Matt Lewis: Donald Trump Has a Gift For Identifying America’s Problems

"Every now and then, the torrent of news serves up a grim little reminder: Maybe Donald Trump wasn’t entirely wrong in his cultural critiques. Not because he’s a prophet — God forbid — but because America has gone so far off the rails that his perspective starts to make a certain amount of sense.

That’s the mood I’ve been in lately.

And no, I’m not just talking about the recent spate of stories about Joe Biden’s cognitive decline and what many see as a coverup. Nor am I talking about reports that Dems are spending $20 million to try to learn how to (re)connect with alienated American men who feel ignored and see the Democratic Party as too weak. Those are just subplots.

I’m talking about how Trump — for all his bluster, baggage and baffling syntax — continues to speak to realities that polite society has decided are too ugly to discuss. Things like uncontrolled immigration, violent crime and foreign adversaries who laugh at perceived American weakness...

Now, does this mean Trump’s solutions are good? Legal? Morally defensible? No. He governs like a guy with a hammer who thinks everything is a nail. But, in the eyes of many Americans, at least he’s swinging the damn thing. Meanwhile, Democrats look like they’re waiting for permission to open their own toolbox...

Because Trump doesn’t want to govern. He wants to dominate. He wants spectacle. He wants the feud. The man’s not interested in building — only demolishing.

It’s the difference between being a strongman, a showman and a statesman. Trump knows how to be the first two. He has no use for the latter.

And that’s the tragic comedy of it all. While liberals pretend the smoke isn’t there, Trump sees the fire — and instead of reaching for a hose, he grabs a gas can.

Meanwhile, voters who are exhausted, scared and angry keep thinking, “Well, at least he noticed the fire.”

Source:Matt Lewis is a conservative columnist/blogger & political analyst.

From Matt Lewis

I think I completely agree with what Matt Lewis is arguing here. Voters, at least enough to win the Electoral College, prefer Donald Trump over any Democrat because they see him as someone who takes actions and does something. And they see Democrats as people who get stuck between this voting bloc and that one, this focus group and that 1, and perhaps don't act at all because they're worried about how the left-wing would react to any strong decisions that they make about anything that's controversial. I agree with him on that. But I have a different take here. 

I looked back for this interview but I couldn't find it online, but I believe in the summer last year, MSNBC anchor Katy Tur had Chuck Todd on her show. I guess Todd was still with NBC News at that point and he was there to tell her and her viewers what he thought about the Donald-Trump-Kamala Harris matchup and he basically told her: 

"Look, voters don't like Donald Trump, publicly. But he's entertaining, he's interesting, he shakes things up, he says whatever is on his mind at the time. They elected Joe Biden in 2020 because they thought Donald Trump was too erratic, too interesting, ineffective, especially in dealing with COVID. But now they think prices are too high and that Biden is too boring and see him as old, and that Kamala Harris would just keep doing what her boss is doing right now. And now they want to go back to Donald Trump". 

That's a paraphrase but very close. 

I agree more with Chuck Todd than Matt Lewis on this. And here's why: We're all a product of the times that we live in and came up in. In the 1990s, Donald Trump was a bankrupt, Manhattan, businessman. And then author Kate Bohner writes a book about him in 1999, that makes him look very good. Whether any of "Trump, Donald J." is accurate or not... better question. But that sort of led to his comeback as a Manhattan businessman and celebrity. 

Then the 2000s comes along and we've been in this "reality TV" universe (that I would call a nightmare) ever since, where anyone who wants to be "cool" in life and be rich by being "cool" and have a tone of "friends", tries to do that by becoming famous. 

Donald J. Trump got in on the "reality TV" world with The Apprentice in 2002-03 and that got him through the 2000s as this big Manhattan celebrity and "reality TV" star. And that's how voters, people who don't think he's even a good man, who say he lies a lot, vote for him anyway, because in private, he represents to them what they want to be, but perhaps feel they couldn't pull it off and it would interfere with their lifestyles and security.

Look, I see Donald John Trump has a horrible, corrupt, narcissistic, man, who couldn't give a damn about anyone other than himself, even if you gave him a billion dollars to actually care about someone other than himself. But he's good at 1 thing; and that's advancing Donald John Trump. And he doesn't care who or what he has to destroy, including his own country, to keep himself in power and protect his own way of life and freedom. 

Like we say a lot at The New Democrat: elections have consequences. If you voted for this man and you now regret that, the only person that you have to blame, is the person you see in the mirror. At least when you are sober. 

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