History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Trump’s Lincolnesque Moment

27 Comments

I’ve been saying on Twitter that I’ve been waiting for years for a Republican to call out the Democrats on not just their historic, but current cynical racism and oppression of the black community that turns out to so reliably vote for them. I’m just sad that it took Donald Trump to do it. FWIW, I’ve never accused Trump of being either a racist or a bigot, but I do think that he is cynical himself in allowing racists and bigots to think he is.

27 thoughts on “Trump’s Lincolnesque Moment”

  1. Lincolnesque? That’s a little overwrought.

    The key bit from the speech:

    “It is time to hold Democratic Politicians accountable for what they have done to these communities. It is time to hold failed leaders accountable for their results, not just their empty words.

    “Look at what the Democratic Party has done to the city of Detroit.

    “Forty percent of Detroit’s residents live in poverty. Half of all Detroit residents do not work.

    “Detroit tops the list of Most Dangerous Cities in terms of violent crime.

    “This is the legacy of the Democrat politicians who have run this city. This is the result of the policy agenda embraced by Hillary Clinton.

    “The only way to change results is to change leadership. We can never fix our problems by relying on the same politicians who created our problems in the first place.

    “A new future requires new leadership.

    “Look at how much African-American communities have suffered under Democratic Control. To those hurting, I say: what do you have to lose by trying something new?

    “One thing we know for sure is that if you keep voting for the same people you will keep getting the same result.”

    http://heavy.com/news/2016/08/read-donald-trump-speech-transcript-full-text-address-rally-dimondale-michigan/

    Conservatives have been saying this to each other for decades. How many Republican politicians have been saying this directly to the people?

    He’s been doing this the whole campaign. That’s why he’s now the nominee.

  2. Indeed, it is well past time. Republicans have been too timid to point out how the strategy of the Democrats has been to placate those on the bottom rungs without actually doing anything for them. That is one of the reasons why the base finally had enough of the milquetoasts at the top, and went for Trump.

    The Obama economy has hit the people at the low end of the economic scale harder than any others. It would sure help a lot if other Republicans started asking what the Democrats have done for them. From what I’ve seen, the press has focused only on the parts of Trump’s speech that can be spun as critical of minorities. The message needs repetition until it breaks through.

  3. A parallel to Lincoln are the race based violent lynch mobs Democrats are organizing.

    When Democrats were lynching black people in the South, about 1/3 of their victims were Republicans. For the next hundred years Democrats have continued to use both mob violence and stytematic persecution against Republicans in one form or another.

    The violence we see Democrats organizing isn’t new, its generations old.

    Trump needs to respond to the violence Democrats are organizing. The Democrats laugh off these incidents but they have their militant activist no s worked up into such a frenzy, they don’t even see Republicans as human beings. Democrats are going to kill more people before November unless something is done.

  4. Yeah, obviously, there’s nothing racist or bigoted about wanting to deport 14 million people just because their families didn’t come over on the same boat yours did.

    I suppose it can be described as “Lincolnesque,” since Lincoln wanted to deport black back to Africa. But Lincoln acknowledged the fact that he was a racist rather than engaging in Trumpian NewSpeak.

    1. Yeah, obviously, there’s nothing racist or bigoted about wanting to deport 14 million people

      Current law calls for deporting people who immigrate illegally. Obama has deported a ton of people, is he racist for doing so?

      You keep up with the racist/bigoted attack no matter how many times people say they support legal immigration, that their family members are immigrants, or that they support reforming the system to make it easier to immigrate.

      You attack of bigotry is bigotry itself. It is also cloaked in race by insulting the heritage of the people you attack. Often times you mix in some accusations of being traitors. It is pretty disgusting and doesn’t persuade anyone to support open borders.

      If you want people to support open borders, lay out why they should rather than just be bigoted toward them.

      1. Current law calls for deporting people who immigrate illegally.

        Current law (the US Constitution) gives the Federal government power to regulate naturalization. Immigration is an “unenumerated power” reserved to the several states. Judge Andrew Napolitano has written a number of articles on this subject:

        http://reason.com/archives/2015/09/03/immigration-and-the-us-constitution

        no matter how many times people say they support legal immigration

        The same people turn around and complain about *legal* immigrants “stealing” jobs in Silicon Valley and want to limit or eliminate H1b Visas (which are *not* illegal immigration) to protect native-born Americans from foreign competition. How many times must I call you out on that dishonesty.

        If you want people to support open borders, lay out why they should rather than just be bigoted toward them.

        Because all men (not just native Americans) are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.

        That fact was self-evident to our Founding Fathers.and to anyone who believes in the traditional values. The concept of natural rights may seem ludicrous to modernists who reject the idea of a Judeo-Christian God, but what do you have to offer in its place except tribal rivalry?

        1. Edward, I remain amused, but unsurprised that, at heart, you have no argument except to call people who disagree with you about immigration bigots and racists. You shouldn’t be surprised if people completely reasonably insulted by such “arguments” find them unconvincing.

          Have you ever heard the definition of insanity?

          1. you have no argument except to call people who disagree with you about immigration bigots and racists

            Laugh. This from the man who just called all Democrats racists (with the exception of Donald Trump, of course). Yes, Lenin would be proud of your propaoganda techniques.

            I’m not surprised that you don’t grok concept of natural rights. It’s conservative thing. You wouldn’t understand.

          2. I don’t think that all Democrats are racists, and I’ve never said that. Many Nazis disagreed with gassing Jews. But the party certainly is. Learn a little history

            If you have arguments that don’t involve calling people who disagree with you bigots and racists, then use them, and stop calling people who disagree with you bigots and racists.

        2. The same people turn around and complain about *legal* immigrants “stealing” jobs in Silicon Valley and want to limit or eliminate H1b Visas (which are *not* illegal immigration) to protect native-born Americans from foreign competition. How many times must I call you out on that dishonesty.

          That would be me. For some reason with you, it’s always the Ivory Tower, my way or the highway point of view. You don’t understand how the system is abused–probably because you have never experienced losing your job to an H1B Visa recipient.

    2. Ed, I continue to find your accusations of racism against people who disagree with you vile. I can only conclude that you are a projecting racist Democrat.

      2. Is that the best you can do, Rand? “You’re a Democrat”? That’s the most cliched insult in the Trumper manual. Surely, you can come up with something more creative than that. In the last month, I’ve been called a Jew, a Mexican, and a homosexual. Surely, you can make your lies at least as creative as that?

        “You’re a Democrat” is particularly ironic coming from “Republicans” who are supporting a liberal Democrat. Of course, Lenin told propagandists, “Accuse your enemies of doing what you do yourself.”

        1. I support Trump, and I’m not even American. Rand does not support Trump; in fact, his distaste for the man is quite apparent. You’re not scoring any points by falsely claiming Rand to be a Trump supporter.

  5. “In the boldest imaginable way.” No, it’s not the boldest imaginable way. He said something similar a few days ago, and was hailed by some for seeking black votes. The problem is, he is delivering these speeches to white audiences. These are good ideas. They are fundamental things that need to be said, over and over again, to BLACK people. If he doesn’t actually go into black neighborhoods, and black churches, and say these things to black audiences, then he might as well be talking to the mirror.

    1. What are the chances that the IRS would go after churches that hosted a Trump event?

      I agree that he should go into black communities and he should have a ton of video cameras outside the venue, maybe even some drone footage, to capture the violence from Democrat activists. Also, video isn’t enough, he needs to get some mics in the crowd. There is no uglier speech than what Democrats use while they “protest”.

    2. I’m not quite following you Michael. Are you saying some Americans are too stupid to see Trump’s speech the same way you and I can?

  6. FWIW, I’ve never accused Trump of being either a racist or a bigot, but I do think that he is cynical himself in allowing racists and bigots to think he is.

    Well, in all fairness to him, how could he stop then?

    Denials won’t get him anywhere, since hostile people will assume their false – and bigots that want him to be one out of fellowship will assume it’s just cover, won’t they?

      1. Trump’s not the one making the racists statements. Trump says we need to stop illegals at the border. The media says he hates Mexicans. Trump says we shouldn’t take refuges from terrorists countries until we can vet them. The media says he hates Muslims.

        No matter what Trump says, the media will slander him.

        That’s what the media does. Not just to Trump, but anyone no matter how eloquent, that defies the narrative. Kellyanne Conway is everything Trump isn’t as a speaker. Watch what they try to do to her and she’s one of the best.

        Nobody can meet the standard required to fight the media narrative. Those preaching to the choir do not count. I’m talking about breaking the media stranglehold on popular culture. People talking to themselves in a bubble are not effective.

        What Trump does is break thru the media blockade, which may not be effective with snobs but it’s working otherwise.

      1. I continue to have faith in you Rand. I find it interesting that given the same set of facts, so many different conclusions are drawn. I don’t really know her, but some value her opinion.

        1. Hey, I have only one degree of separation because Ms. Schlafly autographed my copy of Strike From Space.

          You see, the Soviets were going to put a Super Sized version of their Tsara Bomba (“Emperor of Bombs”) on top of their high “throw weight” liquid-fueled ICBMS, and they would have the capability to blanket the continental U.S. with, not an airburst but a simultaneous “spacebursts” that would wipe us out completely.

          The only counter to this is if we went ahead with the (then) Nike Zeus/Nike X anti-ballistic missile system. And if the powerful radars produced interference on our TV sets, we should tell our kids to count themselves lucky that they were protected from the Space Age version of Pearl Harbor. (Do you think I am making any of this up?)

          At the book signing, Ms. Schlafly was amplifying the themes in the book, explaining to us about President Kennedy’s cancelation of the Skybolt missile (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAM-87_Skybolt), which (in her words) “sold our allies down the tubes!”

          Only years later did I learn what she was talking about. During a tour of the Kennedy Space Center some dozen years later, I saw a Skybolt on static display in the outdoor Gallery of Rockets that the bus drove past. Many years later, I saw that PBS documentary “An Ocean Apart” about the sold-out allies (one ally, Great Britain), where “we” were going to share the Skybolt with Britain to maintain the credibility of their V-Bombers (Valiant, Victor, and Vulcan) in the face of improved Soviet air defenses (or defences as they spell them).

          This seriously embarrassed Conservative British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan (Macmillan of the textbook publishing family), which was sort of, kind of smoothed over by substituting the Polaris submarine as the offer for Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent.

          (According to PBS!), the “Suez Crisis” as well as the “Skybolt fiasco” resulted in a great deal of loss-of-face on Britain and perhaps contributed to the U.S. “going it alone” with the Australians and South Koreans but not the British to help us in Vietnam. This rift in the WW-II Anglo-American alliance was probably only healed by the Thatcher-Bush I effort in the Gulf War Coalition, yet their are probably still people in England with memories that long.

          Yes, Rand, Ms. Schlafly may be “over the top” but she has a track record of “being on top of things” well in advance of the pack.

  8. I remember the 1992 election pretty well. Ross Perot had a point, lots of them. He managed to get on the ballot in all 50 states. And then he got 19% of the vote, which is incredible for an independent. If he had actually won and implemented his economic policies, the US would have been much better off.

    But that 19% of the vote that went to Perot was mostly from the right. The end result was Bill Clinton in the White House.

    Is the NeverTrump crowd 40% of Republicans, 19% of the population? Because 100% of Democrats are ForHillary.

    As of this moment, Trump has had a more thorough vetting than Obama. There is no way any party other than the Republicans can beat Hillary. Assuming they are both healthy all the way through to election day, the day after only one of the two will be President-elect.

    If the Republicans remain a house divided come election day, then Hillary wins. If that happens, will there be anything left to conserve in 2020?

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