The Patriot Post® · Virginia and Trump

It’s been quite the week.

North Korea blinked on Guam. That is good for the team Trump approach, including the blustery rhetoric. The problem is not solved, but the crisis was averted and negotiations continue. Then a major radical Islamic terror attack in Barcelona. Use of a van to kill civilians is one thing, but a significant multi-bomb plot literally went up in smoke as a related cell detonated their packs accidentally. It could have been a lot worse. ISIS is being dismantled militarily in Iraq, but ideology remains as a main counter terror target. Now a new strategy in Afghanistan, as targeting terrorists and national security interests replaces nation building and central DC control. But the most important piece is the carrot/stick shift on Pakistan, which included a shout out to India. Follow through is everything.

The “Russia” probe seems to be losing steam, with perhaps some unrelated financial violations by Trump’s one time campaign manager the fig leaf that lets Mueller declare victory and move on. In its place is renewed interest in Clinton’s activities including the infamous tarmac meeting, and the investigation of Schulz’s IT guy who has been indicted for fraud. He would be the one hired by the DEMs to do IT work that gave him access to classified info, and is suspected of selling our secrets to foreign governments. The DNC still hasn’t turned over its servers to the FBI investigating Russian collusion. The media is ignoring this, but wouldn’t it be ironic if the Mueller probe wound up on the other side of the aisle.

The stock market is at record highs, and consumer confidence is improving. Prospects for tax reform are increasing and focused on simple-to-understand rate cuts that should be very tough for the GOP majorities to hide from. Any of these could be the subject of a complete post, but the media and the DEMs remain focused on Virginia, its aftermath, and the departure of Steve Bannon — so let’s stick with those.

First Bannon: that’s the easy one. Bannon has been and will continue to be a Trump ally. The decision that he would be a more effective advocate outside the White House was ultimately Trump’s, but Bannon is on board. Anything to the contrary is media spin, he had planned to leave for some time. But Virginia intervened and Trump did not want to hand his critics a perceived victory that he fired Bannon as a result of media pressure after Virginia, so it was delayed. And don’t think for a second that a media savvy guy like Bannon would go so far off the reservation by publicly undercutting Trump’s key negotiating position on North Korea without coordinating it with Trump. Saying that there were “no military solutions” and that North Korea “has us” gave Trump an excuse to let it seem that he fired him for a cause unrelated to Virginia. And that had the extra benefit of sending a signal to North Korea that Trump was so committed to keeping a military option on the table that he fired his friend for denying it.

Virginia is more complex. First the facts. In response to a proposal to move a statue of Robert E. Lee, demonstrations were planned on both sides of the issue. A group of regular folks, and a far right group associated with the KKK, neo-Nazis, and white supremacists assembled on day one to protest against the removal. The rhetoric and actions of the far right group was vile, hateful, antithetical to 99.9% of Americans … and perfectly legal. The next day they returned, but were joined by a group of regular folks supporting the removal — and an equally vile group of far left agitators in the same camp. Both of the extremist elements were armed with bats, clubs, bricks, and cement filled water bottles. A violent confrontation occurred. One member of the far right group took things to another level by ramming his car into a crowd of peaceful protestors, and a woman was killed. Why the authorities and police allowed these two groups to get within an area code of each other remains a mystery, as does the inexplicable decision of the police to back off when the violence escalated.

Trump initially responded by denouncing the violence, and blaming both extremist groups for it. He also said that there were good people involved on both sides who showed up simply to express their opinion on the supposed issue at hand – the fate of the Lee statue. These are all perfectly accurate statements, but irrelevant when emotion swamped the shores. After being skewered by the media and the Dems for not blaming the far right only, and failing to mention the KKK, Neo-Nazis and white supremist organizations who led the event, Trump made it clear that he renounced those groups by name, and that their brand of hate had no place in America. When the media/DEMs came back at him, claiming that he wasn’t sincere and only spoke the names because of media pressure, Trump became the combative Trump. He doubled down on his original claim that both extreme groups shared the blame for the violence.

That set off a fire storm of attacks on Trump as a KKK/Nazi sympathizer, calls for his people to resign, and even questions about Trump’s sanity from members of his own party. First, anyone who knows or who has dealt with Trump over his career, or did six minutes of research into his life, knows he is about as far as you can get from a KKK/Nazi sympathizer. But as a branding expert, Trump should have known better that by implying similarity between a group with a KKK/Nazi brand, and one with “Antifa” (whatever that means, more on that in a second) on its jerseys, he would lose ten out of ten. And when the media piled on, it became a fight between Trump and the media, with the demonstration issues and his rejection of far-right hate lost in the shuffle. Not good.

This is Trump’s blind spot: he needs to win, not admit mistakes, and be proven right. Even when it clashes big time with his basic beliefs as a person, or something as second nature to him as branding. Of course Trump rejects the far right KKK/Nazi philosophy as the vast majority of us do , but he also lives to a degree in the moment — what he saw were the facts that both extreme groups engaged in unacceptable violence. His initial comments were responding to the violence itself, not making some philosophical comment about which group was more vile. By not naming those far-right culprits immediately by name, he left the impression that he had some sympathy for them. And when called on it, his blind spot wouldn’t allow him to back down. The next day he denounced the far-right by name, but all he should have done was to reverse the order. When the KKK/Nazi label appears and someone is killed, it cries out to put those perpetrators first for condemnation. The next day he could have preached reconciliation, unity and peace, and found a way to put blame on the far-left groups as well for hate of a different type that is also un-American.

What is so frustrating about this is that it is an unforced error by Trump that doesn’t reflect who he is as a person — and that could further compromise his agenda. He is not a KKK/Nazi sympathizer, and the notion that he is cultivating the extreme right as a political move is utterly absurd. You can fit the totality of these groups in a large phone booth, with the grand total of zero ability to influence elections. Yet, we now have more ammo in the hands of the media and Dems to disrupt the Trump agenda. You need only to look at the polls in swing states that now have Trump in the mid 30’s as proof that all you have to do is link someone to the KKK, and you are toast. Ditto the GOP pols who would rather run for cover than explain that Trump is being misunderstood when confronted with media questions such as: “Are you going to reject the Trump agenda?”, or “Do you agree with the White House that it’s OK to be sympathetic to the KKK and Nazis,” and “When did you stop beating your wife?” — completely irresponsible media.

The only ray of hope on the horizon is that the Dems/media will once again overplay their hand. Americans really don’t like being told that if they show the slightest approval for Trump and his agenda, that they are all KKK/Nazi/white supremacist supporters. Ditto the media. After Virginia, there was a demonstration planned in Boston by conservative advocates of free speech, including some college kids who simply wanted to draw attention to the lack of acceptance of diverse opinions on campus these days. The media warned that it would be another Virginia with extremists preaching right wing hate. The NY Times even had the theme of the demonstration mockingly in quotes, as in “free speech” rally. That produced a corresponding demonstration led by Antifa, whose goal was to shout down any semblance of speech that didn’t comport totally with far-left purity. And they succeeded. Makes one wonder if the Antifa (which apparently stands for Anti-Fascist) folks have taken a peek at their Webster’s Dictionary to check out the definition of irony.

With the band wagon beckoning, the tide has turned toward “offensive” statues, and pols are predictably trying to keep their heads above water. To the normal American, there are legitimate issues to debate regarding whether or how certain statues are displayed. Anyone who has accomplished enough to possibly warrant a public statue has almost certainly broken some eggs along the way. If your criteria for display was making a difference while displaying some kind of life long purity that offended no one, you would wind up with 20,00 statues of Mother Teresa. Other than that, there are legitimate debates about what aspects of life matter more than others. And it’s best to leave those debates to those folks most directly impacted at the local level. It’s a very dangerous slippery slope if the concept of freedom of expression is smothered by far-left groups who demand total adherence to one point of view, and one set of judgment criteria.

Trump has dug himself a hole, but he still needs public support, and ultimately, Congressional support to enact his agenda. He should build on the positive comments from last night, preaching unity and denouncing hate as un-American. Do not relitigate Virginia and let his proxies go after the media/Dems for wild exaggeration, piling on, and insulting half the country. Calling out the GOP Congress is fine. He should hand them a simple tax cut with all the reforms on deductions and special interest breaks left to another day, dare the GOP to fight it, take his case directly to the folks, and get some wins.