Watching Trump’s performance yesterday I was struck with how he bore such a striking similarity to another Queens native, Archie Bunker.
No one represented the silent majority of fading white male patriarchy than that other sexist, racist, xenophobic from Queens, N.Y. Resentful, Archie was fed up with intellectuals, women libbers, bleeding heart liberals, affirmative action, outsourced jobs, and other elites intent on messing up a way of life that was working pretty well.
By the early 1970’s The “American Way of Life” had shattered into a bewildering array of lifestyles. Some felt American values and the nuclear family, the very bedrock of our society, were under attack. Mom and Dad were divorced, the factory where Dad worked had moved to Taiwan, Sis was a corporate vice president, and Junior was out of the closet and gay.
Born-again Christians wanted to restore the nation’s moral compass along more fundamentalist lines.
Feminists reveled in the power of sisterhood, gays liberated themselves from the closet, and Blacks were demanding affirmative action. While the forgotten began to have a voice, many in the so-called silent majority felt ignored.
Middle Americans felt put out, overlooked, and felt they needed to stand up and reclaim the values that once made the country great again.
Sound familiar?
“I’m white, I’m male, I’m protestant,” Archie Bunker once declared. “Where’s there a law to protect me?”
Forget the song YMCA. Trump’s theme song should be the one from All in the Family.
Those Were the Days. You know, when girls were girls and men were men.
Our society has moved on. Donald Trump has not.