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A Slip Twixt the Cup and the Lip? [Updated]
This is not good at all. President Trump unleashed a series of tweets that have cut short the story about Democrats self-destructing, making him and us the targets now. I don’t know how he’s going to dig himself out of his false claim that any of the “’Progressive’ Democrat Congresswomen,” other than Ilhan Omar, came from another country.
So interesting to see “Progressive” Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly……
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 14, 2019
….it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 14, 2019
They are, as they are happy to point out, “women of color,” so the race card is just too easy to play here. Indeed, President Trump knew this as he chided AOC and her “squad” for falsely accusing Nancy Pelosi of racism. Before he tweeted this Sunday, Maureen Dowd of The New York Times was attacking AOC for her false claims of racism, in a piece mockingly titled “Scaling Wokeback Mountain.” The AOC Squad was advocating “grabbing” power from the old leadership. They were busy self-destructing and President Trump had added fuel to the fire, saying “[Pelosi] is not a racist.” In doing so, the president was voicing the sensible middle of American thought.
The “Squad:” Reps. Ilhan Omar (Minn.), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.)
Then he rolled out a variant of “go back where you came from.” This was a bad move. Had he only addressed Ilhan Omar (“she,” not “they”), he would be on very solid ground. Had he called out the others for loathing the country of their birth that had given them such advantages, including a path to become Congresswomen, he would have been preaching to the sensible center. Instead he created a mess.
He hates apologizing, but here he is going to have to clean up his own mess. Otherwise, he is going to lose reelection and hand the whole Congress to the Democrats. No matter how much he touts economic advances and criminal justice reform helping racial minorities, he has just made a vote for him toxic to suburban women and all the darker skinned ethnic groups he has actually dedicated his administration to helping.
Every member of the administration, every member of Congress, every state and local official, will be forced to denounce these tweets and President Trump for typing them. Time for him to show a skill he has not had to use, finding some way to turn this unforced blunder into a political win.
John Hinderaker calls this “A Blunder of Epic Proportions.” I’m not sure about the magnitude, but it certainly makes a tough reelection tougher. To get how bad the Democrats were doing before President Trump just helped them, see this: “Democrats Start to Worry.” Maureen Dowd was criticizing AOC. The “Squad” was split from Pelosi. PresidentTrump has put them back together, for now, with Pelosi defending the progressive congresswomen who had been attacking her.
When @realDonaldTrump tells four American Congresswomen to go back to their countries, he reaffirms his plan to “Make America Great Again” has always been about making America white again.
Our diversity is our strength and our unity is our power. https://t.co/ODqqHneyES
— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) July 14, 2019
President Trump seems to recognize his blunder. He has already responded to responses in this way:
….and the many terrible things they say about the United States must not be allowed to go unchallenged. If the Democrat Party wants to continue to condone such disgraceful behavior, then we look even more forward to seeing you at the ballot box in 2020!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 15, 2019
The only fix, in our “Ronnie Raygun the nuclear cowboy,” “Bushitler” “pubic hair on Coke can” “high school rape” reality, is to go on offense. Yet, that offensive must be effective. Tucker Carlson was far more focused and careful in his attack on Ilhan Omar, not conflating any facts with the life stories of her allies in Congress. Perhaps President Trump should be tweeting something like this:
The other Progressive Democrat Congresswomen, who work together, aren’t in the same category as Ilhan Omar. While they all attack America and defend bad foreign governments, only Omar was born outside America…
All the other Progressive Democrat Congresswomen were blessed to be born here but show hate for our country and want to change America to be like the countries so many people are leaving to come here…
My mistake: the “Progressive Democrat Congresswomen” only sound like government mouthpieces from countries whose people these Democrats support more than our legal immigrants and long time American citizens who are ethnic minorities…
Sad, contempt for America is homegrown through our schools and media. The Progressive Democrat Congresswomen, except Congresswoman Omar, have contempt for the country of their birth and success, America. They should go to their hometowns and count the blessings of being born here.
I don’t say President Trump has thrown away the 2020 election. He continues to have strength among the “battle ground states,” with a diverse range of voters who “love him because he listens.” Indeed, there is growing bipartisan buzz that President Trump will be reelected. There is even talk of Democrats worrying about holding the House.
[Monday midday update]
To this end, President Trump has both worked and communicated tirelessly to win over voters who no Republican has ever really fought for in past elections. What do you think the president is doing when he reels off “best African-American employment rate ever, most Latinos, most women working ever?” Stop and really think on this: why does he recite these figures every week, virtually every time he steps in front of any microphone?
You will not get the obvious answer from conservative talk radio or pundits, entrenched in what has always worked for them with their audience. Indeed, Monday morning found talk show hosts pretending President Trump was only tweeting about one congresswoman (don’t believe your lying eyes), or waving it off as Trump being Trump (no big deal if he scratches an Archie Bunker itch), and after all the congresswomen had it coming. The messaging only reinforces core support while amplifying the old message that minorities don’t matter to Republican election plans. Contrast this response to Tucker Carlson getting fired up and hectoring the administration anytime he senses the president steering foreign policy towards the dreaded “neocons.”
Sadly, there is no public voice, besides the president, invested in expanding the electoral coalition, in confounding the Democrats’ plan for long term demographic dominance. President Trump has sought to do well by doing good for demographic groups long written off, taken for granted, by both parties. Now, as he seeks to close the deal, he has made a misstep with people who have never voted for a Republican before, but who he is striving to sell on himself.
I do say President Trump put words on virtual paper that will be rammed down every Republican’s throat. He needs to turn the conversation, again, and not in the good loser direction. Roll out a string of tweets like I suggest above and everyone can say “I don’t need to defend the President’s tweets; President Trump has corrected them completely.”
Published in Politics
I doubt very much that he will apologize. He almost never does. And it is bad. On the other hand, the tweets are so frequent that we can hope that this one disappears into the ether like so many of the others. But I doubt it will. Let’s see if someone else does a worse demonstration of foot-in-mouth in the meantime. That we can hope for.
Barely winning won’t work again. The left is fired up. They have the mechanisms in place to produce enough ballots in the right districts to win, I think. As Hugh Hewitt wrote years ago, If It’s Not Close, They Can’t Cheat. President Trump needs the 2020 votes of a significant number of people who have materially benefited from the past two and a half years and who did not show up to vote for Trump in 2016.
I think he knows this and has been trying to make the case for people to vote for him where they have not voted for a Republican since perhaps Reagan. He needs to help them get there, not create cross-pressures.
He was using a common figure of speech, as he often does. And as far as I can tell only the extant anti-Trumpers are upset about it.
Personally I hope it brings to focus the destructive policies being touted by those in question and once the manufactured furor over indelicate comments ends there’s no place else left to go.
I don’t know if this helps or hurts Trump politically, but he was magnificent if you ask me. It bothers the heck out of me when immigrants (and I’m a child of immigrants) come here and do nothing but knock this country. And these anti-American morons escaped from crap-hole countries. What friggin nerve. They could go to hell, or better yet, go back to the crap hole they came from.
If you want my opinion, he should definitely not apologize.
I’m going with the spirit of the tweets. Since they are socialists, maybe Communists, who are for open borders, they may as well be considered agents of a foreign power. An American citizen is not precluded from acting unAmerican and advocating bringing down our Constitutional republic. It is sad that we have people elected to Congress doing such things. That is what the President is saying and I think he has that right.
And. The words of his tweets addressed American born congresswomen. Only Omar was born in another country. The retort to Omar might be “go back to where you were born,” but the retort to the others has to be a bit different, like “stop being so ungrateful and hateful of your own country.”
I get your point. I also see he needs more votes this time around. He cannot afford to throw away any voter who he has been working to gain. He hits the good news by demographic every week. He needs not to make a switch in party vote toxic.
Trump does not need to fight Nancy Pelosi’s battles. Pelosi is the political opposition, the squad of four are the enemy of America.
It is not bad. How many times have we heard this “blunder of epic proportions” wander out into the conventional thinking about President Trump, and the pronouncements of ‘now he’s done.’
Chill Out!
There are those who customarily vote Democrat who have some awareness of what Communists advocate. We need those voters to know these elected Congresswomen are working to tear down the republic.
I thought it brilliant to defend Pelosi as not being a racist. Stirred the pot on the internal D fight.
I thought the “return to where you came from” tweets were a mistake because (1) he sounds like somebody lazily regurgitating talking points he heard on Fox News without checking them out for accuracy – 3 of the 4 Squad members are native born Americans, and (2) he now places himself directly in the line of fire for both Pelosi and the Squad. I bet Democrats are relieved about that.
Like you, my concern is the 2020 election. Trump amping up his base and those who are going to vote for him regardless (you can count me in) is besides the point. What Trump does in his tweets is not going to impact those who already like him, or have at least made their peace with him, nor progressive line Democrats.
The election is likely to be close and to be decided with a small margin of persuadable voters as to whether their personal revulsion about Trump or the craziness of the Democratic Party is the more powerful factor in determining their vote. I try to talk to folks to get a sense of where they are and have encountered a lot of folks who are generally in favor of his policy positions (stripped of the rhetoric surrounding them) but just can’t stand the Donald. This was a self-own that will not help with any of them because it reinforces every bad image they have of the man.
The good news is there is a long way to go before the election and the Democrats will continue to be nuts. I just don’t want to make their path easier.
So what. If they are not immigrants, they are children of immigrants. They are an ungrateful lot of hags.
Has anyone noticed how quickly the Democrats and their supportive media correct their misstatements?
I agree. Perhaps he could have said it better (not the first time for that either), but he gets to the truth about these commie ingrates. This great country has afforded them amazing opportunities and all they ever do is criticize it. They infer that other countries are doing it better and that we should give up our sovereignty to open borders. This deserves to be called out for what it is.
If America is so bad, they should leave and go back to the countries of their ancestors. Good riddance.
The strategy is to make the squad stronger and SanFranNan weaker. Mission accomplished.
I think the President’s 2020 campaign should lead with the question:
‘Are we really going to elect a bunch of ‘commies’ to govern America. Keep America Great.’
He should clarify and refine the attack.
He should not apologize. Never ever apologize to someone who won’t accept it under any circumstance.
Yeah, he could say something like: ‘Well, if they acted like they were born here and loved America, I wouldn’t need to say anything’.
Who on Fox News would have first gurgitated something like these “talking points?” He’s done this enough that he’s the only one to blame.
With all due respect, given the millions and millions of words to be spilled over the next fifteen months by the multitude of candidates for the highest office, several of whom are easily among the dumbest people to ever run for any public office on these shores and all whom are (or will be forced into becoming) proud socialists/communists (i.e. fundamentally toxic to intelligent, liberty loving beings), if this yet-again-overplayed kerfuffle has even the tiniest of impacts on the elections of November 2020 then the Republic isn’t currently worth a warm bucket of spit anyway.
Oh my god. Trump sent out a tweet that upset those easily upset. The world can care less. It only maters to the self important people on Twitter.
Nicely played. Perhaps a post to that effect?
Don’t hate the player, hate the game. It is what it has long been, hence my advocacy of of offense, a particular direction of offense, and not defense.
It was a really stupid self-inflicted mistake, and it’s especially stupid because he was doing a great job trolling them until now. He does this often enough and we can kiss 2020 goodbye. I have no idea what the Never Trumpers think. I know what people who voted for him think.
Much of my family voted for Trump, always with the line “I don’t like the guy, but I’ll vote for him”. That’s not the kind of support he gets on Ricochet; all we want to hear is “I’ll vote for him” but we don’t even hear the first part, “I don’t like the guy”. Two and a half years in, this is not good; it’s not the way they talked about Reagan. It’s the way they talked about GWB after 2005.
The Dems might not be able to beat Trump, but Trump can beat Trump. Anyone who thinks he can’t is kidding themselves.
Yes. I try to make that point at the end.
This is true. But I still loved the tweets. I have been thinking the same thing for some months.
And. We need just enough of them to feel it is acceptable to actually cross party lines, to go against their family, friends, coworkers, and own voting history. President Trump has just written that a whole group of women, all of whose pictures we have all seen, are not native-born Americans. He was flatly factually wrong, surely knew it, and weakened his strong hand, at least in the short term.
I personally want President Trump to win reelection. I’m voting for him, as I did in 2016. I also know he made his 2016 victory harder than it had to be, with his false attack on Ted Cruz as a liar. That cost some votes. I don’t care what you think of Cruz. Recognize reality.
He would have been equally effective against Cruz if he had quickly flipped from “liar” to “laaaaw-yer Ted.” Cruz supporters, like me, would have had to concede that Cruz’s real resume was as a courtroom lawyer, not a leader of anything. That would mean we were not being called supporters of a liar. That would have moved another percentage or so in the incredibly close races into DJT’s column.
Again, read two paragraphs up. I voted for Trump after voting for Cruz in the primary. I did so without hesitation. You know the body of my work here. I am stone cold serious about 2020 really mattering, as 2016 did.
When I read “…totally broken and crime infested places where they came from.” in the OP I thought he was referring to the congressional districts they represent.
And that further demonstrates the problem of how bad the tweet was. Pressley’s congressional district consists of much of the city of Boston and the wealthy suburbs surrounding it. It’s boom times in MA and there’s no crime epidemic. AOC’s district in NY is part of city where crime rates have plummented over the past 25 years. Omar’s district is the city of Minneapolis and its suburbs which are also doing well.
Trump’s right — if they hate it so much here why don’t they go somewhere else?
I loved his tweets.
You really think it’s a bad thing that he forced Pelosi to embrace Cortez and Omar, who she’s been trying to distance herself from all week?
Except that isn’t what he wrote. He wrote:
Only one Congresswoman originally came from a country whose government…
The other three were born and raised in the USA as American citizens from birth. Trump flat out screwed up with the very voters he is working so hard to gain so he gets all the additional votes he will need next year. He could and should have made the strong point about the Congresswomen’s hatred and ingratude without falsely claiming three darker skinned women are not American native born.