Saturday, September 3, 2016

TRUMP IN DETROIT


I hear that Donald Trump will be campaigning in Detroit today. He is going to be doing it in the good old fashioned way. In a church.

The New York Times is working very hard to spoil his visit. Their coverage is all about accusing the Trump campaign of scripting his meeting with Bishop Wayne T. Jackson of the Great Faith Ministries International, a mega congregation on Grand River in the Motor City.

The notion that anyone can script a Trump campaign event is ludicrous. He is the most ‘unscripted’ politician in American history.

I hope Mr. Trump spends the day in Detroit. He will be with Dr. Ben Carson, himself a native Detroiter. If the media covers the day honestly, they will discover some very interesting things that are seldom reported in the mainstream of American political discourse.

First of all, black Americans are not racist. Despite the efforts of many radical liberals to persuade black people that that all rich whites hate them, the average black voter is just another citizen who wants our country to be governed by leaders who are responsive to the people. All the people.

I have been there. I have campaigned in black churches, black neighborhoods, black stores, black bars, black homes.

The New York Times, NBC and the rest of the elite on the left are clucking and giggling over Trump’s “What the hell have you got to lose?” speech.
I think they don’t understand the average black American.

“What the hell have you got to lose?” is part of an eyeball to eyeball conversation about the democratic process. It is what the person sitting next to you on the bus might say. It is the way real people talk to each other about voting for President.

And black Americans are real people.

And they are real Americans. Their ancestors have lived in North America for hundreds of years. They speak English. They worship in Christian churches. Their climb from the degradation of slavery, through the horror of the Civil War and the triumph of the civil rights movement is an integral part of American history. Their heroes are our heroes. Their story is our story.

No doubt the Clinton campaign and its minions hope that the people of Detroit will protest Donald Trump’s campaign visit. They will hope for, and probably scheme to help cause, a noisy, perhaps even violent protest of his appearances.

The noisier, more unruly, and hostile the anti-Trump demonstrations turn out to be, the more column inches of newspaper coverage and minutes of television and radio time will be devoted to his visit.

Donald Trump is a businessman; a deal maker. He will be the kind of President who uses the bully pulpit of that high office to push and pull the decision makers in our economy on ways that benefit the people.

I can well imagine a President Trump calling Doug McMillon, the President of Walmart and cajoling him to open two or three stores in Detroit.

Detroit doesn’t have a Walmart. Seven hundred thousand people. Poor people. Working people. It’s a place that ought to have Walmarts. The Democrats let Walmart close up shop in Detroit, just as their policies let Ford move to Mexico.

Lots of people in Detroit are on food stamps. They spend them at the Iranian
owned convenience store on the corner. That’s the Clinton, Obama, Democrat legacy. That is part of what makes Detroit a pitiful comparison to Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

The people of Detroit know a leader when they see one. They elected Mike Duggan in 2013. An outsider who moved to Detroit just to run for mayor. A white man in a black city. They kicked him off the ballot, but the people of Detroit, the black people, wrote his name in and elected him.

Detroit votes Democratic. It has since 1932. But if Mr. Trump goes to Detroit and talks to the folks, he might just win some votes.

After all, what have they got to lose?
 


5 comments:

  1. "Donald Trump . . . will be the kind of President who uses the bully pulpit of that high office to push and pull the decision makers in our economy on ways that benefit the people.

    "I can well imagine a President Trump calling Doug McMillon, the President of Walmart and cajoling him to open two or three stores in Detroit."

    Judge, I hope your imagined take on Trump's character and governing ability is correct. Based on what I have observed of him, my imagined predictions re a President Trump are dire rather than hopeful. I see a potential elected would-be dictator, and an ignorant and undisciplined one at that.

    I happen to be halfway through an interesting book, "America's War for the Greater middle East: A Military History," by Andrew J. Bacevich. Bacevich is a West Point graduate, a (prematurely) retired officer, and a retired professor of history and international relations. The book is largely organized around 38 selected military operations (such as Desert Storm) in the Greater Middle East from 1980 to the present. Bacevich provides background to and narrates the operations, and then critiques the decisions made by the presidents, advisors and generals. He also "keeps score" re the glitches and the outcomes, which are mostly unforeseen and unsuccessful. In each scenario, the commander-in-chief tends to be the least experienced and least qualified member of the decision-making team.

    I find it impossible to imagine any basis for having any confidence whatsoever in this rich, selfish, narcissistic lucky, pushy, over-simplifying fast-talking, no- substance wise-guy holding any executive position that involves managing and leading people toward a higher purpose, never mind US President and Commander-in Chief. Cajoling and flimflamming can work for unscrupulous deal-making. But Governing the US for the common good is a big and complex domain. Trump makes deals that he is lucky enough to be able to foresee and execute based on his peculiar skills and abilities, and using his own unique personality. Government our country is not the right field for him.

    What I can imagine for Trump, based on what I have seen in the past, is his parlaying his (I assume) failed presidential campaign into the next Trump thing. something that turns his presidential fans into customers or viewers or members of some media or political something.

    That or his turning his disappointed supporters into mobs.

    Here is a letter that was published in my local regional newspaper:

    Patriotic Republicans need to get rid of Trump

    Media and popular reaction to Donald Trump’s unhinged, self-sabotaging behavior – most notably his deprecation of Gold Star parents Khizr and Ghazala Khan – has brought his candidacy to the cusp of a tipping point.

    For the good of the country and of their party, Republicans should now repudiate and abandon their official candidate on the basis of incompetence and ostensible mental defect. Even if Trump somehow manages to stifle his unstatesmanlike impulses going forward, the potentially disastrous nature of a Trump presidency mandates that patriotic Republicans of goodwill now say to Trump, “You’re fired. If you continue, you’re on your own.”

    Al Cannistraro
    Clifton Park

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  2. Excellent Judge, well stated and fair...

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  3. Judge Brennan: as the author of "Trump Unveiled" (trumpunveiled.com) I can say that the answer to "what have they got to lose?" is "an enormous amount." The assumption that things can't get worse is belied by history, and a quick glance at Trump's past. I'd be happy to debate you about Trump at Cooley or elsewhere.

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