Trump’s Brilliant Counter to Charges of Racism - Karin McQuillan

by Karin McQuillan

Republicans fail when they talk in bromides about opportunity and think blacks will feel included.  Trump wasn’t just promising money, he went on to attack the failure of inner city Democratic regimes and offer a conservative critique of black suffering.

Full disclosure: I was a strong Ted Cruz supporter.  I am getting genuinely happy about Donald Trump.  I think his supporters were right in choosing him.

Voters agree with Trump that we should stop Muslim immigration to this country.  Even a local poll in liberal California showed 59% of voters strongly or somewhat agree with Trump.  So Trump’s detractors have largely stopped calling him anti-Muslim, and switched to the short-hand “racist”.  Being labeled racist is not unique to Trump, of course.  Democrats call all Republicans racist.  Race-baiting their black voting bloc, and pandering to their white voters’ smug sense of moral superiority, is Democrats’ single most important electoral advantage.  

What is unique is that we finally have a candidate who can fight back, and fight back hard.

At the Faith and Freedom Summit last Friday (which was very poorly reported), Trump didn’t counter the racist charges, he did jujitsu with them, using the Muslim immigration issue to appeal directly for black votes.  That’s the way you dominate the conversation and win elections.  Donald Trump challenged Hillary Clinton

“…to replace her support for increased refugee admissions… with a new job program for our inner cities.” Clinton “wants a 500% increase in Syrian refugees to come into our country.”
Clinton’s plan to resettle 65,000 Syrian migrants would cost U.S. taxpayers over $42 billion over the course of the migrants’ lifetimes, based on projections from Heritage Foundation …
“We have to take care of the people who are here,” Trump explained. “We have to temporarily stop this whole thing with what’s going on with refugees, where we don’t know where they come from… We have to take a rest. We have to take a time out. We have to use the money to take care of our poorest Americans and work with them, so they can come out of this horrible situation that they’re in.”

Why is this brilliant?  Republicans have tried to ignore the racist label or laugh it off.  That doesn’t work. When someone libels you, being defensive is fatal.  Trump is smarter.  He goes on the offensive.  Talk to black voters yourself, directly, and with heart.  Republicans have made the answer be “No” by writing off the black vote.  Republicans fail when they talk in bromides about opportunity and think blacks will feel included.  Trump wasn’t just promising money, he went on to attack the failure of inner city Democratic regimes and offer a conservative critique of black suffering.

From his speech:

Regulation, bureaucracy, government control and open borders have economically destroyed our inner cities. Her [Clinton’s] policies will be a crushing blow to all poor people in this country. Her education policies, her economic policies, her immigration policies and her trade policies will plunge our poor African American and Hispanic communities into turmoil and even worse, despair—believe me, you look at what’s going on.

Critics accuse Trump of not learning and growing on the campaign trail.  At Friday’s Christian rally Trump announced a new theme:

I have the theme, 'Make America Great Again.' And I've added a couple of things. I'm adding … right now, I'm adding it, Make America Great Again … for everyone," said Trump.
"Because it's really going to be for everyone. Not going to be a group of people. It’s going to be for everyone. It's true.

At the same time, Trump is not backing up on his truth-telling about Islam.  This March he said in an interview:

"I think Islam hates us," Trump told CNN's Anderson Cooper, …"it's radical, but it’s very hard to define. It's very hard to separate. Because you don't know who's who."
Asked if the hate was "in Islam itself," Trump would only say that was for the media to figure out.  "You're gonna have to figure that out, OK?" he told Cooper. "We have to be very vigilant. We have to be very careful. And we can't allow people coming into this country who have this hatred of the United States -  and of people who are not Muslim."Asked if the hate was "in Islam itself," Trump said that was for the media to figure out.

"You're gonna have to figure that out, OK?" he said when asked if there was hatred in the religion itself.

"We have to be very vigilant. We have to be very careful. And we can't allow people coming into this country who have this hatred of the United States," Trump said.

Notice that Trump deflected Cooper’s gotcha question.   Cooper wants to know if the hate is in Islam?  Let him figure it out for himself.  Trump leaves the question out there.  He hammers in the reality that a dangerous number of Moslems hate us.  President Trump’s job will be to protect Americans from the jihadi menace.  His sole focus is on what Islam is to us, in practical terms in the real world.  Trump is certainly not going to propagate the lies from Republican and Democrat alike that Islam is a religion of peace.  Trump plays the media to carry his common sense message.

Trump’s website statement is very logical and strong,  something new among American leaders: a moratorium on Muslims is justified by the popularity of jihad amongst Muslims in America.  His December 2015 statement:

Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on. According to Pew Research, among others, there is great hatred towards Americans by large segments of the Muslim population. Most recently, a poll from the Center for Security Policy released data showing "25% of those polled agreed that violence against Americans here in the United States is justified as a part of the global jihad" and 51% of those polled, "agreed that Muslims in America should have the choice of being governed according to Shariah." Shariah authorizes such atrocities as murder against non-believers who won't convert, beheadings and more unthinkable acts that pose great harm to Americans, especially women.

Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy is a terrific outfit.  It reflects well on Trump that he has gone to Gaffney for information on the Islamic threat.  The report cited is not about jihadi infiltrators, but about Muslims living in the United States. It states: “a significant minority embraces the supremacist notions that could pose a threat to America’s security and its constitutional form of government.”  As quoted by Trump, fifty-one percent of Muslims here want the choice of sharia law.  Only 63% agree that the U.S. Constitution protects speech that offends Muslims.  And a whopping 25% agree that violence should be used to impose sharia law on all Americans.

Trump is both informed and fearless re jihad in America.  When libeled a racist, he goes on the offensive.  He is not cowed by Democrat or Republican mudslinging, whether from Hillary Clinton, Paul Ryan or Mitt Romney   Being independent and politically incorrect is not trivial, but crucial to appeal to voters, protect our safety and our freedoms.

Hat tip: Breitbart.com

Karin McQuillan

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/06/trumps_brilliant_counter_to_charges_of_racism.html

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