Chad PeaceIt’s hard to square the apparent two obvious inconsistencies between the open opposition to Trump from Republican Party operatives, and the Donald’s ability to bring a new enthusiasm to the Republican Party not seen since Ronald Reagan.
That is until we consider the reality that the Republican Party is, in fact, a private and publicly traded corporation. And the only difference between the Republican Party and McDonald’s – in terms of its corporate governance – is that its members are not stockholders, but any voter who chooses to join the party.
In short, every American is a stakeholder – whether they choose to exercise their right to vote on Republican Party affairs depends on their willingness to identify as a member of that corporation.
Fact is, fewer and fewer voters are willing to join either the Republican or Democratic Party.
Trump has experience buying shares in a company to takeover its corporate governance. But in his most ambitious corporate pursuit ever, he is executing a hostile takeover that requires winning over the hearts and minds of Republican stakeholders who are sick and tired of their own corporate governance.
Just think about the massive public relations machines that companies like Apple, Google, Koch, AT&T, and other multi-billion dollar organizations have. These machines exist to protect the company, its image, and at the end of the day – the decisions being made by its corporate leadership.
This is how the American enterprise works. Shareholders put their money into companies when they have confidence in the company’s leaders to produce monetary gains.
So why do voters give their loyalty to a political party? Simple – to produce political gains.
The problem with the current Republican corporate governance is in the way they measure their gains. Namely, by the number of seats they occupy in the government.
But the frustration that Trump (and Bernie Sanders for that matter) has tapped into is a genuine belief among many Americans that political gains should not be measured by how many seats a political party fills, but by how that political party uses those seats to improve their government – and, in turn, their lives.
And by that measure, the Republican and Democratic parties are doing a terrible job. Sad thing is, they are doing such a bad job that I don’t have to augment this assertion – it's just a fact to the average American.
But, if you listened to the mainstream media and their “expert analysts” who are almost universally employed, and therefore wedded to the public relations infrastructure that has been built over the years by our two most powerful political corporations, you’d think the voters are crazy for participating in a hostile takeover of the Republican Party. But in America, unfortunately, the only meaningful vehicle they can ride on the road to producing a government that measures its strength by how well it serves its stakeholders -- American citizens -- is through one of the two most powerful and private corporations in the world.
Maybe the two parties need to refocus their efforts on winning voters instead of winning seats. This could start by viewing more inclusive election reforms like open primaries as opportunities instead of obstacles.
And maybe, just maybe, the two major political parties will win back some popularity by forcing their governing members to be accountable to more people. Otherwise, America is destined to witness a hostile takeover of a greater magnitude.
And if you thought Donald Trump was scary, who knows where a hostile takeover of the entire system would end.
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