Much has been made that the commentator was Latino, the head of (possibly the only member of ) Latinos For Trump. Whatever his ethnic background, whatever his reasons for making the comment, the thing I want to point out is that he is a REPUBLICAN. And his statement basically pissed on one hundred and fifty years of Republican party theology.
If you remember your high school American history class, you will recall that the major reason for the founding of the Republican party was as an anti-slavery party. But it's secondary philosophical underpinning was as a party of business, in particular the party of the railroads who sought to transport American products from sea to shining sea. With a bloody civil war, a new amendment to the constitution, and the martyrdom of the greatest American to ever live behind them, the primacy of slavery was overtaken by that secondary business notion. Since then the Republican party has taken the stand that "the business of America is business" and have strongly advocated that government should not get in the way of business. Even when proven again and again that government needs to step in and tame some of the baser instincts of business (several depressions including a great one, air quality, water quality, child labor, the list goes on and on) Republican candidates have stood by the notion that the self made man, the boot-strapper, the guy who's willing to work hard and long is the exemplar of being an American and his name is Businessman.
So what is a taco truck? It's a small business built by hard working people who labor from sunup to sundown to legally and ethically make a living by the sweat of their brow and the flavor of their carnitas. They don't want a government hand out, they don't ask for anything other than the opportunity to satisfy the hunger of their customers. And if you ever happen to be in the same neighborhood as El Molino's truck, well then you will thank your lucky stars and gratefully accept the plate handed down as if from the heavens. A taco truck could one day become a taco shop, then a restaurant, then a chain of restaurants. It's the American Dream writ large with a side of guacamole and an Agua Fresca.
Aren't these the people the Republican Party has always claimed to be the champions of? Aren't they the ones the Congressional Republican Caucus trots out to prove how onerous government regulation of business is? Aren't they the exact people the Republican party wants all Americans to be?
They would be if it weren't for that inconvenient truth about their accents and their skin tones.
The very notion that any Republican candidate would disparage any business would have been thought preposterous even just four years ago. The idea that their current candidate puts himself forth as the right man for the presidency because of his achievements in business and then has one of his flunkies malign a business takes the issue into the realm of the absurd. I have never agreed with Republicans on any economic issue, even when I was the white male business owner they were trying to get support from, but I understood their economic philosophy and could at least see how some people could agree with it. Trump doesn't even make a pretext of being concerned with small business. For that matter he doesn't seem to have a handle on what big business wants. What the Trump version of the Republican party stands for is the fear mongering of second rate demigods. "They" are the reason for your economic travails. If it weren't for "them" being industrious and wanting a better life then you would have the life you dream of. "They" are the reason you are a lazy slob who has no interest in making a better life for himself as long as the beer is cheap and the game is on the tube. Vote for Trump and your life will be everything you dream of!
Republican championing of the small business man is, was, and will always be just a sham, a pretext to get what they are really after, unfettered deregulation of big business. Republicans claim to love business, but unless it's big and capable of funding nine or ten tables at the latest Elephant dinner dance they really could care less. The version of the Republican party that Donald Trump fronts now adds to this a sickening veneer of bigotry and hate. The small guy, the start-up, the taco truck who takes a couple of bucks away from McDon King Jr Corp? Crush them. Destroy them. They are the evil preventing harmony in the world. A world of sunshine and butterflies, where white, straight, Christian, men rule over all they can see.
And where there is a Chipotle on every corner.
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| Bag, Douche |
