Was Trump’s Charlotte pivot speech letting “Trump Be Trump”?
A reasonable, controlled and focused appeal to citizens left behind.
I didn’t watch Donald Trump’s speech last night, but I saw Twitter blow up but not in the usual way.
The speech was being received by all but the most diehard #NeverTrump-ers as the long-awaited “pivot,” a reasonable policy and campaign speech read from a teleprompter.
The prepared text of the speech is here. It’s quite good. But ….
It’s not exactly the “Let Trump be Trump” pivot we all were expecting with the naming of Breitbart News Chairman Steve Bannon to lead the Trump campaign. With Paul Manafort resigning from the campaign this morning, one would have expected Trump’s pivot to be more aggressive. The speech, however, appeared to be the opposite of letting Trump be Trump, at least if Trump being Trump was what we have seen the past year on the campaign trail.
Here’s an excerpt from the opening [quotes from speech below from prepared text]:
I’d like to take a moment to talk about the heartbreak and devastation in Louisiana, a state that is very special to me.
We are one nation. When one state hurts, we all hurt – and we must all work together to lift each other up. Working, building, restoring together.
Our prayers are with the families who have lost loved ones, and we send them our deepest condolences. Though words cannot express the sadness one feels at times like this, I hope everyone in Louisiana knows that our country is praying for them and standing with them to help them in these difficult hours.
We are one country, one people, and we will have together one great future.
And some more in what is being called the “regrets” move:
As you know, I am not a politician. I have worked in business, creating jobs and rebuilding neighborhoods my entire adult life. I’ve never wanted to use the language of the insiders, and I’ve never been politically correct – it takes far too much time, and can often make more difficult.
Sometimes, in the heat of debate and speaking on a multitude of issues, you don’t choose the right words or you say the wrong thing. I have done that, and I regret it, particularly where it may have caused personal pain. Too much is at stake for us to be consumed with these issues.
But one thing I can promise you is this: I will always tell you the truth.
I speak the truth for all of you, and for everyone in this country who doesn’t have a voice.
I speak the truth on behalf of the factory worker who lost his or her job.
I speak the truth on behalf of the Veteran who has been denied the medical care they need – and so many are not making it. They are dying.
I speak the truth on behalf of the family living near the border that deserves to be safe in their own country but is instead living with no security at all.
Our campaign is about representing the great majority of Americans – Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Conservatives and Liberals – who read the newspaper, or turn on the TV, and don’t hear anyone speaking for them. All they hear are insiders fighting for insiders.
These are the forgotten men and women in our society, and they are angry at so much on so many levels. The poverty, the unemployment, the failing schools, the jobs moving to other countries.
I am fighting for these forgotten Americans.
And an appeal to groups that have not traditionally voted Republican [this wording varied a little in the delivered speech]:
To be one united nation, we must protect all of our people. But we must also provide opportunities for all of our people.
We cannot make America Great Again if we leave any community behind.
Nearly Four in ten African-American children are living in poverty.I will not rest until children of every color in this country are fully included in the American Dream.
Jobs, safety, opportunity. Fair and equal representation. This is what I promise to African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, and all Americans.
And a direct appeal for black votes:
Finally, we are going to bring this country together. We are going to do it by emphasizing what we all have in common as Americans. We are going to reject the bigotry of Hillary Clinton, which sees communities of color only as votes and not as human beings worthy of a better future.
If African-American voters give Donald Trump a chance by giving me their vote, the result for them will be amazing. Look at how badly things are going under decades of Democratic leadership – look at the schools, look at the 58% of young African-Americans not working. It is time for change.
What do you have to lose by trying something new? – I will fix it. This means so much to me, and I will work as hard as I can to bring new opportunity to places in our country which have not known opportunity in a very long time.
Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party have taken African-American votes totally for granted. Because the votes have been automatically there, there has been no reason for Democrats to produce.
It is time to break with the failures of the past, and to fight for every last American child in this country to have the better future they deserve.
Does this sound like the Trump being Trump we saw on the campaign trail so far?
This speech was quite different in tone and delivery from the rousing off-the-cuff speeches that won Trump the nomination. It was a controlled, focused approach to the concerns of citizens abandoned and betrayed by the political and media elites.
It’s not as if he didn’t take it to Hillary, he did:
Aren’t you tired of a system that gets rich at your expense?
Aren’t you tired of the same old lies and the same old broken promises? And Hillary Clinton has proven to be one of the greatest liars of all time.
Aren’t you tired of arrogant leaders who look down on you, instead of serving and protecting you?
That is all about to change – and it’s about to change soon. We are going to put the American people first again….
So while sometimes I can be too honest, Hillary Clinton is the exact opposite: she never tells the truth. One lie after another, and getting worse each passing day.
The American people are still waiting for Hillary Clinton to apologize for all of the many lies she’s told to them, and the many times she’s betrayed them.
Tell me, has Hillary Clinton ever apologized for lying about her illegal email server and deleting 33,000 emails?
Has Hillary Clinton apologized for turning the State Department into a pay-for-play operation where favors are sold to the highest bidder?
Has she apologized for lying to the families who lost loved ones at Benghazi?
Has she apologized for putting Iran on the path to nuclear weapons?
Has she apologized for Iraq? For Libya? For Syria? Has she apologized for unleashing ISIS across the world?
Has Hillary Clinton apologized for the decisions she made that have led to so much death, destruction and terrorism?
Time and Trump’s Twitter feed will tell if this marks a new chapter in the Trump campaign, and whether it is too late to be successful.
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Comments
So the change in leadership seems evident now.
These are the right talking points, and touch directly on the issues that made voters choose Donald Trump over other more establishment-friendly candidates.
It’s not “Trump being Trump” but we expect leaders to do just that, to surround themselves with capable individuals, qualified to provide valuable advice.
I could be wrong, but this looks like a shift in the right direction.
Crossing fingers …
Waiting …
Thing is, can you trust anything Der Donald says.
OR, is this just the Bannon/T-rump 15.0.
History didn’t BEGIN last night.
“I’ve never been politically correct – it takes far too much time, and can often make more difficult.”
This is, of course, an outright lie.
“We have to take care of the women.”
That’s as condescending and PC as anything EVER said by anyone ever.
Rags, the fact that you even ask “Can you trust anything Donald says” is more than we can say about hillary! There is NOTHING she can say that anyone in America will believe it to be truthful. He’s not my choice but at least he has some credibility and she has none.
That’s certainly a fair argument, but one that does not matter to me.
I don’t weigh them against each other. I know them both to be stinking, lying, pathological Collectivist thugs.
I won’t vote for a Collectivist. I recommend all who “vote their conscience” will follow.
Because, of course, Conservative anti-“collective” Republicanism can be summed up in one phrase:
“Screw you, I got mine!”
Defend that, Raggie.
I was thinking about your comment and thought that you can’t put a grade on honesty. You either get the feeling that people are honest or they aren’t. Then it occurred to me that the Fact checking services do measure how much the candidates lie. You can claim they are biased, but they explain their reasoning.
On Politifact.org 1st page of Pants-on-Fire: Trump beats Clinton 9 to 3 . 2nd page 7-0.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/rulings/pants-fire/
We have an actual metric. .Yeah, yeah it is all biased. Everything is biased. Only you know the truth.
You act as if it’s impossible to document the bias of these biased sites that pass themselves off as neutral “fact checkers.” In fact their bias has been easily and copiously proven.
http://humanevents.com/2012/08/30/politifact-bias-does-the-gop-tell-nine-times-more-lies-than-left-really/
“…PolitiFact finds that all political discourse fits neatly into one of six categories on what it calls its “Truth-O-Meter,” a colorful graphic that depicts PolitiFact’s conclusions about the political statements it examines — from True to False to Pants on Fire (from the well-known schoolyard chant about liars). The Pants-on-Fire tag is for claims the fact-checkers find not just false but ridiculous, and they slap conservatives with it nine times as often as liberals.
You could argue — as Mooney, Krider, Paul Krugman and others do — that PolitiFact is right: conservatives are simply stupid or prodigious liars. Or you could do what we have done: dig into PolitiFact’s strained analyses one at a time. That doesn’t illuminate the origins of the bias, but it sure reveals the mechanism by which the left-leaning organization transforms true into false and false into true.
“…In the first example, PolitiFact Ohio reporter Joe Guillen acknowledged that Republican spokeswoman Izzy Santa said something “literally true” — that incumbent Democrat U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown and his backers were spending $13 million in current the race. Remarkably, he still declared the statement only Half True. Guillen achieved that rhetorical sleight-of-hand by determining on his own that Santa probably meant to discuss only money spent by groups outside Brown’s control — despite the fact that her terms explicitly referred to both spending by all groups and by Brown’s campaign (“Sherrod Brown and his special interest allies” and “Brown and his supporters”). The combined total spending of Brown and his supporters was actually higher than $13 million. But if you pretend she didn’t include Brown, then you can pretend she said something wrong.
…All of that was accurate, but PolitiFact Wisconsin called it Mostly False. Why? Because of the wording MacIver used in the title of the video it posted to YouTube. It read “Wis. Election Officials to Accept Mickey Mouse, Hitler Signatures.” PolitiFact felt “accept” was too final a term — because outside groups such as MacIver might still uncover the fraud on their own.
But the problem isn’t that PolitiFact makes bizarre judgments. It’s that PolitiFact pretends those judgments are facts…”
As do the WaPo fact checkers. The self-proclaimed “fact checkers” gave Lindsey Graham and Scott Walker three “Pinocchios” for saying that there were fewer active ships in the USN than in 1916. The fact that it is “literally true” didn’t even put a dent in the “fact checkers” “analysis.” No doubt because their heads are solid bone.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/04/22/the-zombie-claim-about-navy-ship-numbers-returns-to-the-2016-campaign-trail/
“…So if comparing numbers isn’t the best practice, what is? We asked Hendrix what he would advise 2016 candidates to consider when they talk about naval fleet needs: “What the question should be is, what type of ships and where. … If I was going to tell a candidate where to look for his numbers, I would look first to the combatant commanders and see what they’re listing. I’d advise the candidates to make a decision to look inside those numbers, and find out how many of them is required,” Hendrix said. “I’m afraid ship counts in Navy structure is a very arcane art.”
The Pinocchio Test
This is a cautionary tale to 2016 candidates putting together their talking points. We have been through this ship-counting comparison the last presidential cycle, and fact checkers agreed it is a poor way to depict the country’s naval fleet needs. Gunboats of 1915 and aircraft carriers of 2015 are not the same. Military budget, fleet needs and historical circumstances are much different in 2015 than they were in 1915 or in the 1980s. The current fleet is smaller than what combatant commanders report they need, and their figure would be a more responsible one to use.
We gave Romney Three Pinocchios, and we will repeat the same rating. It is time to put this zombie comparison to rest…”
This is complete bullsh*t. How do I know, OnlyRightDissentAllowed? Because the Navy itself uses the same rhetorical device to highlight the shortfall of ships vs. commitments.
http://415vva.homestead.com/USN__Force_Levels__1886-present.pdf
Note the logo at the top of the first page. This is a product of the U.S. Navy Historical and Heritage Command, located in the Washington Navy Yard. It is actually a component of the USN. Scroll down to page 14 of 15 and you’ll see that the chart notes that the 278 active ships in 2007 is:
“** Low since 19th Century”
This is actually a valid way to express the shortfall of ships vs. commitments. Oddly enough, the reason the Navy expresses it this way is the same reason the WaPo called this a “Zombie claim” when the GOP candidates paraphrased what the Nay had already claimed, and when the Navy said it no one had a problem with it. As Michelle Ye Hee Lee the title used the word “zombie” as a rhetorical device as a “sort of a reader-friendly way to describe that this is something that had been talked about in the past, and that it had been challenged in the past as well. And you know, we sort of use it to say hey, you know, we’ve been there before, we’ll say it again.”
That’s exactly why the Navy, and Graham, and Walker, used the apples to apples comparison between today’s active fleet force levels and the fleet force level in the late 19th century and in 1916. It is a reader-friendly way to describe the deficit. We were unready before and we are unready now.
As it stands we are unready to meet peacetime requirements.
http://www.navy.mil/navydata/nav_legacy.asp?id=146
“Ships and Submarines
Deployable Battle Force Ships: 275
Total Ships Deployed/Underway Ships Deployed: 49 (17%)
Ships Underway for Local Ops / Training (USFF / 3rd Fleet) Ships Underway for Local Ops / Training (USFF / 3rd Fleet): 88 (32%)
Ships Underway
Underway Aircraft Carriers:
USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69) 5th Fleet
USS George Washington (CVN 73) – Atlantic
USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) – Atlantic
USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) – Atlantic
Underway Amphibious Assault Ships:
USS Wasp (LHD 1) – 6th Fleet
USS Boxer (LHD 4) – 7th Fleet
USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD 6) – 7th Fleet
USS Makin Island (LHD 8) – Pacific
Aircraft (operational): 3700+ ”
How do you count “Battle Force ships?” It’s like figuring GDP, Cost of living, rate of inflation, unemployment figures, etc. As Mark Twain said, there are lies, damned lies and statistics. Are hospital ships and minesweepers battle force ships? Secretary of the Navy Mabus changed the definition in 2014 to make it so. This had the same effect as dropping the requirement to work 8 hours a week to be considered employed part time to 1 hour a week. It’s a great way to play with the numbers. But the fact is if you look at the order of battle, only half of the Navy’s inventory are combatants i.e. capable of bringing the fight to the enemy. Amphibs and auxiliaries are follow on forces. They arrive on stage only after the combatant forces have achieved sea and air control.
Note the amphibs currently deployed. They require escorts. Combatants, which if used for that purpose are unavailable for other missions. Then there’s the fact that Obama caved to the Russians on deploying land-based ABM systems to Poland and the Czech republic. Which means we have to maintain ship-based ABM forces in eastern Med or the North Sea to deter Russia unless you trust Putin not to take advantage of the fact we are in a conflict with China. Yes, USN warships are more capable than WWI warships. So effin’ what? So are PLAN warships. And we don’t have enough to deal with multiple contingencies at once. As it stands we have difficulty meeting peacetime requirements. No matter how capable a ship is, it can be only in one place at one time. A ships performing one mission is unavailable for other missions.
That’s peacetime. Hate to bust anyone’s bubble, but we don’t have a Navy that can sustain combat. That same vaunted increase in capability means we won’t be churning them out at the rate we did churning out like WWII destroyers, destroyer escorts or escort carriers. One every 42 days or so.
And speaking of the supposed increase in the capability of ships since WWI, eight years after the commissioning of the first Littoral Combat Ship (LCS, known in the Navy as the “Little Crappy Ship”) there are several WWI vessels that could beat the LCS hands down. This may sound ridiculous but I’m thinking a well handled flush-deck four piper could do it.
Why? Because the LCS is supposed to be modular. As in, the standard boat only comes with a rapid fire 57mm 2.25gun mounted on the bow.
damned @$&*ing Gremlins.
I was going to say that:
“Because the LCS is supposed to be modular. As in, the standard boat only comes with a rapid fire 57mm (2.25inch) gun mounted on the bow.”
None of the Mine Warfare, Anti-Submarine Warfare, Anti-Surface Unit Warfare, or Anti-Air Warfare modules have been built. So for eight years the LCS has been sorta-deploying with just the 57mm. Maybe they fitted a few extra .50 machine guns. But as far as “major weapons systems” the 57mm is it.
A typical WWI flush-deck four-piper wasn’t just modular it just was. She was equipped with four 4″/50 caliber guns, one 3″/23 caliber gun, and twelve 21″ torpedo tubes.
And plenty of space to fit a few extra Ma Dueces.
Which would you rather have, the one that might be able to poke a few 57mm holes in its adversary before being blown out of the water? Except for air conditioning the LCS has nothing to recommend it. It’s not a small ship either, which brings into serious doubt that it can perform the in-shore missions its proponents claim. It’s 32′ longer than a 1942 Fletcher class destroyer and, by the by, a 1942 era Fletcher with its five 5″/38 cal guns and ten forpedoes, and multiple 40mm, 20mm, and .50 mounts would blow the LCS out of the water. Sad of the day. 1917 and 1942 beats 2016.
It is to cry. It’s what we’re sending our sailors to sea in. Escort carriers, CVEs, were known as “Kaiser coffins” but comparatively speaking r.e. the LCS CVE sailors had it good.
Like a fish doesn’t know it’s wet, Michelle Ye Hee Lee is immersed in leftist group think. And when she engages in what passes for thought in her world she concludes leftist group think constitutes fact. So, yes, biaspalooza.
Odds and ends. When her back was to the wall on this subject, WaPo “fact checker” Michelle Ye Hee Lee was forced to admit she knew what point Romney, Graham, and Walker were trying to make. And that it was a valid point. But she attempted to defend herself and her three Pinnochios by saying if they had made the same point using the Quadrennial Defense Review that would have been OK. But because they used the same “user friendly” sort of rhetorical device as she did when calling it a “Zombie claim” it was out of bounds. Because her leftist Democrat handlers told her what to think.
Therefore in the spirit of consistency I give Michelle Ye Hee Lee four Pinnochios for referring to the reference to 1916 as a “Zombie” claim. A zombie is an undead being, specifically a reanimated corpse. Nothing that Romney, Graham, or Walker said was in reality a reanimated corpse. Ergo, Ms. Ye Hee Lee and the WaPo are lying when they say the claim is a zombie.
Hear, hear! Because the BSD MBA CEO Managers of this Web site can’t allow the thumbs to persist past a few days…
You must be vying for the position of
TOKYO ROSE 2016.
Your regular drum beat of
doubt, fear and defeatism
is transparent.
Thank you professor. This is a fair presentation of the 3rd of 3 very good speech’s this week.
Trump is a businessman known for his negotiation style. This is Trump being Trump. When conditions warrant, you start out hard. When you move in to close the deal, you make moves to assure the deal gets done.
That is the difference between a businessman who has to make win – win deals to survive :
and a criminal politician like Hillary Clinton who’s traded in lies, corruption, & insider scams to rise to the top of a very dysfunctional & corrupt institutional.system.
…AND who Der Donald lauded, endorsed, and contributed to.
Just to keep it real…
P-rags ;
You’ll be gratified to know the complimentary Louisiana political crime family to the Arkansan originated Clinton crime cartel the Landrieu’s all endorse their neighboring state cousins.
The Shreveport casinos aren’t that far from Hot Springs where Little Billy learned the tricks of the trade on mama’s knee.
Your kind of people.
“I’d like to take a moment to talk about the heartbreak and devastation in Louisiana, a state that is very special to me.”
Really? Isn’t this just PC pablum?
Outside of campaigning in LA, has T-rump spent any time there?
Does he live there any part of the year?
Does he even own any property in LA?
Please, people…!!!
My God! Are you saying that politicians are untruthful? Kissing babies and shaking hands? Have they ever been any different? It is a little late to be worrying about campaign hubris.
But THIS one is claiming to be above all that.
See?
He’s as PC as they come, just in a way that’s PC to the rubes he targets.
Let’s get this right folk’s,
#never Hillary
Trump 2016.
So, you’re admitting St. Der Donald is a politician?
So he must own land or spend time there to care? Hogwash.
His words:
“We are one nation. When one state hurts, we all hurt – and we must all work together to lift each other up. Working, building, restoring together.
Our prayers are with the families who have lost loved ones, and we send them our deepest condolences. Though words cannot express the sadness one feels at times like this, I hope everyone in Louisiana knows that our country is praying for them and standing with them to help them in these difficult hours.
We are one country, one people, and we will have together one great future.”
Plenty of people who are far from the disaster nevertheless feel for other Americans in their times of trouble.
Perhaps those that ONLY want to spout their own negative frustrations with a candidate could take a step back and understand that what Trump said is a good thing and a message of unity in the sea of division we are accustomed to.
How do I know this speech hit it out of the park? The elite media meme’s are consistently along the lines “he pivoted too late.” This is laughable, as most normal people don’t really start paying attention until after Labor Day…and then, many more don’t bother much until late October.
Therefore, the elite media and the establishment have less than 90 days to come up with different tactics!
Fasten your seat belts for a bumpy autumn election cycle!
Personally I can’t wait for the debates. I hope that criminal skank Clinton has one of her freaky seizures during the debate on live tv, her head starts spinning around and she pukes right in Candy Crowleys face. Crowley will gobble it down and swear it tastes good.
As he said, he is not a politician, like the others, and has been evolving into what we are now seeing.
If he truly wants to be the voice for those who are not represented, then he must put aside the reality show aspect to his campaign and assume the role of a leader, which he appears to be doing.
He is showing that’s he not as dumb as his detractors love to say, but perhaps just the opposite, and quite capable of learning and growing.
Combined with a common sense approach and good judgment, he is positioned well to expose the complete corruption of the powers that be.
I have wondered these months with whom Trump would surround himself, what sort of listener would be be, and he would be consequently impacted in his decision-making. He has little leeway for antics of previous months and needs to demonstrate whether the man who can this speech is the one, if elected, who would occupy the Oval Office.
If so, there might be reason to be optimistic.
And today President Trump and VP Pence are in Louisiana, showing how well they stand with people who are hurting. This is how a successful private sector team takes on a project.
Everything Hillary and Obama do now will just be catch up and poor mouthing. Because that’s what government hacks do.
Can you guys just hush up about Louisiana? I’m trying to putt here.
Hope you quadruple bogey the hole!
So, there’s some concession that Trump might just possibly have some slight idea of what he’s doing after all, is that it?
Huh. What a surprise.
“…and whether it is too late to be successful.”
I suppose success is in the eye of the beholder, but I do wonder what you call “success”?
At this point in time, Trump is as successful as almost any other R candidate.
Since Reagan, we’ve had only three terms of a Bush for republicans, hardly a conservative success story.