Raising a middle finger to the elites - and the world

Washington

THEY speculated that he was trying a new way to market his brand when he mentioned that he was thinking of running for president. They pronounced it "a joke" when he announced that he was planning to compete in the Republican presidential primaries (and added that he didn't have any chance of winning). They insisted that he "has peaked" after each primary and predicted that he would lose the next primary and would soon drop out of the GOP race ("any moment now"). And then they were sure that he would not get enough votes to win the Republican presidential nomination ("no way").

And after Donald J Trump became his party's presidential nominee in Cleveland, Ohio, in July, the conventional wisdom pontificated by the pundits of the Mainstream Media (MSM) and members of the political establishment concluded that the Donald's use of offensive language about women, immigrants and Muslims (among others) - and his populist and nationalist positions on immigration, trade, and foreign policy, not to mention the fact that he has never held public office - would place him at a huge disadvantage as he ran against his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. After all, she was a former secretary of state, New York senator and first lady who would be ready to be president on Day One!