Tuesday, August 16, 2016
Here’s a quick quiz for you political junkies:
Donald J. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, came to Youngstown on Monday to deliver a major speech on:
A.) The economy – with emphasis on his plan to revive the steel industry in the Mahoning Valley.
B.) Crime and punishment – with emphasis on cleaning up America’s urban streets by rounding up the usual suspects.
C.) Taxes – with emphasis on why billionaire candidates for president like him should not have to make public their tax returns.
D.) National security – with emphasis on his plan to defeat radical Islamic terrorism around the world.
If your answer is A, you’re probably one of those blue-collar, angry white male voters who supported the New York City tycoon because he has promised to “Make America Great Again.”
If you chose B, you’ve obviously bought into the idea that Black Lives Matter and other such groups are simply exaggerating the extent to which blacks in America are profiled by and are at the mercy of the police.
If your answer is C, you’ve been brainwashed into believing that very rich people are the engine that keeps America’s economy humming and, therefore, deserve to be rewarded by paying less tax than their secretaries.
And if you chose D, you were among the chosen few invited to attend the address Monday afternoon at Kilcawley Center at Youngstown State University.
For the rest of the people of the Mahoning Valley, Trump’s choice of Youngstown to deliver a major address on foreign policy is as much a mystery as his speech in Scotland praising the Brexit vote when a majority of the Scots said Britain should remain in the European Union.
But, as Trump’s supporters have said time and again, the real-estate developer is not a politician. He just tells it like it is.
So, why did the Republican presidential nominee come to Youngstown to unveil his plans to “Make America Safe Again?”
He didn’t say. Indeed, he did not mention Youngstown even once in his 49-minute address. He might as well have been reading his Teleprompter from the comfortable confines of his penthouse in Trump Towers.
On the other hand, he may have not been sure where he was.
After all, one of Trump’s most-trusted advisers, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, thought he was in Indiana. Giuliani was introducing Trump’s running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, to the 350 or so invited guests when he referred to him as “your governor.”
The former mayor corrected himself, but his faux pas served to remind the Republican faithful and other Trump supporters that their governor, the ever-popular John R. Kasich, has snubbed Trump.
Kasich, who sought the Republican nomination for president but was only able to win Ohio, has refused to endorse the GOP presidential nominee. And he recently said on CNN he hasn’t made up his mind that he’s going to vote for Trump in the November general election.
So, it may well be that Giuliani was indulging in some wishful thinking when he said “your governor.”
As for Trump coming to Youngstown to discuss his view of the world, in general, and radical Islamic extremism, in particular, here are some possible explanations:
Someone whispered in his ear the Valley was a hotbed of Islamic extremism.
The steel mills along the Valley’s Mahoning River that are so important to this nation’s war effort are being targeted by ISIS.
That Youngstown is on the cutting edge of additive manufacturing using 3-D printing, and that crates of Trump bobble heads are bring produced so they can be dropped all over the Middle East in a propaganda campaign.
That when the word spread he was going to talk about foreign travel, many of his supporters thought he was going to announce that under his administration air travel from Youngstown to Naples, Fla., would be nonstop.
Or, more seriously, Trump chose to talk about national security because it was too risky to appear at a rally of thousands of his supporters and talk about his plans to revive the steel industry in the Valley.
During the primary campaign, he won over thousands of disaffected Democrats and independents by pledging to launch an aggressive job-creation program. He said he would restore the nation’s manufacturing might by forcing American corporations to bring back all the jobs they shipped abroad.
Trump, who isn’t a stickler for details, has not said what presidential authority he would use to force American companies to do his bidding.
Giving a speech about national security to a group of invited guests was a lot safer than talking about steel production to a crowd of angry former steelworkers.