I know exactly what the smart-set will say. “Let it go! Focus on the future of the country! Don’t re-litigate the past. Enough with ‘fake news,’ and ‘witch hunt,’ and ‘crooked Hillary.” Know what I say?
Please, Mr. President. Do the exact opposite.
President Trump’s reelection campaign kicked off this week at a raucous rally in Orlando that must have exhausted Joe Biden just watching. The familiar chants returned. “Build the wall! Lock her up! CNN sucks!” (My personal favorite.) Also returning were the familiar critics who decried them.
The aforementioned “news” network we love to hate broke away from covering the newsworthy event because their feelings were hurt. Or perhaps they wanted to protect their five viewers’ egos. Host John Berman and analyst David Chalian fanned themselves from their cable fainting couches.
“If the test tonight was, is Donald Trump going to seize this moment to frame his argument as to why the American people should renew his contract for another four years? Or is he just going to give us the Trump show and air his grievances and start the bashing of the free press? He shows no desire to do something different,” whined Chalian.
Wouldn’t they love it if he did?
No, the truth is President Trump can and should do both. Yes, the economy is roaring. Working folks’ wages are up, their tax burden is less, and unemployment is down in every demographic. Regulatory reform, prison reform, military reform, border enforcement…The list is remarkable. But so is the opposition to the man who made those things happen.
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I don’t have enough column space to rehash the entirety of the deep state subterfuge undertaken by those in the highest ranks of our law enforcement and intelligence agencies while Donald Trump was a candidate. After that, we came through an unprecedented forty million dollar investigation of Donald Trump since he’s been in office. After that, the Democrats on Capital Hill as well as the Speaker of the House continually accuse him of a “cover up” and threaten impeachment on a daily basis over an as-yet-to-be-defined or substantiated crime.
All the while, a hyper-partisan news media fan flames for clicks on their websites and viewers to their shows. Is it any coincidence Rachael Maddow’s enormous ratings during the lead up to the Mueller report came crashing down once the report was released? Maddow played this game before with Trump’s taxes if you remember. Sold as a HUGE news story, she was going to expose his dirty financial deals! Her ratings were through the roof that night.
Viewers tuned in to learn she had a 2005 return that showed Trump paid his taxes. (Cue slide whistle and sad trombone.) Her ratings bottomed out again.
It’s sick. Truly. This kind of crazed hostility is unprecedented. Of course the American left and the media (but I repeat myself) want Trump to stop revisiting the past. It makes them look terrible! But it reveals something more important.
Coupled with his economic successes, President Trump made a simple statement that I believe summarizes the essence of his entire presidency as it relates to his voters. While all of these people seem to be zeroed in on Donald Trump, their real enemy is anyone who votes for him.
“The Democrats do not care about Russia. They only care about their own cynical power. They went after my family, my business, my finances, my employees, almost everyone I’ve known and worked with. But they are really going after you,” said Trump.
Bingo. And that’s the biggest point he can make. And he must make it over and over again. Donald Trump’s campaign and presidency has been under assault from the beginning to teach anyone who dares support him that he will not be tolerated. Washington does business their way, not your way. The swamp intends to teach you that lesson through their treatment of Mr. Trump.
Sadly, Trump’s political enemies are your political enemies. I’m sorry to say it, and I know there are some who feel that’s divisive rhetoric. But I believe the left when they call us “deplorable” or “smelly Wal-Mart people” or “gun nuts” or “racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic, religious zealots.”
I’ll never forget the day I heard MSNBC’s version of “the Mooch” – Donny Deutsch -very specifically say he was no longer content to go after Trump. He suggested all who vote for him must be made to pay for our sins.
“If you vote for Trump, then you, the voter, you, not Donald Trump, are standing at the border, like Nazis going, 'You here, you here.' I think we now have to flip it and it’s a given, the evilness of Donald Trump. But if you vote, you can no longer separate yourself.”
Trump voters know 2020 is just as much about them as it is about the man for whom they’ll cast a ballot. Democrats represent government on steroids. Not a one of them wants less of it. All that stands in their way is Trump and his voters.
It will be a colossal fight. Thank God we finally have a prizefighter. As for me, I’m enthusiastically voting for Donald Trump again next year. Sure, for his policies. But mostly because we share political enemies.
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