Aw, Maa...

For a long time I advanced the theory that the Republican Party wasn't a real party, but a coalition of special interest groups. It included the money-bag bankers and CEOs, anti-abortion evangelicals, gun nuts and racists. The wealthy Republicans didn't give a damn about abortion, guns or race. The anti-abortion activists didn't give a damn about tax policy, guns or race. The gun nuts didn't give a damn about business, abortion or race. And the racists didn't give a damn about anything. Yes, there was some crossover between the groups (especially the last two), but each group didn't care what the other groups did as long as each one got their hot button pressed.

That would work as long as these interests didn't come into conflict. But after the Great Recession, the fault lines in the Republican Party really started to show. The Tea Party was formed in response to the pain that the recession caused average white middle-aged Americans (AWMAAs), who were now losing their jobs left and right.

The policies that big business advanced had finally caused average white middle-aged Americans a lot of pain. Big business had always wanted free trade and lax immigration policies so they could keep labor costs down. For decades, businesses have been moved jobs overseas, mainly to Asia, and many that stayed in the US relocated to the South, where antipathy to labor unions further depressed wages of AWMAAs.

At this point many people fear the Republican Party is about to self-destruct:

The strains on Republicanism are driven home by scenes like the 1,500 people who waited two hours in 10-degree weather on Tuesday night to see Mr. Trump campaign in Claremont, N.H. And the 700 who jammed the student center of an Iowa Christian college the same evening to hear Mr. Cruz. These crowds were full of lunch-bucket conservatives who expressed frustration with the Republican gentry.

“The Republican Party has never done anything for the working man like me, even though we’ve voted Republican for years,” said Leo Martin, a 62-year-old machinist from Newport, N.H., who attended Mr. Trump’s Claremont rally. “This election is the first in my life where we can change what it means to be a Republican.”

The economic problems AWMAAs face are the same ones that their ancestors faced back in 1890s, the Roaring Twenties and the Depression, which were caused by corporate robber barons, income inequality, and economic malfeasance by the banking world.

These problems precipitated the formation of labor unions in the first half of the 20th century and the creation of a national social safety net in Social Security and Medicare. These paved the way to one of the most prosperous times in history: America in 1950s and '60s.

But starting in the late 1970s a lot of those advances were turned back. Big business, helped by well-intentioned Democrats like Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, pushed the deregulation of various industries (trucking and airlines) and trade agreements (NAFTA), and Reagan waged all-out war on labor unions. AWMAAs started to lose their jobs to the Japanese, then the Mexicans, then the Chinese, then the Indians.

Some of these job losses were inevitable because of globalization. But American manufacturers took special glee in destroying unions and sending jobs overseas to cut costs. Businesses that couldn't export jobs looked to hiring foreigners who would accept lower wages, especially in the tech sector.

AWMAAs are now complaining that the Republican Party hasn't done anything for them. What they're really saying is that the Republican Party is an oligarchy run by CEOs, bankers and casino moguls who think the American public exists only to be milked for money.

Yet who do these angry AWMAAs think represents them? Donald Trump: a wealthy, money-grubbing casino mogul and real estate tycoon who got millions of dollars from his daddy. Exactly the kind of guy who caused their problems in the first place.

Wealthy elites like Trump and Ted Cruz (whose wife Heidi is one of the Wall Street bankers the Tea Party loves to hate) are pulling the same old tired bait and switch game wealthy fat cats always play. "Those rapists from Mexico and those terrorists from ISIS are the source of all your problems. Vote for me and I'll make you safe and get you a job."

Trump and Cruz are turning attention away from the real source of AWMAAs' problems -- rising income inequality -- and are goading AWMAAs into a jihad against immigrants. Trump is using poor immigrants as the scapegoats for the problems caused by wealthy elites like Trump. I'd use the Hitler/Jews analogy, but that's passe these days.

AWMAAs are mad because they feel they have no power and no say in the political process or in the economic discussion. Donald Trump, using his experience on reality TV, recognized this and is riling people up by mouthing their frustration.

Republicans always like to say that prosperity won't come from taking something from one person and give it to another. When they say this they usually mean taxing the rich won't help AWMAAs.

If that's the case, then taking jobs like picking strawberries and cleaning hotel rooms away from poor immigrants really won't help AWMAAs, who don't want those jobs in the first place.

Donald Trump is just a reality TV huckster. He doesn't represent anyone's interests but his own. Putting him in the White House will only exacerbate income inequality and make the lives of AWMAAs worse.

Because, once we kick out all the immigrants, who's going to pick the strawberries and clean the hotel rooms for slave wages?

Aw, maa... I don't want to clean that room.