I have said for years that the battle in this country is not R vs D. It is not even just conservative vs progressive. The battle in this country is big government vs the people. It is them vs us.
Donald Trump is an 'us.'
Long before he was president, Trump was a celebrity rich guy. He was famous for being wealthy. And he became wealthy by being famous. But he was never accepted by the ‘thems.’ New York society never accepted Trump. Even though he had the money, the right cars, the right clothes, sent his kids to the right schools. The ‘thems’ never treated him as an equal.
We are seeing the same thing for President Trump. My God, the D.C. establishment tried to rig a coup against him from the beginning. After that it has been one resistance after another. The Swamp really hates this man. They hate him because he is not one of them. They hate him because he is one of us.
He is one of the millions of ‘us’ who see government as acting against us. Taking our money, spending on themselves, and not giving a rip about what we get for it.
President Trump is president because there are a lot of ‘us’ out there who cannot stand to see more of ‘them.’
Adam Goodman has a piece at The Hill that sums it up.
“In the final stages of the [final] debate, the president closed in on Biden’s repeated promises to change the world, despite a 47-year record during which he changed very little. It was an effective exchange for the incumbent outsider because it forced voters to question why they should believe Biden would suddenly do what he’s never done before.
The line is ‘I’ve done more in 47 months than Joe did in 41 years,” and it works.
More to the point, the line helps the president paint Joe Biden as the ultimate insider. He’s been in Washington for 40 years. He’s never had a real job. He became rich while serving in the U.S. Senate.
That resonates with people. There are a lot more of ‘us’ than there are of the ‘thems’ who profit in D.C. A lot of ‘us’ see government as the problem.
That is part of the attraction to President Trump.
His campaign manager made that point at Saturday’s rally in Waukesha:
Tim Murtaugh insisted the rallies "attract new people," and that on average "about a quarter of the people who sign up for the rallies are not Republican."
Murtaugh said data collected from those who signed up for the Oct. 17 rally in Janesville showed 47.5% were not "modeled as Republicans" and 24% "did not vote at all in 2016."
"The media and the Democrats can scoff at the rally if they want to and think the president is strictly running a base election," he said. "We know through data that is absolutely untrue. The president is expanding his support.”
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