Today I am putting on my political advisor hat and will stage an intervention to rescue Donald J. Trump from the law and order mess he has created.
(I helped Joe Biden with fracking yesterday.)
Part of the problem is of his own making, which is true with most of his problems. In brief, the problem is his big mouth (and his Tweeter fingers).
Mr. President, when talking about law and order, Rule #1 is to avoid sports metaphors. When you are talking about a civilian being shot in the back by police and you liken it to a golfer missing a putt, the media will pounce.
When you know most of the media are out to hang you, why hand them a length of rope?
Also the word “choke.” Lose it. You may mean athletics, but to reporters (who couldn’t make the team), it brings memories of Eric Garner in Staten Island and even George Floyd in Minneapolis. Get the picture?
The more you rattle on, the more mistakes you make. When you are talking, less is more. Have one concrete point to make, make it, and shut up.
The typical American does believe in “law and order.” Yes, progressives prefer to convert that into “justice,” but let them.
You are for justice, too. Aren’t you?
Say so.
Rule #2 is to condemn wrongdoers from the Right as well as the Left.
When some live bait is tossed in front of you — such as seeking comment on Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old vigilante — here’s what you should say: “The investigation is not yet complete. I will have no comment until the results are known.”
There are some phrases the media loves to use, such as you “stoke racial tensions.” So you should avoid allusions to race and take the rope from their hands.
Remember your comments following Charlottesville? You actually condemned neo-Nazis and white supremacists, but that followed your comment about “very fine people on both sides.” You were talking about the debate over statues, but you handed your enemies another length of rope.
Focus on even-handed law, and steer clear of additional commentary.
If you want to go completely against type, you could express sympathy with the victims of police brutality.
It won’t be easy for you, but it will take the rope out of the hands of the media mob and make for commentary that is more, well, presidential.
It couldn’t hurt.
HAPPY FRIDAY !!!
Stu,
We both know that what you suggest AIN’T NEVER GONNA HAPPEN !
President Trump does as President Trump wants. Mrs. Trump, way back when said, “nobody does Donald what to do”.
His means and methods got him to where he is today. Of course, almost all of us mere mortals would never do what Mr.Trump says or do, but then again, we are mere mortals. Not BILLIONAIRES .
Last night in Latrobe, the President was on a roll. He loves a live audience. He feeds off of their energy and in turn, the devout followers of Trump feed off of his power and energy.
When he was “just” Donald Trump, he would ask my opinion on certain items on the casino projects. He would do this with most people in their perspective fields. But that was then and this is now. President Trump is too heavy handed for all of us. If in fact, he would lay off the negative remarks – which are mostly true, but probably exaggerated – in our mind, he would be more appealing to the masses. Putting it in a colloquialism, would you rather have a President who tells you like it is, or one that is lying to you as you are being bent over ? For too too many years, we have been bent over.
Tony
I prefer neither, but you know that.
Stu – the man is incapable of forming a complete, thoughtful, sentence to describe a situation. We already know he is anti-PC, as are most of us connected to your forum here. But, as noted above in your article, you can be intelligent and compassionate without resorting to PC and other off-the-cuff speak. It’s just not possible for him to articulate, presidentially speaking. He prefers raw, which describes his basis for being, and shows a complete lack of ability to engage one’s brain before opening his mouth (or fingers). Raw is best served rarely, when it’s really needed. It’s really not what this country needs. He will never change. And this is coming from someone who is not an anti-Trumper. But I also can’t ignore the obvious. Thanks for trying to help him along. Sort of a fool’s errand (LOL).
Randy,
You exaggerate more than “the Great Exaggerator”, as I call our President. Not quite sure what you mean by “PC”. I know that it’s not personal computer, but if it’s political correct, I fail to see the connection ( as I do in most things ).
I would bet that you have not had the opportunity to see or hear our President in a “Presidential ” position, meeting, whatever. We get a glimpse of Mr Trump as President when he is having a Presidential press conference, relating to a meeting with a dignitary. I know that that he has said that he purposely does things or say things to annoy the fake news. My problem with that is, I don’t always know when he’s playing with them, or busting on them. To understand that game, it needs a lot more time than I can give.
other than that.
VOTE REPUBLICAN ! and DRAIN THE SWAMP !
Tony
Fool’s errand. Likely.
It’s nice of you to advise our president, Stu, but if he could hear you, he wouldn’t heed your warning.
I agree with your advice as to Kyle Rittenhouse, it was too soon to comment. But it doesn’t matter, the MSM despise him rope or not. ‘He’s been to hell and walked through.’
Like him or hate him, he is who he is, and has been on display for all to see, everyday.
“If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.”
Great advice for the President.
MAN, Stu, did you nail it with this one!! The MSM mob will never — and I mean NEVER — give him an ounce of credit for ANY thing he does. That being said, he really needs to stop handing YARDS of rope to the media and his adversaries. But he won’t. He can’t. And in the process, he drags every decent conservative thinker down with him. Sometimes, I just don’t get it…I need a neck brace because I’m #SMDH so much!
Well said. He is an embarrassment to actual conservatives.
Stu,
Trump WANTS to divide the country and support those who are racist and anti Semitic. They stand in line and vote for him. So many Democrats do not bother to vote. I’m afraid that Trend will continue this November. I have asked staff members in my condo building if they have signed up for mail in ballots and not one of them have. I offered to help them, but they did not want the assistance. Three of the people I asked were in their thirties and two maybe in their fifties. All were minorities. None of them will go to the poles during the pandemic. Everyone needs to vote in November if we have any chance of removing Trump.
This is concerning.
Ms. Green, I don’t agree with you that President Trump “wants to divide the country and support those who are racist and anti-Semitic.” As Stu said in this column, Trump at Charlottesville “condemned neo-Nazis and white supremacists.” He didn’t exactly disinherit his daughter when she married a Jew. He recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, moved the embassy there, recognized Israel’s sovereignty in the Golan Heights, and in his peace plan recognized the Jewish homeland claim to historic Jerusalem and Judea-Samaria, and was involved in the Israel-UAE agreement. Herschel Walker and the other American Blacks who spoke so movingly at the RNC are self-respecting people who would not have done so if Trump were a racism supporter. Trump’s support for criminal justice reform, school choice and other actions benefiting minorities, resulting in eg lowest unemployment for them, are hardly those of a racism supporter. By me, your zeal for “removing Trump” is misplaced..
Jerry,
You are entitled to your opinion. Not disinheriting his daughter when she married a Jewish man does not prove that Donald Trump Is not anti Semetic, His comments during the atrocities in Charlottesville Do. His daughter’s marriage to a family in the same business as Trump that helped him secure more foreign loans he required may have colored his view. That is something we do not know and is conjecture. His words and actions have shown his desire to separate this country and allow those that are openly racist and anti Semitic to have a voice. It is a problem that we see every day, sadly.
HAPPY FRIDAY !!!
Ms Green,
( sic ) You are absolutely right ! Having a Jew for a daughter, son-in-law and grand children doesn’t mean that he’s anti-Semetic. Having blacks in, on and around the White House staff and Cabinet also doesn’t mean that President Trump is racist.
Plainly, it’s all an act. OUR President fought with Washington D.C. to relax the criminal code that is slanted towards black incarceration. Obviously, he did this to have cheap labor at his golf clubs.
All of the women that surround him are there to amuse him. He didn’t bring them on board because they were qualified. He has ulterior motives.
What better way to further divide the country as to putting millionaires in the cabinet ! This way, they can add to their stash, while the rest of us go to the poor house.
Ms Green. That was all sarcasm. Actually, it’s what the dimocrats and the corrupt media are pushing. Don’t ever let the truth stand in the way of telling a good lie !
Tony
The infamous Charlottesville quote. IN FULL. Note condemnation of neo-Nazis and white supremacists:
Per PolitiFact in the Inquirer
Trump said “very fine people on both sides” after a reporter mentioned neo-Nazis. At a news conference after the protests, a reporter started saying to Trump, “The neo-Nazis started this. They showed up in Charlottesville to protest —“
Trump responded: “Excuse me. Excuse me. They didn’t put themselves — and you had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides. You had people in that group. Excuse me, excuse me. I saw the same pictures as you did. You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name.”
But Trump at that same news conference also said neo-Nazis and white supremacists should be condemned.
Trump said: “so you know what, it’s fine. You’re changing history. You’re changing culture. And you had people — and I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists — because they should be condemned totally. But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists. OK? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly.
“Now, in the other group also, you had some fine people. But you also had troublemakers, and you see them come with black outfits and with the helmets,and with the baseball bats. You had a lot of bad people in the other group.”
Stu,
Your life’s work is the English language. Do you really want to pick this apart ? One sentence at a time ? Should you do that, then you will have to dismiss the ” very fine people on both sides “, as well as, “they should be condemned totally”
You could make me out to be a genius, by picking my words and stringing them together !
Tony
Philadelphia, PA
Dear Stu,
Its hard to disagree with your advice. Just about everyone knows that the President is his own worst enemy; though he is not about to reform.
I tend to think of its this way: somehow or other a vehement, oft, little coherent, populist opposition politicians got catapulted into the highest office in the land. But everyone knows, I think, that when we have a populist uprising, they are not supposed to win straight off! Instead they are to labor long in the wilderness of opposition until they develop what it is they are trying to say and convert part of the establishment.
That’s how our traditional populism worked, out of populist themes, by and by, eventually emerges a new direction of thought and politics. The populist uprising has to convert some of the conservatives. You have to somehow get from William Jennings Bryant to Teddy Roosevelt and beyond, say, from “free coinage of silver” and “the cross of gold” to taking down Northern Securities and Standard oil, by action of the Justice Department.
Good opposition politicians are good at deflating the pretension of a self-aggrandizing economic and political establishment (such as our neo-liberal establishment), they are defiant, they take no prisoners. But they are not suppose to have power until after they finish their critique. People especially good at opposition often run a muck if given too much power or too much power too soon.
Defiance from a position of power is unnerving to both our conservatives and our neo-liberal establishment. In consequence my sympathizes have been with the Trump (and Sanders) voters. Something is supposed to come of their bubbling discontent, but Trump seems to short-circuit the process?
H.G. Callaway
H.G.,
Come down off the soap box. Go sit in a McDonalds with a bunch of ole timers, or where it is that they congregate. Listen to what the real working class has to say about the goings on in Washington D.C. They will not elevate anyone to saint hood, nor twill they throw them to the wolves. What does happen is the collective minds of a like people analyze the situation and decide on the best course of action.
You and many others, try to put Donald Trump in a cute little box and wrap in up for Christmas. Our President is not a politician. He is a businessman who has seen life through very clear eyes. He saw the bureaucrats take from the poor and stuff their own pockets. Then go back and do it time and time again. The man had had enough ! He took a stand and the American voting public agreed with him that it really was enough – a long time ago !
Hopefully, to suit you and all of the other nay Sayers, the uprising will continue. !
VOTE REPUBLICAN ! DRAIN THE SWAMP !
Tony