I watched some of Trump’s El Paso speech yesterday
Unusual for me to watch a speech. I happened to come across it while channel surfing, and I noticed a couple of things in particular.
The first is that Trump seemed to be enjoying himself immensely. He loves this sort of speech, similar to his stump appearances, with the crowd yelling back at him and a lot of ad libs. This characteristic of real enjoyment isn’t quite as common in politicians as one might think. He’s relaxed up there.
Trump makes the audience have fun, too. In fact, he alluded to this in his speech when he said something like “Is there anything that’s more fun than a Trump rally?” and the crowd roared back its approval.
One of the specific things Trump said that struck me—and that might become some sort of recurrent theme in his 2020 campaign—was something like “Democrats have to stop being so angry.” Democrats would of course counter with “We have an awful lot to be angry about,” followed by a list of what they consider injustices and outrages committed by Trump and the GOP, or at least what they think they can convince you to consider injustices and outrages committed by Trump and the GOP.
But “Democrats=angry” would be an interesting approach by Trump, one that might be effective. One of the reasons people liked Reagan was that he was happy and upbeat. Trump remains happy and upbeat as well for the most part, despite all the challenges he’s experienced as president. The Democrats are many things, but upbeat is not generally one of them—although I actually think that Obama’s conveying an upbeat message is one of the things that attracted people in 2008 to the “hope and change” mantra, and one of the things that attracts people even today to none other than AOC, who conveys energetic and optimistic faith in her most preposterous and destructive policy proposals at the same time she conveys pessimism about a future without those proposals.
I think Kamala Harris is the likely nominee for the Democrats and she is a very angry woman. If she stumbles, Michelle Obama might slip in and she is even angrier. Angry black women is certainly a constituency but a very small one.
Yep. Given the current state of the Democratic Party, I think she has it pretty much in the bag, especially considering her latest thoughtful, leadership-laden pronouncements:
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/kamala-harris-says-she-listened-to-snoop-dogg-tupac-while-smoking-weed-in-college-years-before-they-made-music
(The “facts-don’t-matter-because-we’re-morally-right” Democratic Party, that is.)
MAGA is one of the greatest campaign slogans evah. The SOTU address and the El Paso speech said “Friends, dump the nattering nabobs of negativism. Come join us on the bandwagon”.
President Trump’s poll numbers improved greatly after his SOTU speech. He reminded us of the exceptional and optimistic “can do” spirit that is historically and quintessentially American. That spirit drove a rag-tag army of citizens to fight the mightiest military in the world, because they fought for liberty. It drove us to join our allies in fighting for their liberty in WWII. It made America great, and although the current enemy is domestic rather than foreign, with Trump at the helm, we can win again. That spirit ignites Trump’s rallies.
The democratic party is composed of numerous victims groups so the democrats have to tell them how awful things are and how they are being mistreated by the racist, sexist, homophobic republicans. The democrats have to stoke the anger and hatred of their victims groups. You saw this with Mitt Romney. The democrats claimed Romney cheats on his taxes, he gives women cancer, he’s mean to his dog, he closes business and puts people out of work. He was a monster.
The wind up of the rally was especially good:
” Each of us here tonight is united by the same timeless values. We believe in the American Constitution and our great rule of law. We believe in the dignity of work and the sanctity of life. We believe that faith and family, not government and bureaucracy, are the center of the American way. We believe in religious liberty, the right to free speech and the right to keep and bear arms. We believe that children should be taught to love our country, honor our incredible history and always respect our great American flag. We believe that the first duty of government is to be loyal to its citizens and we live by the words of our national motto that we are going to keep and never change: In God We Trust. These are the beliefs, traditions and principles that bind us together.”
A credo for the American people. Who in America doesn’t subscribe to these? Unfortunately, most progressives don’t. But it certainly appeals to the majority of Americans. A fine platform for 2020 and beyond.
Barry,
A bit off-topic: Everyone is focusing on Harris’ claim that she smoked weed during college while listening to SnoopDog etc which has a timeline issue in that she had long graduated before that “music” came out. However, to me, what her statement really says is that she was toking up long AFTER college, so her statement that she was listening to that music is probably truthful; she’s been stoned since the early 1990’s.
Barry Meislin on February 12, 2019 at 11:58 am at 11:58 am said:
Yep. Given the current state of the Democratic Party, I think she has it pretty much in the bag, especially considering her latest thoughtful, leadership-laden pronouncements:
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/kamala-harris-says-she-listened-to-snoop-dogg-tupac-while-smoking-weed-in-college-years-before-they-made-music
(The “facts-don’t-matter-because-we’re-morally-right” Democratic Party, that is.)
* * *
But did she dodge sniper fire in Bosnia?
The choices of what to high-light in a speech are an “eye-popping” clue to the ideology of the media institution doing the high-lighting.
Compare and contrast to Neo’s take, and others on the Right of Lenin.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/12/politics/donald-trump-el-paso-beto-orourke/index.html
The 50 most eye-popping lines from Donald Trump’s El Paso speech
Chris Cillizza
Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large
Updated 11:40 AM ET, Tue February 12, 2019
(essentially a Fisking of the statements Cilizza disagrees with)
* * *
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/in-el-paso-donald-trump-attacks-beto-orourkeand-all-democrats
In El Paso, Donald Trump Attacks Beto O’Rourke—and All Democrats
By Amy Davidson Sorkin2:23 P.M.
(Republicans Pounce)
* * *
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/02/11/watch_live_president_trump_holds_2020_campaign_rally_in_el_paso_texas.html
President Donald Trump held a ‘Make America Great Again’ rally Monday night in El Paso, Texas, just a few blocks away from the border.
Former Democratic Congressman from El Paso, Beto O’Rourke, led a protest march against Trump and the wall at the same time less than a mile away.
(at least they posted the full video)
Too bad Agnew is not alive to see this. Pat Buchanan in his book, “Nixon’s White House Wars” writes about how much he loved Agnew and his willingness to go out and give fiery speeches. The White House staff were horrified and the squishes, like Richardson and Finch, tried to shut him up. He would have loved Trump.
The excerpt JJ quoted begins at clip 108 in this segmented video & transcript.
Some of the machine transcripts are funny, but CNN’s Cilliza gets them right, so he can make fun of them. Everything he laughed at is, in context, quite understandable and often not at all what Chris implies.
ALL transcripted speeches have the kind of hiccups that he derides (try reading one from a talking-heads interview or round-table!).
The Left hates that Trump can ad-lib and Obama couldn’t.
(Chris & Company never worried about the hiccups in Obama’s speeches, did they?)
https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-speech-maga-rally-el-paso-february-11-2019
[This is a machine transcript written automatically by the AI on our platform, Margaret. She’s good, but not perfect. Please double check any quotes against the video. We will replace this with a proofread transcript when complete.]
“…long AFTER…”
Sounds entirely plausible. Well, extenuating circumstances, I guess. Perfectly understandable. Moreover, the fact the she admitted, unabashedly, that she actually inhaled(!) makes her that much more presidential.
(Hey, maybe something similar happened to Elizabeth Warren: toking away while reading “Last of the Mohicans”…and in the sweetish, hallucinatory haze of fickle memory, she came to…and there she was, in the lodge smack in the middle of a sweetgrass ceremony…. We’ll have to forgive her, too, I guess.)
On the other hand, both of them might consider taking some kind of responsibility and, well—yes, I realize it’s a stretch—apologize….
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/02/the-apology-this-time.php
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/02/the-apology-this-time-2.php
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/02/the-apology-this-time-3.php
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/02/the-apology-this-time-4.php
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/02/the-apology-this-time-5.php
Trump supporter attacks BBC cameraman at El Paso rally
Well, you’ve got on manju. 9,999 to go.
Manju:
Do you know what “grasping at straws” means?
Hurray! Manju is back after the democrat debacle in the Old Dominion. The fat lady hasn’t sung yet in that show. Who knew? Not Manju.
Manju is also with the crickets on OAC’s New Green Deal. Are some things truly indefensible?
Neo,
Aren’t most straws being eliminated. Manju will need some long arms.
Trump’s free-form speeches are what first caught my attention, long before I took him seriously as a candidate. He’s up there saying outrageous things that *no one* in politics would dare say as if he’s telling stories in a bar. For example, when he would mock Hillary about her email, or (quite rightly, as it turns out) mention that maybe Hillary and Huma’s connection to Anthony Weiner was a national security risk. His DC critics seem to miss how genuine Trump is in so many of his public appearances and on twitter. Yes, that can be cringeworthy when he goes for the jugular, but really entertaining.
If there are more “attacks” on the media during these events, I would have to question if there is an attempt to make Trump look bad. Anyone can buy a hat, get into a rally and then create some havoc. It would be interesting to see if he was arrested and so someone can search on his name.
Trump referenced “COME AND TAKE IT” the Texans at Gonzales when the Mexican wanted to retrieve their cannon and then the flag at the Alamo. Trump has cast his lot with us gun guys in his El Paso speech.
Good to know you have no problem with Omar’s blatant Jew-hatred, manju? Why do you want me dead? By the way do you know that is the definition of troll, someone who only comes in to jump on somebody? I doubt you know because you are very, very stupid.
Tell me more about Jussie Smollett’s attack there Manju…was this one similar in kind? You know…false flag or did someone get tired of the Brit being an arse?
Lizzy:
From the beginning of his campaign, Trump has always spoken what the ordinary people were actually thinking, cf. the Democrats, who were saying what they thought the ordinary people should be thinking.
“…angry…”
To be fair here, I don’t think Trump meant “angry”.
“Angry” is a euphemism.
I’m almost certain he meant to say “insane”.
He was being nice.
What I don’t really understand though is, how do you tell someone NOT to be insane? And how do you tell an entire political party NOT to be insane?
I mean, it’s a free country. If an individual chooses to be insane, then well… If an entire political party chooses to be insane, then well…
Yes, I know that not everyone “chooses” to be insane—that’s ridiculous, not to mention disrespectful and extremely unempathetic (lack of empathy these days being right up there with racism as worse than being a mass murderer in many cases)—but what I mean is, if choosing one’s gender is now a choice, then why can’t (though not always, certainly) choosing to be insane.
Note that by saying “choosing” to be insane, we are giving that person the benefit of the doubt. We are giving that political party the benefit of the doubt.
This simply because if, say, Maxine Walters chooses to be insane, then she can choose NOT to be insane. (Actually, maybe Maxine Walters is not a great example.)
OK, let’s take Kamala Harris. Or Elizabeth Warren. Or Ilhan Omar. Or AOC. They seem sane enough, at least some of the time—but they seem to keep on making these insane proposals. These insane pronouncements. These insane policy positions.
Consistently.
I mean, Elizabeth Warren seems to know that she’s been lying through her teeth for decades (otherwise, why did she want to side-step certain, um, let’s call them discrepancies in her stories—and her DNA?). AOC seems to know that she’s a kook (otherwise, why did she take down her anti-bovine screed from the Internet? Though to be fair to AOC, maybe she is, in fact, one of those rare paragons who never, ever breaks wind). Kamala Harris has also back-tracked on some of her more, um, “creative” pronouncements. And Ilhan Omar has apologized for making some heartfelt sentiments—sentiments that she truly believes—and we know it was hard for her to do so because she keeps making them and then apologizing for them. Again and again. Being a serial apologizer must indicate that she has a sense of right and wrong (even if in her case, the “wrong” lies in being forced by insidious JEW/ZIO manipulators to apologize for what she truly believes in her heart of hearts).
Presumably, therefore, there is a certain self-awareness there.
Clearly, therefore, Trump was being nice (all things being relative).
He said “angry”.
But he meant something else entirely.
In my previous post, I should have written “Maxine Waters”. Apologies for any confusion caused….
Trump having FUN. He likes to be the center — and even if the Trump-haters don’t like him insulting them (back), they like the attention from him.
He’s barely getting enough cash to avoid calling it a defeat on the Wall. It’s likely going to be a big issue in 2020 — with him going to the purple districts, having big rallies, and telling the folks there that we need real Reps who will really vote for money for the Wall.
Then Trump wins, Reps take the House back, and the Wall gets funded.
Even red-hot Dem anger won’t last over 4 years with better econ news.
(So, a recession in 2020? Trump’s fault. He loses in 2020? quite possible, too.)
The Democrats are going full 1972 on us. It’s never wise to go full 1972 in politics.
(So, a recession in 2020? Trump’s fault. He loses in 2020? quite possible, too.)
George Mitchell was able to engineer a recession in 1992 because he was Senate Majority Leader. The Democrats can’t do it from the House alone.
Real estate developers spend a lot of their time raising money. Some from these investors, some from those, some from a bank or banks, some from insurance companies, wherever he can get what he needs to get the deal moving. Trump will take what he can get from Congress, from other agencies, wherever he can find the money. When he says, “I know construction,” he doesn’t just mean the building part.
Grumpy, obdurate Asses. Let them bray.
That said, build the wall to secure Americans’ civil rights and safeguard the children and elderly from alien antigens.
That said, emigration reform to reduce collateral damage, economic progress, child trafficking, and rape-rape of feminine females along the trail, at both ends of the bridge and throughout. Unplanned parenthood, human rights, and duck dynasties, for a viable, sustainable future.
Manju on February 12, 2019 at 5:01 pm at 5:01 pm said:
One of the specific things Trump said that struck me—and that might become some sort of recurrent theme in his 2020 campaign—was something like “Democrats have to stop being so angry.”
Trump supporter attacks BBC cameraman at El Paso rally
* * *
From the link:
The blogger, also wearing a MAGA hat, was not identified by the BBC here.
Anyway, let’s go to the other match on the double-bill that day:
https://www.breitbart.com/border/2019/02/12/video-beto-supporters-use-bat-to-beat-hanging-trump-effigy/
Looks angry to me.
* * *
Check out this story from the local reporters, which contains a couple of things I hadn’t remembered seeing before: the first explains why O’Rourke chose this rally to signal (although not yet announce) his candidacy for president, and the second signals that his team has a very bad grasp of political optics.
https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/2019/02/12/beto-rally-el-paso-protest-trump-2020-presidential-campaign-at-county-coliseum/2844799002/
If you kept watching the BBC video (1:11 mark), you saw some of Trump’s supporters take a flag from a woman* and throw it over the railing: the banner was black with white lettering, which I was not able to read, but the waves and folds made the script look vaguely Arabic.
Kinda like these.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Standard
Really bad optics.
(*the woman herself was not harmed)
Richard Saunders on February 13, 2019 at 11:58 am at 11:58 am said:
Real estate developers spend a lot of their time raising money. Some from these investors, some from those, some from a bank or banks, some from insurance companies, wherever he can get what he needs to get the deal moving. Trump will take what he can get from Congress, from other agencies, wherever he can find the money. When he says, “I know construction,” he doesn’t just mean the building part.
* * *
That thought struck me as well, after reading some of the stories on where he could squeeze some bucks out of the Executive agencies.
But, he needs to be careful when he does it.
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2019/02/13/dem-rep-threatens-retribution-if-disaster-relief-funds-used-to-finance-wall-trump-will-pay-heavy-price/
Tom Grey on February 13, 2019 at 11:12 am at 11:12 am said:
…
He’s barely getting enough cash to avoid calling it a defeat on the Wall. It’s likely going to be a big issue in 2020 — with him going to the purple districts, having big rallies, and telling the folks there that we need real Reps who will really vote for money for the Wall.
* * *
The Democrat stone-walling on The Wall might be bad for border security, but it’s one of the best things they could do to guarantee Trump gets re-elected. They have given him the opportunity to keep calling them out as hard-core haters of the voting public that elected him, and their transparently dangerous intransigence may be giving some of the fence-sitters second thoughts.
Barry Meislin on February 12, 2019 at 4:47 pm at 4:47 pm said:
“On the other hand, both of them might consider taking some kind of responsibility and, well—yes, I realize it’s a stretch—apologize….”
* * *
I have a post to add to Barry’s list about Ilhan Omar.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/02/13/local-jewish-leaders-staged-intervention-with-ilhan-omar-in-2018-very-troubled-by-the-answers-we-received/
Another speech that is going to get President Trump more support.
All of it is about thanking other people, and what he intends to do to help them.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/02/13/president-trump-speech-to-u-s-sheriffs-and-major-city-police-chiefs/