“I love the poorly educated!”

- Donald Trump, February 2016

Imagine you’re at a party. You meet someone new, and you start trading opinions on various topics. And then it happens. They say THAT THING. That thing that you dare not ever utter out loud for fear of public retribution. That thing that most people think is so ridiculous that you are afraid that you will be shunned from polite society. Meanwhile, that person who finally validated you is your new best friend…your new hero.

That’s how I explain the candidacy of Donald Trump.

Except, it isn’t about thinking that Robin Williams wasn’t really that funny, or that “The Big Bang Theory” is the worst show on TV, or that your friend’s new baby is ugly as hell. No, this is about the guy who finally told the “truth” about Mexicans, fat chicks, and that adorable Vladimir Putin. He has given voice to the legions of Americans who have been looking at their (obviously) Kenyan-born President of the United States and said to themselves, “Hey! I could do that! I know more than that guy!”

And so, like Fredo in “The Godfather: Part II,” they have finally stood up to Reince Preibus, the brooding, beleaguered Michael Corleone of the GOP.

These are the people who have been promised again, and again, and again that they will be rich someday. All they had to do was give more and more to the already rich. That will fix everything. Eventually, with hard work (unlike those lazy you-know-whats) it will all flow down to them. Oh, and that Jesus stuff? That, too! But, all they got for their trouble was two terms of Barack Obama.

Democracy has the potential to set ideas and peoples free. Democracy can also be a self-inflicted wound. After decades of voting against their own best interests with the hope of an eventual reward, it seems that these Fredos have grown weary of doing the GOP’s dirty work. They want their piece of the action. They are tired and angry. They feel as if time and and the world is passing them by. But is unquestioning devotion to Donald Trump the answer? Will this give them the respect they crave?

The Fredo electorate. They’re smart. Not like everybody says. “Leave him alone and let him make America great again,” they say. “Trust us. He’s OK…because he said THAT THING.”