Book Review: ”Great Again: How to Fix our Crippled America” (paperback edition, 2016) by Donald J. Trump 

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On the eve of the 2016 presidential election Bill Maher, a popular liberal comedian, seriously asked his fawning audience this question: “How come those trailer park rednecks look so cocksure that they're going to put Trump over the top?” Maher’s crowd came up with no answer. Rednecks voted and got the last laugh. 

Today, “redneck” is not so much a stigma as a native brand name. Gretchen Wilson's country hit “Redneck Woman” resonates throughout the Appalachians and beyond. “Hell Yeah!”

In Trump’s campaign speeches rednecks have found their voice, echoing his “Great Again” agenda for America. Channeling Trump, rednecks speak truth to power, to the mainstream media, and to the Acela Corridor elites in Washington, New York, and Boston. Never mind that Trump himself has a Manhattan tower as his perch, and he is not ashamed to brag about it.

Rednecks may be from trailer parks, but they have no problem with the rich and the glamorous who made it fair and square. So don’t expect them to buy Lenin’s ropes to hang capitalists. Over beer they may actually be joking about the Communist Party USA which is headquartered in New York City. Yes, the CCP’s Gotham comrades do business around Wall Street. This is America.

Raising Obama’s eyebrows, rednecks cling to their guns, their God, and their land of the brave and the free. Overwhelmingly they enlist in the rank and file of the armed services. They are foot soldiers on whom every American Commander-in-chief, including Obama, relies.

Rednecks look up to a Commander-in-chief who wins peace through strength, as Kennedy did at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and as Reagan did on the cusp of the Cold War. 

The Cold War ended. The Soviet Union was down and the European Union was up. EU-inspired liberals have since been advocating “connectivity” at the expense of national borders and native interests.

Globalists did indeed open up America to China rather than the other way round. They dismiss rednecks as simpletons who have no clue about what is good for America or humanity worldwide. For this, they earn rednecks’ middle fingers, big time.

Rednecks’ middle fingers make a point in the eyes of the middle-age, formerly middle-class Americans who have barely survived the 2008 global financial meltdown, now living paycheck to paycheck. These are casualties of globalism. In their late 40s or 50s, they have no hope to regain the middle-to-high positions they once enjoyed. They look back in anger. They joined rednecks and flocked to Trump’s campaign rallies in 2016. They will likely do that again later this year, conditions permitting.

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America is a comeback nation. It may tumble and fall, but it always picks itself up, dusts itself off, roars back in the ninth inning, hits the ball out of the park and clinches the final victory. 

There is nothing quite like rednecks’ love for the baseball game. But, in times like these, they are nowhere near a baseball field. At home, though, they are closely watching Trump stepping up to the plate.

It will be a long hard fight—for everyone.

——Lingyang Jiang