That was some re-election relaunch by the president of the United States.
Donald Trump ventured to Orlando, Fla., to launch his bid officially for a second term in the White House. Did he unveil any grand new proposals? Did he provide a vision for the future? Did he tell us where he wants to lead the country?
Umm. That would no on all three counts.
Indeed, he managed to spend about 90 seconds crowing about an economy he has called the best in the nation’s history.
Then he returned to plenty of familiar turf. He brought up Hillary Clinton’s name dozens of times; yes, that Hillary Clinton, the Democrat he defeated in the 2016 presidential election.
He ripped into the “Democrat Party,” saying it wants to destroy the nation “as we know it.”
Let’s not forget the “fake news” media, the journalists he calls the “enemy of the people.” They received presidential broadsides as well from the lecturn in Orlando.
There you go. The president is seemingly set to rely on the same themes that got him elected in the first place in his quest for a second term in the White House.
There will be more name-calling, more insults, more invective, more gloom and doom, more baseless boasting, more lies, more self-aggrandizement.
Who is the president’s audience? It’s his base, the 41 or so percent of Americans who hang on his every misstatement, every lie. They don’t care that he doesn’t know how to behave in public. They give him a pass on the insults he has hurled at a reporter with a serious physical disability, or his admitted groping of women, or the hush money he paid to a porn star with whom he had a fling some years ago.
He is “making America great again.” How is he doing that? I guess the insults he hurls at allies is one way.
Good grief! This is the man who wants another four years in the nation’s highest and most venerated public office?
Give me strength.
I’ll leave it to Jeff Greenfield, the veteran broadcast journalist and commentator who’s seen a few of these re-election speeches over the years. Take it away, sir.
Greenfield concludes with this: And if you were looking for a single grace note, a single appeal to the better angels of our nature, a single note of humility, a single note of simple ordinary decency … well, just go to YouTube and spend a few minutes with Ronald Reagan.
I believe I will do that.