Images of a helicopter emblazoned with one large name — TRUMP — descending on the Iowa State Fair last week reminded us of another political showman at another summer extravaganza, Jesse Ventura at the 1998 Minnesota State Fair. The big crowds Ventura attracted then provided discerning State Fair watchers with an early inkling that the pro wrester/talk radio host would go on to win the governorship two months later.

We’re far from the first to note a parallel between Ventura and Donald Trump. And we’re confident we won’t be the last if the business mogul/reality TV star persists in leading GOP presidential polls in first-to-caucus Iowa and around the country. Minnesotans who remember 1998 and Ventura’s single term as a third-party governor may soon qualify as expert commentators on the appeal of an outspoken entertainer-cum-candidate and the consequences of electing one.

Ventura himself invited the comparison last week when he revealed that he’s rooting for Trump to win the GOP nomination and stands willing to join a Trump-led ticket as a vice presidential candidate.

That professed interest in Trump’s campaign may have seemed odd coming from someone who had previously announced support for left-leaning Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and had criticized Trump for speaking ill of Mexican immigrants. But we suspect both Ventura and Trump would counter that only losers hew to a consistent political course.

In flirting with both Sanders and Trump — both anti-establishment candidates — Ventura illustrates something about today’s American electorate that ought not be dismissed. Disillusionment with both the Republican and Democratic establishment is running strong. It’s fueling both the Sanders and the Trump candidacies.

In 2015 — as in 1998 — the nation’s economy has rebounded from a nasty recession but the incomes and living standards of a majority of working people have not. The result is anger and a willingness to take a flier on an unconventional candidate who touts a simplistic slogan (in 1998, Ventura’s was “give it all back”) and promises to jolt the status quo.

Political rookie Trump is no Sanders, who has spent more than three decades in elective office and offers a detailed array of policy prescriptions for what ails America’s working class. By comparison, Trump’s website touts only one policy position, an immigration plan rolled out last weekend that panders to America’s xenophobic tendencies. Yet the difference between Sanders and Trump may be lost on fed-up voters seeking a candidate they deem most forceful — and entertaining — in demanding change.

The message from Minnesota circa 1998 and from the latest opinion polls is that unhappy voters are also unafraid to take risks. Loyalty to party establishments does not run deep in today’s citizenry. Increasingly, what does is a sense that the nation is headed in the wrong direction for working people, and that must change.

 

— Minneapolis Star Tribune, Aug. 17