Trump: Fresh Communicator

Just caught a glimpse of Trump's press conference.

In some ways I had the same sensation I had listening to Ronald Reagan, years ago: This guy is different.


What I heard was the government is buying some new fighter and it will be a bargain, a great price and it will be a better airplane than what the Obama administration had planned for.


Reagan was fun to listen to because he had some great lines, which were clearly written for him but he delivered them with gusto.  "The problem cannot be solved by the government; the problem is the government."  Or, "The nine scariest words in the English language: I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

Had to laugh.

Try not to think too much about what he was saying but you understood.

Much as I loved President Obama, listening to him, with the pauses while he searched for just the right word, was not fun, not like with Reagan.

His Inaugural Address was so unemotional, so business like, it was simply not uplifting. The only time he was truly an inspiration speaker was at his 2004 convention speech. Oh, and his astonishing speech in Grant Park the night he won the Presidency for the first time, "If anyone ever doubted that in America, anything is possible..."The rest of the time he was admirable, rational, reassuring and ultra competent, but he took great pains not to appeal to your emotions. He was saying, that's not what I'm about.

Certainly, Hillary tried to appeal to emotions, but they were warm and fuzzy emotions, mostly, not stand up on your chair and shout emotions. Bernie did that.


Most of the politicians, when you watch them, you can see the wheels turning in their head, you can see them trying to avoid saying certain phrases which they've been warned will get some constituency angry, or which may be heard by a labor union or a Black advocacy group, or a policeman's union and they are trying to parse a sentence which will offend none of these people. So a Black man gets shot in the back by a white police officer and you get a sentence like, "We all deplore the loss of life, but we have to reserve judgment about this particular incident until we have all the facts and can determine if the officer discharged his service weapon in a manner which was justified by the circumstances."


Say what?

The last time, other than Bernie, I can remember a really liberal thinker appealing to emotions effectively was Martin Luther King. And that was 50 years ago.

Here's a challenge for you: Write a liberal manifesto, a speech, which appeals to the gut, to the soul.

Any topic, you choose.

 

Until we have something to say, someone to say it, we'll have Mr. Trump and his crowd.


The people want circus. Where's our circus?