In the scholarly book Decade of Nightmares: The End of the Sixties and the Making of Eighties America (Oxford University Press, 2006), Philip Jenkins details how conservatives capitalized on anti-60s rhetoric to advance candidates and issues in the Republican Party. Generally speaking, white folks tend to be over-represented in the emergent alliance in the Republican Party.
Now, we could think of the most prominent figures in the prestige culture in American culture as the brightest lights, the stars. In Ong's terminology, not all of the prominent figures in prestige culture in American culture are necessarily Greeks.
Or we could think of the most prominent figures in prestige culture in American culture as a kind of elite, at least compared to most of us Americans who are not among the ranks of the most prominent figures in the prestige culture.
But most of us Americans can in effect vote for certain Americans (who may be Greeks or barbarians) to be considered to be prominent enough to be in the prestige culture.
Because we Americans tend to group ourselves into political alliances involving the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, both Republicans and Democrats are among the contestants to be judged as prominent enough to be in the prestige culture. Naturally many of us Americans are not adjudged as prominent enough to be in the prestige culture. Figuratively speaking, we are in effect Ong's barbarians -- in effect, FDR's little guys -- in effect, Emily Dickinson's nobodies (versus the somebodies jockeying for prominence in the prestige culture).
So what might happen if enough of us Americans who are not yet adjudged to be prominent enough to be in the prestige culture rebelled against our fellow Americans who are already adjudged to be prominent enough to be in the prestige culture in American culture? Could our collective rebellion perhaps enable some of us to catapult ourselves into sufficient prominence in American culture that we could be adjudged stars in the prestige culture?
Thus far in the 2016 presidential primaries, the billionaire businessman Donald Trump of New York has been greeted by enthusiastic supporters in the Republican primary contests, just as Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont has in the Democratic primary contests. However, thus far, Trump has won more primaries than Sanders has. Thus far in the Democratic primaries, Hillary Rodham Clinton has won more convention delegates than Sanders has, even though she has not generated as much voter turnout as Trump has.
So if Hillary Clinton were to emerge as the Democratic Party's presidential candidate in 2016, and Donald Trump as the Republican Party's candidate, he might be able to generate more voter turnout in the 2016 presidential election -- and win the popular vote as well as the Electoral College vote.
Even so, Mitt Romney, the Republican Party's presidential candidate in 2012, delivered a heartfelt speech denouncing Trump's candidacy on Thursday, March 3, 2016. Good for Romney. No doubt Romney represents the economic libertarians in the Republican Party.
No doubt certain other economic libertarians in the Republican Party such as the Koch brothers are far wealthier than Romney is. So why haven't they funded oppo-research on Trump and taken him out? Do they think their lack of public opposition to the Trump bandwagon will pay off for them in terms of influence in the Trump administration?
Or do the fat cats in the Republican Party want to rely on the Democratic Party to undertake the oppo-research on Trump and take him down in the 2012 presidential election?
After all, if the Democratic candidate won the 2016 presidential election, the fat cats in the Republican Party would still be fat cats -- and they would not have publicly alienated any of the voters that Trump had brought into the Republican Party for the fat cats to influence as time goes on through their networks of think tanks. So a short-term loss of the White House might give them greater influence in the long-term. In light of the amount of money that the Koch brothers and other fat cats in the Republican Party have already invested in think tanks, they are clearly investing in the long-term.
I know, I know, it would be a gamble for them to stand back and allow the Democratic candidate to win the White House. But rich guys tend to be gamblers.
So in terms of voter turnout in the 2016 election, which Democratic candidate might turn out enough Democratic voters to defeat Trump?
Or has Trump's time come to be president of the United States?
Make no mistake about it, Trump plunged to unprecedented lows in the Republican debate on Fox News on Thursday night, March 3, 2016 -- most notably when he boasted about the size of his male accessory. My, oh my, look at what Fox News broadcast into American living rooms without a warning beforehand advising viewer discretion. What a spectacle the Republican primary contestants put on -- The LITTLE Marco and BIG Donald Show -- get it, Donald is BIG.
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