September 21, 2015--Donald TRUMP's Prosperity Politics

You could have fooled me.

After last Wednesday's GOP debate I thought Donald TRUMP's numbers would either tank or at best stall out, and as a result I would be able to stop typing his name in capital letters.

But it appears that TRUMP continues to confound all conventional explanations. He can continue to talk about Carly Fiorina's face and imply that Barack Obama is a non-American Muslim and seemingly get away with it. Actually, thrive as he gets more and more outrageous.

Struggling to figure out what's going on, pundits keep getting it wrong.

The best explanation anyone seems able to come up with is that it's because he is the first candidate who comes more from the entertainment than from the government or business world and thus is better known and, in his own complicated way, better liked and more fun than all the other candidates combined.

Some claim it could also be that voters are so totally turned off by politics and politicians that even someone as gross as TRUMP is attractive as an alternative. In his case apparently grosser is better.

Perhaps, his supporters are saying, it's time to throw all the bums out and open a TRUMP casino in the White House.

To underline this latter point, the debate last week was called "Round 2" by CNN; and our niece, who is staying with us, not so under her breath suggested they should have hired ring-announcer Michael Buffer and had him intone, "Let's get ready to RUUUUMMMBLE!" as TRUMP led his smaller-than-life opponents onto the stage at the library of another showbiz politician, Ronald Reagan.

I myself like the TRUMP White House Hotel & Casino explanation because I am thinking that to his fervent followers he is more like a mega-church TV evangelist than just a big city deal maker.

That is he is a certain kind of preacher in the tradition of the Reverend Ike, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, and Joel Osteen.

Self-appointed ministers who preach the Prosperity Gospel.

Prosperity Theology is a religious doctrine that asserts financial well-being is the result of the will of God and that faith and donations to Christian ministries (especially those of the Bakkers and Osteens) will contribute to an increase in both parishioners' wealth and the likelihood that they will be Saved.

That these contributions also make preachers wealthy is just more evidence of God's will and how He will provide for those of faith. So, we see the Reverend Ike tooling around flauntingly in a fleet of Rolls Royces (see below) and Osteen and his wife Victoria going to the supermarket in Houston in twin sports cars.

TRUMP is a secular version of this.

Unlike Mitt Romney and other politicians who do not talk about much less flaunt their wealth, TRUMP, like the Osteens, lets it all hang out. As with them this is evidence that he has been chosen. As will be his followers. Thus, thrice-married TRUMP is in the lead in heavily-evangelical, socially-conservative Iowa.

TRUMP even aggrandizes his net worth. Forbes says he is worth perhaps $2.0 billion. He boasts it is closer to $10 billion. And like the prosperity gospel preachers, he explicitly promises that if voters follow him he will help them get rich.

"I will make America so rich we won't have to talk about the minimum wage."

Osteen fills 16,800-seat Lakewood Church every Sunday; TRUMP draws rockstar attention as he did in Iowa last weekend at a massive tailgate party before the Iowa-Iowa State football game even though, according to the New York Times, he spoke to the crowd for less than one minute.

There's a message in this as well--descend from the sky in your private jet, don't say too much (especially policy specifics), and leave them wanting more.

Which they will get by later today.