Finneran: Trump’s Hernia
Friday, August 25, 2017
Tom Finneran, GoLocalWorcester MINDSETTER™
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| Donald Trump |
As with most hernias it is self-inflicted. Call it a rupture, a strain, whatever. It was caused by a too heavy effort to walk a fine line on the idiocy on display in Charlottesville.
In a nation of more than three hundred million people, you’re bound to have a few kooks. In this case the kooks were neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and members of the KKK.
Let’s pretend that they numbered 5000 strong. Now let’s do the math……five thousand idiots out of three hundred million people. Get ready for a lot of zeroes. Not just in the numbers---.0000017 percent---but in the freak show itself. Zeroes, losers, deplorables all.
Is there an easier political pitch to knock out of the park than the opportunity to decisively denounce their misanthropic message? How do you garble that opportunity?
By the way Mr. President, I am in full sympathy with your sense that there is another side to this equation, specifically those “peaceful protesters” who show up in masks and body armor, carrying bats, and throwing bottles of urine at the police. Talk about pre-meditation. They deserve an equivalent and explicit denunciation. Their words and their actions are beyond the pale.
Mayor Walsh was spot-on in his praise of the Boston Police Department for its remarkable restraint in the face of obnoxious provocation. So too was President Trump in his recognition of the BPD’s professionalism. As for the rest of us, we need not be so restrained. Those allegedly “peaceful” protesters who threw bottles, rocks, and other projectiles at police officers should be given ample time to contemplate America’s many sins---let’s start them off with a couple of years in a state prison.
That those protesters vilify and attack the police, most of whom would rather be home with their families than standing in the boiling sun trying to protect innocent civilians and shopkeepers, tells you all you need to know about their world view. They are every bit as thuggish as the paltry goofball neo-Nazi brigades.
To the charge from the Left that America is an incurably racist nation, let’s bear in mind that this country voted for Barack Obama in three separate matchups---against a white woman (Hillary Clinton), against a white man (John McCain), and against a white man (Mitt Romney). I suspect that if the Constitution allowed it, the nation would have voted for President Obama yet again, against white man Donald Trump.
It's not as if in the year 2016 America retreated back to a reflexively racist DNA, fleeing from its flirtation with Obama. The elections of 2008 and 2012 were a clear refutation of the notion that America is a profoundly racist nation.
Such are the theses however of a segment of the American electorate who see “hate” in every political disagreement. Such are the theses of those immersed in theories of “privilege”, “intersectionality” and other tenure-track academic folderol. They loathe America. With her defeat in last fall’s election, they now loathe Hillary Clinton as well.
Hillary Clinton’s defeat came from a hundred different wellsprings. Some of it was the Bernie Sanders effect, some of it was sheer Clinton fatigue, some of it was lousy staff work, and some of it was a lousy candidate. Some of it was also due to candidate cowardice………..
I suspect that Hillary Clinton would now be addressed as Madam President if she had not completely collapsed in the face of the Black Lives Matter movement. To the BLM demand that she embrace the statement that “black lives matter” her initial response was that “all lives matter”. Then, astonishingly, in response to their utterly predictable tantrum that only a “black lives matter” answer was acceptable, she collapsed and surrendered. Talk about a non-presidential response! Bill Clinton would have turned on that pitch like Hank Aaron pouncing on a hanging curveball. But Hillary buckled. Game. Set. Match.
The American people do not want a weakling in the White House.
They may not be thrilled with Donald Trump as President and the Donald himself will have to improve his game. For now, the Donald has a hernia.
But hernias can be fixed. They usually require a little surgery and a willing patient. It’s the willing patient element that confounds the public. Can he do it? Will he do it?
Right now, the bookies are betting 50/50 that he ends up with a double hernia. He might very well be the world’s worst patient. Time will tell………………..
Stay tuned.
Tom Finneran is the former Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, served as the head the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, and was a longstanding radio voice in Boston radio.
