Two words stood out for me after I heard Donald J. Trump accept the Republican Party’s presidential nomination.
They comprise six letters, all told.
“I, alone” will repair the things that are afflicting the nation.
There. He said it. He’s is The Man. He will do it all by himself.
Trump will make Americans safe from international terrorists; he will restore “law and order” to our communities; he will toss out the Affordable Care Act and create a new health insurance system; he will renegotiate “great” trade deals; he will bring jobs back to the country; he will build a wall that keeps illegal immigrants out.
Well, government happens to be a partnership. At least that’s how the framers built it. They created a legislative branch to write the laws, an executive branch to administer them and a judicial branch to ensure that they do not violate the U.S. Constitution.
As has been said many times: A president proposes, but Congress disposes.
Trump, though, sees it differently. He’s going to grab the government by the throat and throttle it long enough to accomplish all that he intends to do.
However, he’s got a tiny concern with which he needs to deal. It’s the 535 men and women — many of whom have egos as large as Trump’s — who comprise the two legislative houses perched atop Capitol Hill.
Trump got the convention crowd fired up. He gave a pretty good speech. He was disciplined and “on message.” I give him props for that.
One, however, heard only a smidgen of humility and that occurred in the very first line of his speech when he accepted the party’s nomination for president.
He’ll hit the trail now. He’ll take his message — whatever it is — to the battleground states. Trump will seek to persuade voters that, by golly, since he’s built that business of his all by himself that “I, alone” will be able to repair the damage done to the country.
Which brings me, briefly, to this final point.
The country he and his surrogates described during the past four days does not resemble in any way the country I’ve seen emerge from the fiscal meltdown it suffered eight years ago.
The nation’s military isn’t “decimated.” The economy is recovering; yes, it could be a stronger, more vibrant recovery, but then again, it’s never reached perfect economic pitch. Crime has gone down, not up — and there’s plenty of data to back that up.
I get that political conventions are intended to put the other party in the worst possible negative light. Republicans did a great job of it this week, even though they distorted the truth beyond all recognition.
Their nominee completed the distortion by declaring that “I, alone” am able to do all these things to “make American great again.”
Now … bring on the Democrats.
