.

I don't enjoy saying these things about the President of the United States and have never been this harsh about any President including President Richard Nixon. But to quote Khaled Hosseini: "better to get hurt by the truth, than comforted with a lie." The only way people can self-improve is to first know where they're at fault. The only way Donald Trump could ever become an even decent President is to operate in the real world. And stop making things up and seeing things that simply don't exist.

PBS: NewsHour- Paul Solomon Interviewing Charles Murray- 'Why Economic Anxiety is Driving Working Class Voters to Trumpism'

Source:PBS- AEI Scholar Charles Murray, being interviewed by PBS News's Paul Solomon, about Donald Trump and working class voters.

Source:The New Democrat

"Economic anxiety has taken center stage in this year’s election, driving many angry voters to rally  behind Donald Trump. According to conservative Charles Murray, this anxiety can be traced back to deep-seated feelings of marginalization among working class families, exacerbated by the perceived disconnect between themselves and the political elite. Economics correspondent Paul Solman reports."

From PBS NewsHour

The American middle class and you could go down half of a class and look at the working class in America who tend to be blue-collar and perhaps just have a high school diploma and perhaps some college and are people who probably make somewhere around 30-60 thousand-dollars a year and would be the lower middle class in America as far as income. These people have seen an economic decline in America who think the rich have been screwing them and sending their jobs oversees. And the poor get to live off of taxpayers for free.

So they've seen the rich get richer and the poor getting more free taxpayer funded benefits. And they're thinking how about them and whose going to look out for them and empower them to do better in America. And here comes this rich guy someone who is perhaps even a billionaire in Donald Trump saying he's their champion and fighter. Talks about bad trade deals and tells them immigration is costing them their good jobs. Someone who labels Mexicans as rapists and criminals and Muslims as supporters of terrorism.

As I said in my piece Sunday about Donald Trump, Trump voters 30-40 years ago would have been called Reagan Democrats and are now Trump Republicans. Southern and Midwestern blue-collar Republicans who tend to Anglo-Saxon and Protestant  and have other European backgrounds and are also male. The so-called angry white-males that voted heavily against Bill Clinton and other Democrats in the 1990s. Donald Trump has as much in common with working class voters as the Christian-Right has in common with Communists.

But one thing that the The Donald has been successful and good at in his career has been as a salesman. The man could sell water to fish if given the opportunity and I and many other people would say he's a great con-man in the amount of success he's had at coming on fifty-years in business.

And The Donald loves power and what's more powerful than the President of the United States. And decides he'll try to convince millions of Caucasian working class voters in America who perhaps have never heard of Donald Trump before he ran for president that he's one of them. And so far he's had great success with this voting block.

Al Jazeera: US Election 2016- Donald Trump: Woos Working-Class Caucasians

Source:Al Jazeera- take on the 2016 American presidential election.

Source:The New Democrat 

"Hillary Clinton is maintaining her lead over Donald Trump, with one new poll showing her seven points ahead.
But one area where Trump is holding his own is among white people, particularly men, who don't have a university degree.
Al Jazeera's John Hendren reports on a group that has become the core of Trump’s support."

From Al Jazeera

Source:Democracy Journal- American working class voters for Donald Trump.

When you think of the Republican Party generally you think of country club Republicans, people who tend to be very conservative when it comes to economic policy and believing in low taxes and low regulations, but tend to be moderate to tolerant on social issues, perhaps even neutral. And then there's another faction of Republicans the Christian-Right. Anglo-Saxon Southern working class Protestants, who looks at politics especially social issues from their very conservative if not theocratic religious values.

And there's their still solid, but no longer dominant conservative-libertarian base that came to power in the GOP thanks to Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan and others. But there's another base in the GOP that use to be a solid part of the Democratic Party. The so-called Reagan Democrats that first voted overwhelmingly for Richard Nixon in 1968 and 72 and then later Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 84. European ethnic Catholics people of Eastern European, as well as Irish background, who tend to be Midwest and working class.

Reagan Democrats are now Trump Republicans. People who tend to be blue-collar, Catholics, as well as Protestants, who tend to have Anglo, as well as Irish and Slavic backgrounds. Who come from working class areas of the Southeast and Midwest, who are very conservative, but in a traditionalist and nationalistic and religious sense. (Not so much political) who came of age when their people (so to speak) were in charge in America. Where only needed a high school diploma earn a middle-income and live well. Where women weren't expected to work. Where you stood out if you didn't go to church every week.

People who hang out at sports bars, bowling allies, drink beer and not wine. Who now live in a country where they're becoming a minority if not are already there. And are seeing their wages and economic security decline in an era where education is the key to being successful in America. Not just a high school diploma and a little college perhaps at a community college, but a college degree and then re-training later in life in order to be successful.

It's not just Trump Republicans, working class religious conservative Caucasians who've been left behind in the New America. But they're the voters that Donald Trump represents. Whose been running on this theory that if he can dominate the Caucasian working class in America in the votes, he'll win the presidency without having to appeal to anyone else. The polling and numbers don't show that when you look at the fact that Donald Trump's base is somewhere around 35-42% depending on the polls.

But that is what he believes he needs and all he needs to be the next President of the United States. Essentially blue-collar Tea Party Republicans, who oppose free trade, immigration, internationalism, integration and even equal rights. The so-called Alt-Right in the Republican Party that is now the new term for Far-Right Nationalists. Who again believe there America is disappearing and their America is the 1940s, (to be frank about it). When women and ethnic and racial minorities, were not prevalent in America.

Whatever you think of Donald Trump, he's not a dumb man. He even has political skills and real sense of politics and what he can do and how to appeal to his own base. Which is by speaking their game even though he represents nothing as far as what this community represents in lifestyle and everything else, other than a similar complexion. But he's getting away with it at least in the sense that he's never lost this lost place in America, because they've been losing and have been falling behind for decades now as the New America has become prevalent and we're now a very diverse country ethnically and racially and where higher education post-high school is the key to how well you'll do in this country economically.

The Lost America now wants that country back the country they grew up in, a country that overwhelmingly looks and thinks the way they do and they want their lifestyles back and those blue-collar jobs back that funded their lifestyles. And they see Donald Trump as their savior even as he goes down in a landslide to Hillary Clinton.