Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
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
The average voter does not possess the intellect of the OP author.
And there is no nuance in Twitterverse. The subtlety of … (“she,” not “they”) … has no importance in the world of the soundbite.
And this soundbite is but one more in a series of defending the greatness of America. And the voting blocs that the President will need 15 months from now, understood his directness on defending America from obvious Commies seeking to undermine her from within. Sure, this means that David French won’t vote for him next year. Sad.
In the environment of our immigration debate, ‘Love It Or Leave It’ is not a mistake or an object of scorn outside the walls of the Chamber of Commerce. This is a direct response to the common drumbeat that comes from the democrat party about how awful America is. Horse hockey. If America is so awful, how come so many are risking so much to come into our country illegally, encouraged by the ‘great empathy’ (sic) of these four arrogant and ungrateful Shrew Squad.
And I still believe that the primary motivation for our President was to keep these four Poster Girls around for as long as possible. Nancy was poised to relegate them to the back bench and possibly help to primary all of them. Not now. Nah, baby, nah. Now Nancy has to pretend that they are relevant and that she has their backs. And now they are all distracted again by proudly defending their own “American-ness”, while at the same time criticizing its horrible policies and legacy. Yeah, good luck with that girls.
Pass the popcorn.
Assign me the day and I’ll do it boss.
While this has an element of “Trump’s playing 4-d chess while the rest are playing checkers” [ which I’ve never believed – Trump isn’t a genius, although he does have savant-like trolling capabilities] , it does have a certain ring of truth to it.
And with regard to this … I think sometimes he just gets “lucky” with his gut intuitions. He is not a genius, but things work out and much more clever people read a 4-D genius into it … after the fact. Covfefe!
And … that is greatly satisfying, hilarious and appropriate. All at the same time.
Winning.
^This.
There are so many ways Trump could have trolled Pelosi and the Democrats on this without being either 1. Factually incorrect or 2. Bigoted.
Sadly…
#36 Tom Meyer
Nothing in the least bit bigoted about the President’s tweets.
No one made this about the skin color of the 3 US-born Squalid (er, Squad) members except… the Congresswomen themselves, plus Nancy jumping in and alleging white supremacist longings.
People aren’t stupid, nor are they polite beyond the thin veneer of civilization … they agree with Trump’s sentiment even if he was inaccurate. If the Dems try to use this against him in the election it would garner him even more votes from the many fence sitters who don’t vote because leadership is too mealy mouthed.
OK, well, if one wants to find hidden meanings in what Trump didn’t say then one can.
Trump didn’t screw up anything. He didn’t say that Cortez or Tlaib or anyone was not born in the US.
It’s amazing to me that Trump could throw down his cloak over a puddle to allow the queen to walk though and no one would have a clue that it’s chivalry.
Please explain in what way these tweets were 1. factually inaccurate or 2. bigoted.
No doubt the walls are closing in. Youtube
#28 Gumby Mark
Massachusetts native here (albeit currently Japan-based).
Ayanna Pressley’s district has become distinctly less safe for Americans (and green-card Israelis) who would prefer not to have to worry about whether they will get shouted at, roughed up, or be subjected to other forms of assault & battery simply due to lawfully-expressed support for Israel and Zionism.
There was a close call on the Boston Common the other year, for example, when a young Trump supporter not only donned a MAGA hat but also donned an Israeli flag as a makeshift cape, and then proceeded to walk through a thicket of Antifa types and their hangers-on.
This was a deliberate experiment on the young man’s part, and he proved his point when someone from the Antifa thicket knocked the hat off of his head — the thicket then moved to close in on him but fortunately he was hustled away by allies in time.
More recently, a Chanukkiah (Chanukkah menorah) that had been legally set up on Cambridge Common was deliberately knocked down in broad daylight by an as-yet-unapprehended vandal on a bicycle; this would have been unheard-of 10 years ago.
Even more recently, there was a series of near-miss arson attempts on Chabad House locations in suburban Arlington (I think on the demarcation line with Pressley’s district) and Needham (not Pressley’s district) — it would seem that the as-yet-unapprehended would-be arsonist was the same person in both locations; and again, something that would have been unheard-of 10 years earlier or so.
Note well, too, that Pressley’s district (at the time represented by Michael Capuano) gifted the Bay State with the Tsarnaev Brothers. Similarly, while I don’t know if the main part of Northeastern University is within Pressley’s district, in any event it has become a hotbed of SJP/Students for Justice in Palestine agitation (SJP constantly crosses the line from soi-disant anti-Zionism into outright anti-Semitic harassment), and indeed of Al Qaeda sympathizing (as evidenced by student protests against the lawful conviction of a Sudbury, MA-based Al Qaeda wannabe-affiliate in his early twenties, a few years back). Certainly Tufts University is in Pressley’s district, and while not quite as virulent as Northeastern, it has gotten quite awful in terms of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic advocacy nevertheless.
Quite frankly, a lot of the above-described atmosphere of anti-Zionist, and perforce Judeophobic, intimidation and unease stems from an unprecedentedly large influx into the Boston area of university-age men and women from various reaches of the Islamic world; having myself been in the area from Summer 2000 through Spring 2002, and contrasting my impressions of the Islamic-world-hailing population then versus my impressions nowadays, I have to posit that this influx was surely due to a deliberate “surging” policy devised and executed by local-area higher-education administrators.
The Jews are the canaries even in Massachusetts.
Trump’s telling three natural-born Americans to go back to their “original” countries is bigoted.
The same would be true of any leftist antisemite who told Jared Kushner to “go home.”
Already gave my reasons for #2.
Regarding #1, only Omar is “originally from” another country.
Please an example of Trump telling a natural-born American to go back to their “original” country.
The “Progressive Democrat Congresswomen” referenced in Trump’s tweet, Omar excepted.
#44 Tom Meyer
Rashida Tlaib, for one, along with her mother and various well-wishers in attendance (Post-It notes at the ready to cover up Israel’s location on maps with hand-scribbled “Palestine” markers), seemed quite over-the-top intent on making her Congressional swearing-in ceremony into a singularly focused celebration of a national identity and set of political/sovereignty interests decidedly unconnected to the United States of America.
This is another occasion where I heard about something Trump wrote/said and it sounded bad, and then I went and looked at what he actually said and it didn’t seem so bad.
I file it with “He said all Mexicans are rapists!”
Consider this posting on Instapundit: https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/335995
And Scott Adams:
And.
All of which misses why President Trump hammers on the great job news for African-Americans, Latinos, and women. Every. Day. He will not win again with a lazy opponent and a few tens of thousands giving him an edge in the right states. He knows he needs more. He knows he must disrupt the Democrats’ assumed voter coalition. He works on it every day.
So how, again, was this a genius move to get African-American votes? What about Puerto Rican votes, like the over 200,000 new residents of Florida who will vote there for the first time in 2020? That would be the “country” in which one of the “‘Progressive’ Democrat Congresswomen” has ancestry.
And…
Shut up, Shut Up, Shut Up! Don’t read the stage directions!
There was nothing bigoted about what he said. It’s in your NeverTrump mind.
My favorite part was AOC saying “We’re not going to take Trump’s bait,” apparently not noticing the hook stuck deep in her mouth.
Completely missing my point. Completely oblivious to (discounting as not serious?) President Trump’s weekly outreach to “people of color.” Scott Adams pushes all the right buttons for you. I get it. I am clear on his continuing consolidation of his base.
He still has made his plan to expand the map, to bring in voters who the Democrats always count upon, harder. Not a single link to a favorite source is contradicting this.
I don’t actually have strong feelings about the tweet. Maybe president Trump made a mistake, maybe he didn’t, maybe it’s repairable, maybe it’s part of 5-dimensional chess, I dunno.
It’s not clear his use of the phrase “Progressive Democrat Congresswomen” was referring specifically to Omar/Pressley/Tlaib/Cortez. If he was, hell, I’d wouldn’t blame him — none of them sound remotely like Americans.
I think the real question is, how the [expletive] did such militantly anti-American women get elected to congress in the first place?
Ayanna Pressley was elected to congress in 2018 to represent Massachusetts’ 7th district, which includes much of Boston and Cambridge. Harvard and MIT, ‘should be pretty smart. I lived in the area in the 80’s, so I have a personal fondness for it.
Apparently Pressley grew up in Chicago and doesn’t have a college degree. She ran against incumbent Michael Capuano in the primary. Given this debate, they’re both pretty pathetic. But what’s even more pathetic, no Republican even filed to run.
So this is the case of an idiot chosen by brainiacs, probably because there were no alternatives.