Donald Trump

Why is he running for president? Does he take himself seriously? He was on a segment with Bill O'Reilly, talking about his platform. His platform primarily consists of completely wiping out the Arab World, forcing Mexico to build it's own fence across the Southern border, and boosting the economy by forcing other countries to pay more to the U.S. In the short term, with our bully power, those things might work. In the long term, it would strip us of all alliances across the known world.

I don't see how any has voted for him. I think citizens are just keeping him in the race to see how far he gets; he is a running joke that hasn't gotten old yet.

But his case of political silliness gives rise to a more universal, yet personal, human flaw: we take ourselves too seriously. It seems to be the human inclination to believe that the I, the central player, am always right. It isn't unnatural and seems perfectly logical on the surface: if we tend to believe someone else is right, they will take advantage and destroy us. That is how it is in the wild, that is how it is in our everyday, confusing, hustle-bustle economy. If a hare believes a jackal has a greater right to live than he does, he will sacrifice himself for the jackal's cause. Likewise, if we give a business more legitimacy to survive than ourselves, the business will see it's opportunity and push as far as it can to take money. These illustrations are simplifications: some businesses may not feel the need to extort money because they are well off and the jackal may not chase the rabbit down because it had just been snacking on a goat. But the natural tendency of living creatures is to subsume others to gain an advantage.

At the same time, what makes humans better is that we can put away our short-term needs for more long-term benefits. The reason why bears and chimpanzees and walruses do not have vast cities is because they're stupid. They don't work together to form bigger, better things. And even within the animal kingdom itself, the animals that work together reap the benefits. Chimpanzees that form strong communities reign supreme, even if it is in a blood-thirsty and fear-inducing, frenzied way. The ones that work together succeed. Ie. Planet of the Apes.

Swinging this full-circle back to the POTUS, we can see that the candidate who shows love, support, and an aptitude for cooperation is going to have the winning ticket. In the 2016 race for most-known-person-on-planet-earth, Donald Trump, the fighting, competitive little ball of frustration and anger, is not going to win. His ruthless tactics have worked in business precisely because it is such a dog-eat-dog environment. In politics, however, you need to at least have a facade of care and cooperation. Almost all of his purported policies, both foreign and domestic, are reflections of his ideology that brute strength trumps the weaker players. The American people may be confident and assertive, but I do not think the majority will vote for a president that is arrogant and purely aggressive. This is why people think of him as a joke, and why a person like him will not become President.