Is Donald Trump what America really wants?

Is Donald Trump what America really wants? Or needs, even? Are there so many people out there so pissed off they simply want to stand with him as he flings shit in the face of the establishment represented by our elected officials? Whatever the reason, I’ve lost track of that segment of our national fabric.

To be sure, Trump doesn’t lack entertainment value. Just watch any public appearance of his. It’s hard to look away. He bounces from one target to the next like a pinball, but with each collision he delivers a boatload of sarcasm, condescension, meanness, or a combination of all three. All designed to strike a bully’s blow for himself and maybe also for his supporters. Hit harder and faster. And yet, for those who support him, he expresses love and proclaims that the love is reciprocated. “I love him.” “He loves me.”

So let’s take a step away from the immediate mayhem of the current primary season, such as it is, and consider a few points.

Although mainstream Republicans are currently sounding the Chicken Little “sky is falling” alarm if Trump is elected (gasp), I think they have no one to blame but themselves. If, as many pundits opine, Trump is building his support from voters disgruntled with the status quo inside the Washington D.C. belt line, they should look no further than their own mirrors for the culprits.

In the last eight years, gridlock between the parties in our nation’s capital has choked out almost all the air in the room. (I wonder, sometimes, how the Affordable Care Act ever saw the light of day.) One need look no further than the current brouhaha over the nomination of a judge to fill the Supreme Court position vacated by the death of Antonin Scalia. There’s no playing together going on in this playground, and there hasn’t been for a very long time. If one side of the aisle proposes it, the other side will dig in their heels before the ink on the proposal is dry. And I don’t blame just the Republicans. The Democrats have done as much damage. They just have the advantage of holding the White House where, with President Obama at the helm, they look more masterful and imposing.

Look at candidate Trump, the businessman — an astute, and ergo successful, business magnate? So he would have us think. He rattles off business deals he’s made, and deals he claims he wouldn’t have wanted any part of if he’d been paid to do so, with ease. I wonder, though, as he rails against corrupt politicians, if his supporters don’t see, or simply don’t care about, the hypocrisy of his tirades. Isn’t this a classic example of the pot calling the kettle Donald? What mega millionaire can you think of who hasn’t gotten his or her hands dirty on the climb to the top of the corporate world? It’s nearly de rigueur that business is ripe with deals made behind closed doors, under tables, and in back alleys. If you buy the premise that candidate Trump is as successful as he claims, you have to at least acknowledge that there might be a corrupt moment or more in his past. If I were a betting person, I would wager my bank account on it.

While we are considering candidate Trump and his millions, of which he has used more than a few to self-fund his campaign as he repeatedly reminds us, remember that access to all that money goes away the day candidate Trump crosses the threshold into the Oval Office as President Trump. The money with which he justifies his arrogance, his meanness, and his condescension will — at least in theory — no longer be available for him to fling around. His minions will keep the Trump empire functioning, to be sure, but now President Trump will be unable to buy his way to whatever he sets his eyes on. Have we seen any evidence at all so far that he has skills beyond bullying to get things done? He claims to be a negotiator, and yet in the same breath he explains how he gets what he wants. It’s because, he proclaims proudly, he comes to the table as the elephant in the room. President Trump won’t have that luxury.

In his stump rambles (it seems disingenuous to call them speeches), candidate Trump never fails to mention that one of the reasons the self-funding of his campaign should be important to us is because he is not “owned” by the lobbyists or the media. And to a certain extent, I agree. There is far too much money used to buy influence in politics, ever since the Supreme Court upheld Citizens United v. FEC in 2010. But stopping at that point in evaluating Trump as a candidate is not completing the deal. While he may not be owned by lobbyists or the media, I sense he is owned and driven by qualities much more sinister: greed and arrogance. Help me think of an instance in what we know of candidate Trump where one of those two corruptions hasn’t been on display.

People are angry in the same way and with a similar intensity as that which character Howard Beale (played by Peter Finch) decried in the 1976 film, “Network.” They are mad as hell, and they aren’t going to take it anymore. I accept the premise, although I seldom run across it in my day-to-day life.

I’m beginning to get mad as hell myself, however. Can we as a nation seriously be so blinded by our anger, and so bowled over by the miscreant charisma of such a bully, that we are willing to risk the future of this country by putting it in Donald Trump’s hands, regardless of their size?

What will it take for us to rise above the anger? I’m sure I don’t know, but we need to open our eyes and look beyond the performer to the man. Donald Trump is not the person I want representing my country on the international stage. I would hang my head in shame.