Whitlock: The ‘listless vessels’ will watch tonight’s Republican debate while MAGA patriots pray for change we can believe in

Before we watch tonight’s Republican presidential debate, let me explain why nothing that gets said will move me away from Donald Trump.

Supporting him is the only clear way to express dissatisfaction with the corrupt establishment.

The establishment, both Democrat and Republican, outlawed our right to assemble when it treated January 6 protesters as domestic terrorists. If frustrated, employed, responsible Americans gather in large or small numbers to protest, we’ve learned the hard way that the FBI will plant informants and agitators to paint the civil disobedience as a Klan rally or insurrection.

Supporting Trump at the polls is our only means of peacefully protesting. Our political system is corrupt. Our elections lack integrity. Global corporations, the World Economic Forum, and a collection of billionaires subvert the will of the American people. America’s surveillance organizations target dissenters.

The only protest we’re allowed is a vote for a 77-year-old billionaire.

None of the other Republican presidential candidates send the message we want sent.

As much as I like and respect the work that Gov. Ron DeSantis has done in Florida, supporting DeSantis does not hammer my message. It enables the status quo. It allows Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Maxine Waters to return to business as usual.

I don’t want business as usual. I want change I can believe in. I want the Republican and Democrat establishments torn to the ground. I want power stripped away from the career politicians who sold out working-class Americans by shipping manufacturing jobs overseas.

I have no problem with DeSantis supporters. They believe a skilled, committed, and strategic politician can deconstruct a 100-years-in-the-making corrupt system. They’re naive. I used to be naive, too.

What DeSantis can do is rebuild after the demolition job is complete. The traditional Democrat and Republican parties still stand. They hate Donald Trump. They fear being blown up by what Trump represents. They hate MAGA, which makes me hate them.

The hatred of MAGA is a mix of bigotry, elitism, and cowardice, the elements at the root of America’s history of unfairness. I’ve never liked bigots or cowards, and I’ve never been comfortable around elites.

DeSantis’ “listless vessel” comment, the one that insinuated that Trump supporters wait for him to deliver marching orders via Truth Social, bothers me. I’m not on Truth Social. I don’t follow closely the things that Trump says day to day. I’m unlikely to watch his Twitter interview with Tucker Carlson.

I don’t have a blind loyalty to Donald Trump. My political loyalty is tied to the people Trump represents, even the foolish ones who don’t know he represents them.

Most of my family can’t stand Trump. They have no idea the policies he supports represent their best interest. I support Trump for them. My parents were factory workers. Their friends were factory workers. We bounced between poor and working-class throughout my childhood. My worldview will always be working-class. I have no interest in being a global citizen. And I know how unwise and harmful to working-class Americans it is for our government to allow open borders and unabated illegal immigration.

When I think of listless vessels, I think of the voters who watch Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC waiting for some bought-and-paid-for shills to tell them what to think about the world. Those are listless vessels.

MAGA people love Trump for going to war with corporate media and the million-dollar liars and for awakening us to the necessity of seeking alternative sources of information.

Is Trump flawless? Far from it. He botched the response to COVID. His ego blinds him to some obvious truths. He lacks communication discipline.

But he’s the best we have right now. And, more important, he’s willing to absorb the blows. He’s not controlled by fear. He knows what the stakes are. His enemies want to jail him. His enemies are capable of killing him and getting their puppets in the media to frame another Lee Harvey Oswald for the deed.

I’m going to watch a little bit of the debate because I like Vivek Ramaswamy. He’s another outsider like Trump. I like the candidates from outside the establishment. That’s why I like Robert Kennedy Jr.

The traditional political system must be destroyed so that the country can operate the way our founders intended. Democrats want to rewrite the U.S. Constitution. Real revolutionaries want to blow up the uniparty.

Trump is our stick of dynamite. Most everyone else looks like another listless vessel of the status quo.