Trump Wins by Framing the Debate
Prior Republican presidents allowed their opponents and the media to set the agenda. The more liberal the past GOP president, the more he took his daily cues from television and newspapers controlled by the Left.
But not Trump. He tweets out what he wants people to talk about, and he has his adversaries scrambling to respond to what Trump says, not vice-versa.
The best defense is a good offense, as every sports fan knows. Trump has mastered this better than anyone in the history of American politics.
No one on the national stage was talking about the problems of Democrat-controlled Baltimore prior to the end of July. Now everyone is talking about it, thanks to Trump’s spot-on tweets about it.
Baltimore is ranked as one of the ten least livable cities in the United States. Democratic congressman Elijah Cummings represents much of the city, and he is one of the most powerful congressmen on Capitol Hill.
But recently he spent his time attacking the conditions in a detention center, even shouting at acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan during a hearing about it. Rep. Cummings expressed outrage about how illegal aliens are held, which caught President Trump’s eye and he contrasted it with the deplorable conditions in Rep. Cummings’ own district.
“Baltimore, under the leadership of Elijah Cummings, has the worst Crime Statistics in the Nation,” Trump tweeted. “25 years of all talk, no action!”
It is ironic how Democrats focus so much on the conditions of illegal aliens rather than spending more time and effort helping people in their own districts. Trump would work with the Democrat-controlled House to improve inner cities, but the Pelosi crew seems uninterested in doing that.
So Trump directs national attention to Baltimore, where help is badly needed. A few years ago the Baltimore Orioles even played a baseball game without allowing fans to attend, because it was too dangerous outside of the stadium.
Other cities face similar crises. Downtown St. Louis has been on a downward spiral for years, also under Democrat leadership.
While liberals are quick to resort to the “racist” label, they did not react that way when Bernie Sanders compared West Baltimore to a Third World Country during his last campaign for president. How is it that Trump’s criticisms are considered to be racist, when Sanders’ similar comments were not?
Trump did not back down, nor should he. In response he tweeted, “Nothing will get done for the people in need … Sad!”
Trump’s comments create the opportunity for something to be done, as he embarrassed Democrats who spend more time worrying about the cleanliness of centers for illegal aliens than the rampant violence and poverty among their own constituents.
Every week, and nearly every day, President Trump frames the issues for the press with his early morning tweets. This is far more effective than other Republican politicians who wait for criticism by the other side, and then merely react to it.
For years the Washington Post and the New York Times set the agenda for the White House, even when there was a Republican president. White House staff were assigned to read those newspapers each morning and then reports would be given to the president and vice president so they could plan their statements accordingly.
After four or eight years of that process, it was difficult to point to any long-term accomplishments by several past Republican administrations. But Trump is showing us how important it is to take initiative in dealing with a hostile Congress and media.
Phyllis Schlafly often emphasized the importance of being able to define the terms of a debate. Trump is successfully taking a similar approach.
Michael Moore lambasted his fellow Dems for trying to set an agenda based on Robert Mueller. “A frail old man, unable to remember things, stumbling, refusing to answer basic questions,” Moore said after Mueller’s testimony to Congress.
“All you pundits and moderates and lame Dems who told the public to put their faith in the esteemed Robert Mueller,” Moore lamented. Trump retweeted Moore’s comments, chuckling about how even Michael Moore agrees with him.
There is no one among the roughly two-dozen candidates vying for the Democratic nomination who can match Trump’s ability to reach and connect with the American public. Instead, the Democrats are relegated to the second-class status of responding to issues that Trump raises, starting with Baltimore and the deplorable conditions of many of our Democrat-controlled inner cities.
Trump Demolishes the “Squad”
On Monday, July 15, President Trump issued an executive order requiring federal agencies to increase their purchases of products made in America. Using his authority under the Buy American Act, Trump commanded agencies to increase their purchase of American-made goods from 50 to 75 percent.
Purchases of domestic steel and iron products will increase to 95 percent under Trump’s command. As our infrastructure is rebuilt, this will give an important boost to our manufacturers.
At the same time, the Trump administration took action to sharply limit the flow of illegal aliens who seek asylum by crossing our southern border. In response to an explosion in such applications, the Department of Justice issued a new rule to prohibit applications for asylum by someone who has migrated through another country which could have granted asylum, namely Mexico.
These are all necessary steps to restore American sovereignty and jobs for our citizens. But the anti- Trumpers show little interest in these sensible new policies, and instead try to falsely label Trump as a racist.
Americans already knew Trump as a celebrity and entertainer before liberals began smearing him, which gives him the same Teflon quality that Ronald Reagan had. Critics have to pretend that Trump has somehow changed, when everyone knows he has not.
The new blizzard of false accusations of racism are for Trump’s tweets suggesting that those who dislike the United States should return to their country of origin. Trump’s comments were reminiscent of a popular bumper sticker in the 1970s, which said “America: Love it or Leave it.”
Trump tweeted on Sunday, July 14 that some should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.” The following day, he retweeted that a small group of leftist congresswomen are “a bunch of communists” and “anti-America.”
Trump’s tweets were in response to the inflammatory rhetoric of the “Squad,” as the four congresswomen have become known, who have been more than disrespectful of the president. In order of notoriety, the Squad consists of Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), who in a joint press conference referred to President Trump as “blatantly racist.”
They also insist that the President is somehow lawless as he tries to secure the border and seek the removal of criminal aliens. But Trump’s policies have at various times been supported by Democrats in the past, even by some of the current Democratic presidential candidates.
The Squad derisively refers to our Commander-in- Chief as the mere “occupant” in the White House. The Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has tried to rein in these out-of-control Democrats, only to receive a stinging rebuke from them in response.
One of the most prominent members of the Squad is an immigrant from Somalia, where American soldiers were killed and dragged through the streets while Bill Clinton was president. Americans have long been urged to leave that country rather than stay there.
But tens of thousands of Somalis were transplanted to Minnesota, creating a community large enough to elect a congresswoman from their native land, Ilhan Omar. President Trump quipped, “I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements” for her return to Somalia.
Humorous, but certainly not racist. Omar has been highly critical of American policies on multiple issues, as is her right, but her outspokenness makes it fair game for Trump to criticize her in return.
Her colleague in the Squad, the already famous rookie congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, was quick to accuse her fellow Democrat Nancy Pelosi of racism. Trump himself felt compelled to defend Speaker Pelosi against the smear.
Of course, virtually everyone does like it here, and billions of people around the world want to come here. President Trump is right to call out the opponents of border security and our free market system that gives us liberty and prosperity.
Ayanna Pressley may be the least famous member of the Squad, but her recent comments about race were the most startling. “We don’t need black faces that don’t want to be a black voice,” she said, and “We don’t need queers that don’t want to be a queer voice.”
Later, her spokeswoman clarified these remarks by saying, “Diversity at the table doesn’t matter if there’s not real diversity in policy.” But policy diversity as advocated by President Trump is apparently not what the Squad is looking for.
Trump was elected by the American people to implement these policies. When the Squad and the media hurl insults at President Trump, they insult the American people too.
Liberal Phobia against Tanks in the Parade
As usual, Independence Day features fireworks, barbecues, and Nathan’s annual hot-dog eating contest on Coney Island. Spectacular flying performances, including the Blue Angels, adorn the skies.
Yet a strange phobia by liberals against including tanks in the festivities erupted again. President Trump wanted to have a few tanks in his “Salute to America” parade on July 4th, but his opponents went hysterical in blocking it.
Why the shrieking protest against tanks in particular, while ceremonial use of military aircraft seems just fine to the Left? After all, it was the Democrats’ own nominee for president in 1988, Michael Dukakis, who famously posed for a photo-op while riding in a tank during his unsuccessful campaign.
President Trump has long wanted to have a military parade in D.C., proposing it for Veterans’ Day, but he was stymied by exaggerated cost estimates. This time the phony argument against including tanks was that they might somehow cause harm to our infrastructure, a fancy word for roads.
In Michigan, trucks can weigh as much as 164,000 pounds, which is tens of thousands of pounds heavier than the Abrams tank that Trump wanted to include in the parade. Funny how the Democrats have not been howling about the weight of big trucks on our roads, but instead stridently object to Trump displaying tanks without any evidence of harm by them.
The tanks were delivered to D.C. by the Army’s own railroad system, which is a legacy of the Civil War when the Union took control of all the railroad tracks and bridges in the South. Any interference with that transportation system was a crime punished by execution, as featured in the classic American short story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” later made into a television drama by Alfred Hitchcock.
Last spring in Europe a massive deployment of tanks and other military vehicles traveled hundreds of miles on ordinary roads without difficulty, in an important test of readiness. France and other countries regularly feature tanks in their military parades, again without untoward consequences.
But liberals stridently oppose the powerful image of tanks rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue while Trump is president, lest American voters become enthralled by the show of force. The tank symbolizes military might, and the entire world should see the military hardware that is under President Trump’s command lest anyone think of challenging us.
Nuclear weapons are within the president’s control too, but they do not seem to deter wrongdoing by two- bit dictators around the world. Military aircraft can be shot down by our enemies, as Iran just did to one of our drones.
In 2017, Trump observed tanks being used in a parade in Paris as part of its celebration of Bastille Day, which is the French equivalent of our Independence Day. The tanks did not seem to cause any problems for the roads there, so all the fuss by anti-Trumpers here is merely political.
The Abrams tank is manufactured by the Army Tank Plant in Lima, Ohio, which Trump visited in March. If the treads on this tank somehow damage ordinary roads, which seems unlikely, the manufacturer could surely put softer treads on a few for occasional use in military parades.
Our high-tech aircraft, such as the stealth bomber, are fun to watch and learn about. But air power alone cannot deter all aggression, as we continue to see countries around the world from North Korea to Iran repeatedly defy us.
The tools of Trump’s opponents are fake news, endless lawsuits, and gender politics. But none of that will seem significant if tanks roll down a wide boulevard adjoining the Mall in D.C, to a salute by President Trump and millions watching on television.
A parade of American tanks might have a sobering effect on rogue nations who want to shoot down our planes or harm our soldiers. A stealth bomber may not scare a communist tyrant, but the sight of massive tanks driving quickly down a familiar city street is something he would immediately understand.
But Anti-Trumpers have prevailed in blocking tanks from being part of any parade this Independence Day, and may appear only stationary as if they were relics of a bygone era. The American public should be allowed to see our powerful Abrams tank surging at highway-like speeds, and the rest of the world should see it too.
Democrats Already Sick of Their Own Candidates
Polling data from Iowa, where the first presidential nomination ballots will be cast next February, show a Democratic Party wishing that some of their candidates would drop out of the race. There had not even been a single presidential debate, yet CNN reports that grassroots Democrats already wanted fewer contestants.
Nearly 80% of the likely Democratic caucus voters in Iowa indicated their displeasure, in a poll by the Des Moines Register and CNN, at the large number of choices among candidates. But perhaps the real dismay is at who some of those candidates are.
Bill de Blasio, mayor of New York City, is one of the two-dozen candidates for the Democratic nomination for president. He scored a perfect “0” percent support for president in this poll of likely Democratic caucus voters.
De Blasio’s supporters for president, if he had any, might say that Iowa is a long way from his liberal base in New York City. But even in New York State, where Democrats vastly outnumber Republicans, de Blasio’s 29% approval rating is lower than that of Republican President Donald Trump.
It’s a mystery why the ultra-liberal de Blasio is running for president despite having such low approval ratings in his heavily Democratic home state. Billionaire Mike Bloomberg, a more popular mayor of New York City who could have broken all spending records to finance a run for president, decided against it for himself.
More than 75% of the candidates – 19 out of 24 – for the Democratic nomination have 2% or less support among likely Iowa caucus voters, which makes their bids exceedingly implausible. History shows that only candidates who fare well in Iowa, by placing in the top three or nearly so, have a viable chance to win the nomination.
Undeterred, 19 contenders gathered in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to pitch their candidacy to Iowa Democrats. Joe Biden, the front runner who has seen his lead dwindle amid his flip-flop on abortion and other missteps, skipped the event perhaps to avoid unfavorable comparisons with his younger, more energetic rivals.
Most of the Democratic candidates have angered the liberal base by avoiding the absurd demands for impeachment of Trump. Among the leading candidates, only Senator Elizabeth Warren has called for the impeachment of Trump, which may have boosted her poll numbers with the Leftist voters who want, more than anything else, to remove Trump from office.
But some Iowa Democrats are just fine with Republican President Trump, who returned to Council Bluffs where he held a 10,000-attendee rally before the midterm elections last year. Trump supporters then filled the entire Mid- America Center, which holds 8,000, and thousands more stood in the aisles and in the parking lot outside where they could watch on a huge television screen.
Many even camped out overnight beforehand just to have the chance to see Trump in action. And he did not disappoint as he galvanized the massive crowd with his speech.
“The Democrats have become too extreme, and they’ve become, frankly, too dangerous to govern,” he declared. “They’ve gone wacko.”
The impeachment talk proves Trump’s point, and even House Speaker Nancy Pelosi does not want to go there. She fears, and she should, a backlash by voters in the next election if the House Democrats do something so unfair to the president.
In his speech to Iowans last October, Trump promised to loosen regulations against adding ethanol to gasoline, and he has delivered on this promise just like all his others. He has approved year-round sales of gasoline having higher levels of ethanol than currently allowed, which boosts corn farmers.
In what may become a pattern in many regions of the country where Trump continues to have immense popularity, even a Democratic congresswoman sought to meet and welcome Trump’s visit to her district in Southwest Iowa. Congresswoman Cindy Axne (D-IA) announced that she wanted to be with Trump for his visit, which included Trump’s tour of an ethanol plant.
Energy is a winning issue for Trump, as American oil production has increased and prices have generally fallen. Despite the tensions with Iran, crude oil prices have fallen by more than 20% since April, which should yield lower gasoline prices for family vacationers this summer.
The CNN poll of Iowans had more bad news for Democrats. A majority of likely caucus voters in that party insist that a candidate must support abortion, think climate change is the greatest threat to humanity, and ban assault-style weapons despite the Second Amendment.
All of these positions are on the losing side in a general presidential election, as Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton demonstrated last time. Perhaps that is why a solid majority of Americans, in another recent poll by CNN, expect Trump to win reelection.
