I admit that I couldn’t stomach watching Trump’s speech last night on TV. I “watched” by reading the transcript and by following the “Live” blog here on Daily Kos. And frankly, that was only made bearable by Bill in Portland Maine’s running commentary on Judge Judy!
This morning the press decided to give Donnie a free pass because his tone changed. Seriously? They gave him a free pass for not sounding like a lunatic while presenting a prepared speech from a propagandist. The bar is so incredibly low for this guy that I am amazed every time that the press and his supporters continue to lower it. This is the man who started his political life with the birther lie. This is the man who still promotes xenophobia, homophobia, nationalism, racism, and misogyny. He’s still a world-class liar. He’s tried to pull off an illegal immigration ban based upon a religious test. He’s draining the swamp right into his cabinet. He’s called the press the enemy of the state. His Chief of Staff wants to dismantle the “administrative state.” He continues to pick “trivial fights” every day on Twitter. So is the press forgetting all that and expecting THIS man to become a real President? This man at age 70 is going to completely change his outlook, morals, and personal style? This man’s agenda isn’t going to cater to his warped view of the U.S. and the rest of the world? WTF, people?
If they bothered to listen to his WORDS and not just his TONE, they would have understood the speech was still pure Donnie. Why? Well this:
- He starts by calling America rat hole. Instead of using nasty phrases like “American Carnage”, he uses friendlier phrases like “won’t allow mistakes of decades past”, “America is once again ready to lead”, and a “new national pride is sweeping across the nation.” He’s basically stating that we’ve squandered what’s great about America for the last 30 plus years and thank God, he’s here to fix it and bring back nationalism which when heard by his supporters means what white people want.
- He relives his “earthquake” campaign but still ignores the significant majority that didn’t vote for him, and ignores that his “victory” was driven solely by whites. There was no coalition of “families of color and creeds”.
- Of course, he blatantly lies and takes credit for things he doesn’t own: he didn’t keep jobs in the U.S., the stock market has been steadily gaining value under Obama and isn’t a new phenomenon, and he hasn’t drained the swamp.
- He’s starting a task force to reduce crime which is at its lowest in decades.
- He demonizes immigrants by stating they are the cause of stagnant wages, unemployment (ignoring we are pretty much at full employment now), and driving the (non-existent) crime wave. Later, he claims that they cost Americans billions of dollars each year by cherry picking from a study conducted the National Academy of Sciences. And still later, he shamelessly highlights families who have had loved ones killed by undocumented immigrants furthering the lie that they drive crime. Don’t get me started on VOICE…Jesus.
- His magical belief in people pouring across our borders and that a Great Beautiful Wall (not sure who will pay for it), will fix this problem is still front and center.
- He lies about the size of the labor force that’s unemployed.
- He does mention the number of people living in poverty, but seems not to know that his GOP Congress works tirelessly to take away every single program that could help them. And then to get what little is left, they should be humiliated by a drug test.
- Pins all manufacturing job losses on China, NAFTA, and trade and threatens a trade war.
- He wants to establish infrastructure spending that the GOP Congress would likely not approve or if they do, they will start privatizing public projects. Tolls forever!
- He lies that Obamacare is collapsing and his replacement will be magical. NOTHING that has been floated from the GOP replacement plans comes close to providing lower cost heath care with the same Obamacare protections. The wordsmith, bait and switch is on and he’s trying to bully Dems into going along with it.
- He floats HSAs for both health care and childcare which are pointless to the poor and opposed by the lunatic Freedom Caucus.
- The word “accessible” doesn’t mean what he wants us to think it means.
- He uses a widow for applause when earlier in the day he took no responsibility for his screw up that killed her husband.
- He promotes Clear Air and Water on the day he signs an EO to get rid of environmental protections. He has an EPA chief that wants to kill it.
We have to continue to refute the direction and vision this man and the GOP have for our country. The Democratic leadership needs to be on every cable, public and social media outlet every day and not leave any plan from Donnie unchallenged. We MUST win the narrative and minds of the public. We have the ideas/vision most shared by the people. We have to ensure we are heard and expose the truth of the destructive, even if nicely named Donnie/GOP game plan. We must fight back as there is no option that we can lose. RESIST!
