PERMITS
March 9, 2016
Anterina Guidry
March 9, 2016
I have seen men like this fellow Trump before. They believe that their word is law. They do not wish to be confused by facts. They are and shall always remain on the top of the heap, more likely because this is what they do, how they act, how they react.
When history gets written their stories are told, not because they are great, but because they are unavoidable. Like some types of well-spoken Gumps, they end up in the midst of history, often in spite of themselves, but more often because they are spiting someone else.
It’s great because I say it’s great, not good but great! Love it, love it! Whatever it is. And whatever it is, some superlative will make it seem better. Or if it’s something bad, then something shocking will make it seem that much badder. You’ve got the idea if you’ve been watching the Republican debates, or any of the many different spots on the television where Trump pops up again and again and again.
So Saturday, we all went to the polls and voted. I myself did not have an opportunity to vote for or against Trump, because I am not a member of the GOP.
But Louisiana went, as predicted, for Trump on the Republican side, and we shall see what happens.
A dear old friend of mine, Brandon Robichaux, who is from Chauvin, he voted for Trump. Brandon is a hard-working father of two, an electrician by trade, who grew up as the bayouest bayou boy you could ever imagine. He fishes and hunts and when he used to come home on break from LSU, where he studied music and played in the Tiger Band – a trumpet is what he played – the first thing out of his mouth was “I’m home. I gotta kill somethin’.”
I have never known him to be a very political person, even being from this place where politics is held up as an extreme sport.
But during this entire presidential campaign that has lasted so long and still has so much more to go, Brandon was posting and re-posting all things Trump on his Facebook page.
“I feel like he is part of the general population, he just happens to be a billionaire,” Brandon explains, when asked about the experience of casting a vote for Trump. This, he said, was the thought running through his head, along with how he believes Trump is going to fix things if elected. “We get all these deals under the table and it all runs downhill and we are the people at the bottom of the hill. Trump is a problem solver. I believe he will work his way through a problem and come up with a solution. They said the V-8 engine couldn’t be built but Henry Ford said it could be built. Trump does not have $10 million because he couldn’t solve problems.”
There are a lot of men in suits, and a few women too, who would rather not see Brandon and people like him decide to let Trump run the country. They sneer at the excitement he felt at the airplane hangar on the lakefront where he and a good friend, Ray Dearie, another electrician, went to go see the Trump in person. And it was a lot of excitement.
But these people, who would make the vote Brandon and Ray cast worthless by exerting their power and their manipulative abilities, the very things that have made problems, they sneer at the excitement. They sneer at Brandon and Ray feeling the thrill of being part of something bigger than themselves. And this is a shame, that these people would even think this way. They need to stop it. If Trump is to be stopped, it must be because the people who are told their voices count time and time again are the ones to do it. It must be because there are more of me that vote – the people who aren’t that crazy about Trump – and not because of some brokered convention deal.
The Brandons and the Rays of the world, they can accept a loss that’s a clean loss. But a win that guys in suits would steal, that’s another story. When the primary gavel comes down, it needs to be the people, not the suits, who have spoken. •
