Bill Maher Exposing Bigotry & Trump’s Brilliant Barnstorming - Top 3 Takeaways – June 24th, 2024
- The brilliance of Trump’s barnstorming. By any objective measure Trump’s rally in Philly Saturday night, didn’t draw anywhere near the crowds he’s drawn recently in a blue state (New Jersey) and a blue city within a blue state (New York). The crowd size at Saturday night’s rally at Temple University appeared to have been only about half of the stadium’s capacity (10,200). It was always a risk for Trump to rally in a city where he only won 18% of the vote four years ago and in a city that he’ll no doubt get shellacked in this November. So why continue to go to places where most people don’t like you and where you know you won’t win? It’s a simple strategy I talked about for two decades in analyzing Florida’s politics because conventional wisdom wasn’t and isn’t wise. Conventional wisdom in Florida’s Republican political circles once upon a time went like this. You’ve got to run up the score in the places where you can win hoping to drive turnout in red counties that can surpass South Florida’s blue wall. Is turning out one’s base important? Yes. Is basing your strategy on it a good idea? It never has been, and it never will be. And in fact, you can tell the true character of a candidate by whether they want to run with that strategy. If one is only interested in winning an election it is possible to play it safe and work on running up the score in safe political territory to win. If one truly cares about their constituents, their state and their country they’d do it differently. Years ago, I’d frequently offer up these two sayings about Florida. You’ve got to go north to get south and the key to winning Florida isn’t to run up the score in North Florida it’s to lose well in South Florida. That was for two important reasons. First, South Florida’s population was and is way too large to lose by wide margins and expect to win statewide elections. More importantly, it was necessary to begin to win over hearts and minds – not just to win an election. I frequently offered up the advice at the same time I’d tell all who would listen that one day South Florida would save this country from itself because South Florida’s legal immigrants know what it’s like not to be free. I lost track of the number of people who thought I was crazy, but what was crazy was not working to reach out to those who’d too often been taken for granted. That much is now clear. Ten years ago, would anyone have thought Miami Dade and Palm Beach would break for the entire Republican cabinet in a general election? Two years ago, for the first time in this state’s history, it happened (along with several other blue counties doing the same). Would that have ever happened if Governor DeSantis and other Republicans didn’t compete just as hard for support in South Florida as they did in Northern Florida? Because the philosophy has been so successfully applied, Republicans no longer need to lose well in South Florida.
- They now can and are winning elections in South Florida. In virtually every inner city across the country you see the same thing. Democrats dominating the political scene and making their cities progressively less safe and less prosperous. No group has been hurt more by Joe Biden’s presidency than inner city minorities. Donald Trump’s willingness to go into the roughest neighborhoods in New York, Philadelphia and Detroit may not always net the largest crowds at rallies, but I guarantee you it matters more than any of his largest rallies. Caring enough to compete for everyone’s vote is the first step towards losing well in those cities. And here’s a guarantee – if Trump can lose well (or really just marginally better) in Detroit he’ll win Michigan. If he can lose well in Philadelphia, he’ll win Pennsylvania. And if Donald Trump wins those two states, he will win the presidential election. But perhaps just as importantly, in doing so he’ll have laid the groundwork for generational change in those cities. The kind that we’ve seen occurring in South Florida. There’s a brilliance to Trump’s blue city barnstorming that has the potential to create a new generation of voters who never previously would have given him or any other Republican a chance. And what we’re seeing...
- Is that there are signs it’s working. Bill Maher became the latest Biden supporter to panic over the collapsing of the “blue wall” of assumed Democrat support by minorities and younger voters. Quoting Maher this weekend: I mean, I could go through the stats here of the people he's losing. It's a little scary because he's losing the people who are supposed to be the ones in the Democratic camp. Doesn’t that statement just say it all? “The ones who are supposed to be in the Democratic camp”. That’s as arrogant, that’s as dismissive and that’s as bigoted as Joe Biden’s 2020’s message to Charlamagne tha God when he told him: Well I tell you what, if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black. That kind of commentary doesn’t just accidentally come out. What non-bigoted person alive would even imagine telling a group of voters than they’re not of their race and ancestry if they were to dare to vote for anyone other than a Democrat – let alone actually do it? Similarly, what non-bigoted person suggests that “it’s scary” that Biden’s losing support from the people “who are supposed to be in the Democratic camp”. What, because one’s age and one’s skin color is supposed to determine what they think and what they do? How can you be more bigoted than that? People like Joe Biden and Bill Maher are so bigoted that they don’t even realize they’re publicly espousing their bigotry when they’re doing it. Donald Trump on the other hand...is out on the trail competing to defeat the status quo bigotry of low expectations and he might just win more than this election doing it.