Text 4 Dec 1 note Trump’s First Victory Tour Speech
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So… I decided to watch Trump’s ‘Thank You’ tour speech in Cincinnati for a couple of reasons. One, I was curious. Victory tours aren’t a thing that presidents do. So I just wanted to see what one looked like. And two, that’s kind of fucking horrifying. We already know that Trump isn’t going to be a regular president. His campaign was unconventional. His background is unconventional. The way he’s conducting the transition is unconventional. The way he attacks the press is unconventional. His relationship with facts is unconventional. There’s not a whole lot of convention going on with Donald J. Trump right now. Yay, the voters wanted that! But until everybody else figures out exactly what that means, there’s plenty of room for concern. Like, alarming concern. And I don’t want to be an alarmist. But I do want to see what we’re getting ourselves in to. Here’s what I took away.

1. I don’t think he knows why comparing himself to Andrew Jackson is a really bad idea.

In this context, Trump heard somebody (on TV probably) compare the enthusiasm of his voters to those of Andrew Jackson’s in 1828. Yes, it’s funny Trump said 1838 (a year with no presidential election). But mostly because I think he read the prompter incorrectly. And that feeds into my giggling desire for Samantha Bee to be correct about Trump not being able to read. I know, I know. But it’s jut funny to me. It’s been a while since we had a dumb president.

Anyway, the actual comparison to Jackson isn’t a bad one on its surface. Jackson beat John Quincy Adams in an especially ugly campaign in 1828. Sounds familiar. Go on. And the people opposed to Jackson’s presidency considered him dangerous and unfit for office. But in the end, Jackson’s populism convinced a lot of regular people that he would protect them from the country’s elite. You’ve probably heard the story about his open inauguration party, where everybody got white girl wasted and they had to be tricked with booze to get them out of the White House. That’s something I definitely hope Trump repeats in January. And he did open this speech by talking about easing some of his security detail. HOWEVER… moving anywhere else from that initial Jackson-Trump comparison gets kind of dicey.

Let’s start with how Jackson murdered a guy for something true he wrote about him in a newspaper. Yeah, times were different and they had duels and shit. But even the people of Tennessee in 1806 were like, “What the fuuuuuck, dude.” And it only gets worse from there. In that 1828 election, the Adams supporters hit Jackson hard for being a slave trader. Not just the owning of slaves. They thought the way he treated the slaves he owned was bad on top of that. In 1828.

And then if we get into Jackson’s heinous treatment and removal of Native Americans it would take up the rest of this post. I know Trump just probably wanted to say there hasn’t been enthusiasm like his in a really long time. But when one of your big campaign promises is the deportation of millions of illegal Mexicans, you might not want to bring up the populist guy famous for his death marches.                

2. That Carrier deal is a disaster. Believe me, folks.  

If Sarah Palin and Bernie Sanders are both bashing something you did as crony capitalism or corporate welfare, it’s probably a bad sign. Again, on the face of it, the fact that Carrier is keeping 47% of its jobs (landslide) in Indiana looks like a big win for the Trump team. And for those 1,100 workers. It’s something he said he was going to do (well, he said he was keeping ALL the jobs… and he said he’d do it by imposing a tariff… then he said Carrier was a 'euphenism’ and that he didn’t really mean it) and it’s something he accomplished before he even took office. So what’s the problem?

Apparently a lot of things. The Left should hate the deal because, amongst other things, Trump (or Pence) gave the company millions in taxes (paid by working class people), which sets a terrible precedent for other companies who can now threaten to leave the country in exchange for a handout. That’s even more of our tax dollars going to the wealthy.

The Right should hate the deal because, amongst other things, it’s government interference into the economy. It also sets a precedent that Trump can just call companies up and try to make them do what he wants. I mean, he said he’s 'doing Carriers all over the country’ or whatever the fuck he said. And that raises all kinds of concerns about abuses of power. It can’t really be both of those things, but you get the point.

If you ask me, I also think it’s a whole lot of noise being made over 1,100 jobs. Again, I’m happy for those 1,100 people in Indiana for their short term job security. But didn’t the jobs report just come out? And didn’t we add 178,000 private sector jobs in the last month? We really have to go on a barnstorming victory tour over Donald Trump paying $7 million in taxpayer money so less than half the people can keep their jobs in one factory in Indiana that he doesn’t even remember? Also, that’s not what euphemism means. Or even how you say euphemism. But I’ll let that one slide for now.      

3. Trump also doesn’t know or doesn’t care what a 'landslide victory’ is.

There’s something inherently funny to me about doing a thank you/victory speech in a county you didn’t even win. Cincinnati is in Hamilton county (appropriate) where he only received 43% of the vote. And that same county voted for Republicans for basically everything else. What I’m saying is that most people don’t really like him there. Then again, I don’t know where in Ohio he could have held a big televised rally in a place that actually voted for him. Not in Columbus. Or Cleveland. Or Toledo. Or Akron. I guess Dayton? But you get my point. Trump won the state with 51.3% of the votes. Or 8 points, which he rounded up to 10. And mostly in rural areas. I don’t think that qualifies as an overwhelming majority.

Nor does his 45.5% in Utah, where I think he was mostly pissed that Evan McMullin ran against him. Or his 52.4% in Texas. Or 51% in Georgia. Or 48.4% in Pennsylvania. Or 47.5% in Michigan, which I don’t even think they called on election night. In 1984, Ronald Reagan got 525 electoral votes. He got 489 in 1980. Those are landslide victories. That’s 97.6% and 90.9% of electoral votes, respectively. Trump got 56.9% of electoral votes. And he got 46.3% of the popular vote. But maybe if he says 'landslide’ enough he’ll begin to believe it and can sell it to the type of people who believe whatever dumb shit he says, anyway. More on that soon.            

4. Bragging about landslides aside, Trump is real shitty at bringing the country together.

Congratulations. You just won the presidential election. It was long and ugly and really close and really recent. Now you’re on a tour gloating about it and bashing anyone who doubted you? Yeah, that’s a real good way to bring people over to your side. That’s a good place to start off. 64.8 million people voted for your chief opponent. That’s 2.5 million (or whatever it is now) more than you got. If Michigan was shattering the Blue Wall, or if Utah was a trouncing, then Hillary Clinton shatter-trounced you in the popular vote. I know you really, REALLY hate that. So much so that you have to blatantly lie about it. But this end zone dance isn’t gonna make the other team’s fans start rooting for you instead. You can’t just say we’re not going to be divided and then magically assume it becomes true either. Especially if this is how you’re acting.    

Besides McMullin, Trump brought up Ohio governor, John Kasich (another Republican), more than once to incite boos from his home state crowd. The same home state that voted for Kasich in the Ohio Republican Primary. And for what? Because he didn’t readily support you? Because the “grab them by the pussy” video was the last straw for the governor in a campaign filled with things that should have already been last straws? Even if you dismiss it as 'locker room talk’, you really want to remind people of that?    

Then there’s Hillary Clinton, the person who received a couple million more votes than Trump getting the Pavlovian “lock her up” chant, which at least Trump pretended to ignore this time around. Since whatever-this-is looks so close to a Trump campaign rally, which he clearly misses the shit out of, would bringing the country together include reminding everyone that on multiple occasions (including a presidential debate) you threatened to jail your opponent?

What about responding to a protester by saying they must not know Hillary lost. Again, 64.8 million people (and 2.5 million more people than voted for you) don’t want to hear about how the person they supported lost. Why don’t you address why there were protesters, in the first place? What is it about you and your rhetoric and your message that offends so many people? Why not address that? Why don’t you talk to the people that didn’t vote for you and try to win them over? Nah. Just say you won and dismiss the other side for losing. MAGA, you guys. MAGA.    

And let’s talk about the irony of discussing uniting the country while a sea of white faces surrounds you. At one point Trump brags about the number of African-Americans (8%!!!) who voted for him. And Latinos (28%). And women (41%). And then has the balls to ask for applause for his cabinet picks this far. Jesus Christ, man. You’re filling your cabinet with Islamophobe conspiracy theorists, climate deniers, anti-gay zealots, anti-Planned Parenthood crusaders and flagrant anti-immigrant or anti-black racists. And some I assume are good people. No, that doesn’t deserve applause at all.

And what about the 3.3 million Muslims living in the United States? Let’s address them for a second. Does he really not see the danger in equating all Muslims or all Syrian refugees as terrorists (and firing up the crowd as he does it)? Or equating the lone wolf Somali-American terrorist at Ohio State with Syrian refugees? You know, the ones who are 'pouring in’?

Insisting on calling the problem of terrorism “Radical Islamic terrorism” assumes that everybody will understand the complex nuances involved in the wording. It assumes people won’t just hear 'Islamic’ and will differentiate between the two. And notice Trump never brags about the number of Muslims (13%) who voted for him. Why not? Because they’re all evil? The President-Elect, himself, does not understand the differences in any of those things. So why would we assume his voters would either?

Here’s the basic summary of his views. Muslims are terrorists. Illegal immigrants are drug dealers and gang members. The blacks live in inner city slums. But then he briefly condemned all bigotry and prejudice? That would be hilarious if it wasn’t so fucking dangerous. Again, you can’t just say the thing to make it true. Especially with so many of your fuck-awful cabinet picks. This is just… ugh.  

5. Trump hates or does not understand the First Amendment.

This one is actually pretty scary. Besides gloating to the protesters and dismissing them as non-voters or criminal flag burners (who he also wants to unconstitutionally jail or ex-patriate), how many times throughout the speech did Trump attack the “dishonest press”? Ostensibly he means they’re dishonest because they didn’t think he could get to 270 electoral votes. Okay. So they reported on polling data, which turned out to be inaccurate. Because, as we all saw, Trump won. So… that affected him negatively somehow? What is he even saying - he’s mad he won? Why would he try to get the audience to snowball that into more booing and the overall assumption that anything but praise is a lie? Fuck that shit.

It’s either intimidation, which is horrifying, or just plain told-you-so gloating, which is idiotic buffoonery. Like, going after Martha Raddatz for 'crying’ on air on election night? I watched the clip multiple times and her voice cracks a little, but asserting that she cried is iffy at best. He’s a child. But I guess we’re all supposed to assume the lying media was stacked against him (Raddatz co-moderated one of the debates Trump lost, which obviously means it was unfair) and anything but praise is just more lies. Again, fuck that shit.    

6. The rest of this was just more dumb, vague bullshit.

We’re all gonna be happy. We’re gonna win. The thing that unites all of us is America (applause break).  None of that means anything. It’s more just saying the thing and therefore it’ll be true now. I know that this was supposed to be a populist, nationalist, pro-American worker speech aimed at the Rust Belt. But tax breaks for the wealthy and trickle-down economics are being sold to these people as job creators, which historically has been proven to not work in favor of the working class. It’s bullshit. Notice he’s not pushing for a livable wage for these people. He wants to fix working class problems by giving more money to wealthy people. It’s just more pro-wealthy GOP policies packaged with a false label. MAGA!         

So, in summary, all of this was fucking stupid. And I’m kind of mad at myself for watching it. He’s an egomaniacal hypocrite who can’t stop lying and is too immature to avoid gloating or bashing his detractors. And sadly, that’s the best case scenario revue of the speech. Saying anything positive about the speech requires a trust-fall in logic that I’m not prepared to give. Until I see any signs to the contrary, I have to fear the worst. And I don’t really want to. So I guess I’m gonna have to continue to watch. You have no idea how much I want to be wrong.      

  1. brido posted this

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