home <u+00bb> dear foreign friends, here<u+2019>s why trump won (from a clevelander) dear foreign friends, here<u+2019>s why trump won (from a clevelander) andrew korybko 




hi everybody. as you may know, i<u+2019>m an american who was born and raised in cleveland, ohio, although i made a life decision four years ago to permanently leave the us and move to the russian federation. if you<u+2019>re interested in my specific background and what motivated me to take that step, i suggest that you check out the interview that i gave to serbian-american journalist stephen karganovic about this last spring when i visited him in belgrade. 




i<u+2019>m addressing you all directly in a form which i never use in my articles, and that<u+2019>s the first-person. i know that so many of you guys are confused and struggling to understand why trump won, and i totally understand what you<u+2019>re feeling because it<u+2019>s very difficult for any foreigner to truly comprehend what just happened in the us. the best way for me to convey this to you all is to talk on a personal level in the hopes that my delivery will get through to you. i<u+2019>m not expecting anyone to agree with the points that i make, but just to understand what motivated trump supporters to get out to the polls and shake up the establishment. 




although i don<u+2019>t live in the us anymore, i was born and raised in one of the most quintessential representations of what constitutes modern-day <u+201c>average america<u+201d>, and that<u+2019>s cleveland, ohio. despite being nearly halfway across the world, i never lost touch with where i came from and will always remember the formative experiences which shaped my worldview. i still stay in contact with my american family and several close friends so i remain up to date on what<u+2019>s going on <u+201c>back home<u+201d>, and as they say, <u+201c>you can take someone out of their homeland, but you can<u+2019>t take the homeland out of the person<u+201d>. 




for better or for worse, i<u+2019>ll always embody certain <u+201c>american<u+201d> characteristics forged from my upbringing in cleveland, and given that these idiosyncrasies are now representative of the prevailing political zeitgeist in the us as evidenced by trump<u+2019>s triumph, i want to share some of them with you all in the hopes that everyone can get a better grasp on the fundamental changes that are taking place in the us today. a man who i call <u+201c>uncle vinny<u+201d> once inspiringly advised me when i was younger that <u+201c>the difference between genius and crazy is in getting others to understand you<u+201d>, so with that wisdom in mind, here<u+2019>s the best that i can do in trying to help all my foreign friends understand the mentality of the typical trump supporter. 




so many toxic individuals said that i and tens of millions of other people were <u+201c>racists<u+201d>, <u+201c>fascists<u+201d>, and <u+201c>white supremacists<u+201d> just because we<u+2019>ve been publicly sharing our observations over the past year and a half that trump<u+2019>s rhetoric and platform represent the desires of many americans, but we held our ground and doubled down because we knew that we were right and that the american people would ultimately choose donald j. trump to be the next president of the united states. 




this is why <u+201c>outsiders<u+201d> such as myself and everyone else who rallied behind trump are so valuable to the larger conversations taking place because we consistently break through the narrow-minded groupthink of the establishment and express what<u+2019>s really going on, <u+201c>political correctness<u+201d> be damned. no foreigner can ever fully understand what happened yesterday, not even if they lived in the us for years unless they experienced what the middle class (not the academic-governmental-business class) experienced for their entire lives. 




michael moore, who<u+2019>s also a native of the <u+201c>rust belt<u+201d> like myself and understands the mentality of the millions of americans who revolted against the establishment and historically broke through hillary<u+2019>s midwest <u+201c>firewall<u+201d>, conveyed the reason why voters in this dilapidated and socio-economically <u+201c>backward/forgotten<u+201d> corner of the us would flock towards trump in an address which was ironically supposed to be against the future president-elect. trump supporters, however, decided to turn the most relevant and motivational part of moore<u+2019>s speech into a youtube video filled with dramatic images and music, and i strongly suggest that everyone take five minutes out of their day to listen to what he had to say. 




when you live a life surrounded by drugs, poverty, crime, potholes, and hopelessness, the only thing that you feel that you have going for you are the sexual, alcoholic, and musical distractions that the establishment shoves down everyone<u+2019>s throat each and every day in order to placate the masses by <u+201c>making it all better<u+201d> just for a little bit of (<u+201c>fun<u+201d>) time. turn off the tv or go to sleep after the party, and the same problems that people sought to escape from are still there the very next morning and not a damned thing has tangibly changed for the better, except that some people have now found a socially acceptable <u+201c>go-to medicine<u+201d> for dealing with the repulsive reality that they feel they have to put up with each and every day for the rest of their lives. 




a lot of americans where i<u+2019>m from don<u+2019>t know what a <u+201c>real vacation<u+201d> is, in that they don<u+2019>t go globetrotting around the world like the europeans do on what they call their <u+201c>holidays<u+201d>. many midwesterners even have a hard time going from one part of the country to another just for fun because it<u+2019>s a huge financial burden for the average clevelander in our cheap and low-wage economy to gather up the funds necessary to jet set out to costly california just to take in some sunshine, for example. another thing that most foreigners don<u+2019>t realize is that people from my part of the country don<u+2019>t even have the vacation/holiday days like the rest of the world does. if you<u+2019>re working a low-wage service-sector job or are in a low-level office position, then you might never receive two back-to-back weeks of vacation in your life. if you get married, the best that you can dream for is a honeymoon to niagara falls for a week and that<u+2019>s it, just because it<u+2019>s conveniently nearby and not overly expensive. 




we grew up our whole lives hearing from the establishment and its media shills how <u+201c>great<u+201d> and <u+201c>powerful<u+201d> the us is, how it<u+2019>s the <u+201c>best country in the history of the world<u+201d>, yet all that we see around us is socio-economic devastation and we can<u+2019>t imagine how it could ever be any different. so many factories have closed up shop and moved to mexico, china, and countries that the average american in my part of the us never heard of or can even pronounce, and it<u+2019>s all because of the post-cold war globalization that started under bill clinton and nafta. but at the same time, however, we see that there are indeed some people around us who seem to be living a pretty good life but haven<u+2019>t had to do much to achieve it. 









you foreigners might be shocked to hear this, but a lot of clevelanders can<u+2019>t believe that <u+201c>refugees<u+201d>, some minorities, and illegal immigrants are able to live <u+2018>high off the hog<u+2019> as we say just because of the huge amounts of tax-payer-provided government assistance that they receive for not really doing a lot of anything other than being the <u+201c>politically correct<u+201d> category of people that they are. i don<u+2019>t expect people outside of the us to understand this, and even many americans who don<u+2019>t live in the <u+201c>rust belt<u+201d> (and even some who do) will probably find this to be inconceivable, but so many of these types of folks who i just mentioned <u+2013> and including a lot of whites, too <u+2013> abuse the <u+201c>benefits<u+201d> system just so that they can get the most amount of free stuff as they can for the absolute least amount of work and effort. 




in the <u+201c>politically correct<u+201d> dystopian society that the <u+201c>liberal-progressives<u+201d> and cultural marxists of the democratic party have strove to create for decades, the state will house, feed, and pay people just because of their race and class, and while this might have been <u+201c>originally intended<u+201d> to temporarily help those who fell on hard times and couldn<u+2019>t properly help themselves, it has been abused by so many people and turned into a slush fund for paying off loyal leftists who willingly choose to remain indefinitely dependent on the establishment. these people have made a conscious choice to <u+201c>settle for less<u+201d> than they could ever hope to achieve if they worked hard and stayed focused because <u+201c>the american dream<u+201d> is out of reach for many of them in this part of the country and they figured out how easy it is to scheme the system and have other americans subsidize the less-than-ideal lifestyles that they<u+2019>ve settled for. 




remember, i<u+2019>m not asking you guys to agree with any of what i<u+2019>ve written, but i<u+2019>m just telling you as a <u+201c>voice from the inside<u+201d> about why so many people in ohio and the <u+201c>rust belt<u+201d> support trump and are drawn to his promises to smash the establishment that they<u+2019>ve spent their whole lives seeing steal from them, neglect them, and unjustly help others who pledge their loyalty to the existing state of affairs. don<u+2019>t forget that it was people who think the way that i just described who decisively changed the course of american history on election day, and they take pride in being <u+201c>politically incorrect<u+201d> and rebelling against the system that they feel has held them down their entire lives. be it through the abovementioned examples of unfairness and injustice, or through the incessant attempts to dismantle their identity by suppressing and trashing their religious liberties and traditions, people in the <u+201c>rust belt<u+201d> have had enough. 




see, that<u+2019>s the thing that foreigners don<u+2019>t realize, and it<u+2019>s that americans in this part of the country feel that they<u+2019>re living under the boot of a tyrannical and totalitarian ideology which censors their dissent with <u+201c>racist<u+201d>, <u+201c>fascist<u+201d>, and <u+201c>white supremacist<u+201d> reputation-killing accusations and works 24/7/365 to brainwash them into thinking that they <u+2013> and not the system <u+2013> are the problem. imagine george orwell<u+2019>s 1984 and you<u+2019>ll have an idea about how a lot people view the ideology of <u+201c>political correctness<u+201d>. it is so pervasive, so controlling, that those who are suffering under it were bound to eventually revolt once the time was ripe. all of these anti-<u+201c>political correctness<u+201d> dissidents thought that they were alone and were the <u+201c>crazy outlier<u+201d> amongst their brainwashed compatriots, but then donald trump came along and gave them all the signal that this was the historic moment that they had been waiting their entire lives for to finally rebel against this totalitarian ideology. if there was no <u+201c>political correctness<u+201d>, then there would never have risen a donald trump to save the hard-working blue collar folks of the usa. 




the majority-blue collar inhabitants of the <u+201c>rust belt<u+201d> have been voiceless for decades and were seething with rage this whole time. they couldn<u+2019>t speak out against the majority-black crime that ravages their neighborhoods because otherwise they<u+2019>d be tarred and feathered as <u+201c>racists<u+201d>. they couldn<u+2019>t condemn globalization and the outsourcing of their livelihoods to mexico, china, and other countries or else they<u+2019>d be mercilessly attacked as <u+201c>fascists<u+201d>. god forbid these people ever spoke publicly about building a wall with mexico to stop the tens of millions of illegal immigrants and uncountable tons of deadly narcotics that have flooded the us since nafta, since then they<u+2019>d be called the ultimate insult and accused of being <u+201c>white supremacists<u+201d>. these people thought that they were largely alone with their feelings because the system did such an effective job of self-censoring them and thus separating them from the silent majority of likeminded americans, but then donald trump emerged on the scene and millions of people were finally united via his rallies and social-alternative medias to finally muster up the courage to collectively resist the establishment and its allied social-pop culture-academic-political elite<u+2019>s intimidation. 




when election day came, these dispossessed americans didn<u+2019>t back down and buy into the establishment<u+2019>s propaganda that hillary was going to trounce trump with an historic landslide but instead went to vote anyhow, knowing that this was the only hope left for them to ever possibly change their inescapably dismal life situations. 




the most intense psychological warfare operation ever conducted against americans was a complete failure. the establishment<u+2019>s war on the people sought to convince them that trump didn<u+2019>t stand a chance to win and that voting for him just showed how <u+201c>racist<u+201d>, <u+201c>fascist<u+201d>, and <u+201c>white supremacist<u+201d> you were. <u+201c>political correctness<u+201d>, globalization, and the unfettered illegal immigration and unvetted <u+201c>refugee<u+201d> resettlement of millions of people who staunchly refuse to assimilate and integrate into american society or even speak english is just a fact of life that these <u+201c>deplorable<u+201d> citizens will be forced to put up and deal with until they die (or are killed by some of the <u+201c>new arrivals<u+201d> who flocked into their hometowns). but the establishment and its social-pop culture-academic-political shills were wrong and trump supporters knew it because they had finally connected with one another and were convinced that they truly embodied the silent majority, and the frustration, hopelessness, and pain that comes every single day living in a <u+201c>politically correct<u+201d> system is what sent millions of americans into a rage against the system which was so widespread that it became impossible for hillary to steal the election. 




the war on the people was waged by americans, on americans, and against everything that the silent majority believes that america stands for, which is why it was totally unprecedented in american history. not even the divide-and-rule color revolution tactics that the establishment dangerously and irresponsibly relied on with the help of george soros and his <u+201c>black lives matter<u+201d> urban extremists could succeed in intimidating the trump movement and compelling them to stop, which testifies to the deep conviction that trump supporters have in their beliefs and the hope that they have that their candidate of choice will finally free them from the misery that has come to define their lives. 




dear foreign friends, forget everything that you may have ever thought about the us system, national ideology, and the american people <u+2013> from here on out, you and 99% of all other non-american observers begin at day 1 in working to understand the inner nuances of trump country and trump<u+2019>s america. my state of ohio had the highest honor of being the biggest upset to hillary clinton by 9%, something which has shocked the establishment. we, the people of ohio, are the heart of trumpland. he didn<u+2019>t win by a few percentage points like in every other swing state, but by almost double digits. this should be more than enough proof that everything that i, as a born-and-raised clevelander, am revealing to you about how and why trump won the <u+201c>rust belt<u+201d> and broke through hillary<u+2019>s firewall. where i<u+2019>m from, people don<u+2019>t just have 1 or 2 trump signs in their yard <u+2013> they have 5, 10, or 20 of them, especially if they live in the farmland right outside of the city. 




i<u+2019>m not expecting you to understand everything that i wrote, let alone to agree with it, but i felt obligated to do the best that i can to inform you all about why trump won and the reasons behind the <u+201c>rust belt<u+201d> revolt against the establishment which handed him the presidency. for all of what you might think are their personal and ideological faults, trump supporters feel validated by this election because it proved that the system and all of its shills were lying about hillary<u+2019>s <u+201c>imminent landslide<u+201d> this entire time. what had been derided for over a year and a half as the <u+201c>conspiratorial thinking<u+201d> of a <u+201c>vast right-wing conspiracy<u+201d> (one with phantasmal and invented links to the russian secret services) was exposed as a fact <u+2013> the establishment was indeed lying this entire time and desperately waged what amounts to the most intense psychological operation against americans ever conducted in history, and that<u+2019>s the war on the people. nobody can deny it any longer, the facts are the facts and all the <u+201c>official<u+201d> <u+201c>thinkers<u+201d>, pundits, and <u+201c>experts<u+201d> were wrong because they either deliberately refused to recognize the reality that was before their eyes or were complicit in siding with the system out of the self-interested expectation that they<u+2019>ll somehow end up benefiting from its perpetuation. 




tough times are ahead, and the nation is more divided and polarized than ever before, though this is largely due to the lingering psychological effects of the establishment<u+2019>s war on the people than anything else. the second american revolution was indeed a victory of the american people over the establishment, but it<u+2019>s now under threat from the clintonian counter-revolution that<u+2019>s broken out in the streets of many pro-democrat american cities. it<u+2019>s the height of irony that the people who just a few days ago criticized trump for not pledging to blindly respect the results of the vote are now the ones who don<u+2019>t recognize its outcome and are poised to tear america<u+2019>s inner cities apart just because they couldn<u+2019>t pull off stealing the election of our lifetime. 




i don<u+2019>t think anybody knows how far the rioters will be directed/misled by their hillary-soros-neoconservative handlers to go, nor how president-elect trump will respond to their unrest once he takes office in mid-january, but what i can in fact tell each and every one of you without an inkling of doubt in my mind is that the trump supporters of the midwestern <u+201c>rust belt<u+201d> who helped hand him his victory in the first place will form the vanguard second amendment-wielding citizens leading the reverse-color revolution movement to legally safeguard the 45th president<u+2019>s constitutional legitimacy if things disastrously get out of control. related links
dear foreign friends, here<u+2019>s why trump won (from a clevelander) | katehon think tank. geopolitics & tradition
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