Finally, a serious and truly experienced contender. Donald Trump and his $9 billion just made the biggest splash of the 2016 presidential race.
By the time the seas stop sloshing back and forth, there may not be a drop of water left over for anybody else to float a rowboat.
Of course, what you heard from Washington and the elite political set in both parties Tuesday was snickering and laughing and scoffing. All the old jokes about The Donald’s cheesy style. His crazy orange combover. His penchant for grand statements spoken bluntly with and exclamation point that is often dotted by his very own finger in the air.
And, yes, he descended down to his kickoff at Trump Towers via a glass escalator. It was shopping mall glamorous.
As presidential announcements go, it was brilliant. It was simple, and it was patriotic.
No sun-splashed park with throngs of rented people jammed around an H-shaped stage. No fake columns.
Just a stage and a velvet blue curtain and a podium. Flanked by American flags carefully folded to show both stars and stripes, Mr. Trump wore a simple uniform of red tie, white shirt, blue suit. Red, white and blue.
Get it? Red, white and blue? America’s colors? The flag? In other words, Mr. Trump loves America. Get it?
It sounds so simple, yet it is so terribly complicated for all the geniuses around here who get paid monstrous amounts of money by political campaigns to put on events like this. They get into earth tones and pant suits and open-collared shirts.
You can imagine Mr. Trump shaking his head, patience drained, just before he fires somebody.
“No! I want American flags behind me,” you can hear him saying in an exasperated tone. “I want a red tie, white shirt and blue suit. Get it? Red, white and blue? I love America and I want to return her to greatness so I am going to wear red, white and blue.”
Then came Mr. Trump’s take on what is wrong with America today. It was a scalding evisceration of politicians in both parties and all their terrible ideas and lazy neglect of fierce and festering problems.
He shredded them for everything from trade to defense to unemployment to immigration. And “the disaster called ‘The Big Lie.’ Obamacare!”
And in one sentence, he shone a light on the only path anyone should have ever used to combat Obamacare: It is A LIE! The president and his party are liars and they lie every time they tell people that the government will make people’s lives better. It is a complete lie just to shake down people for more money and accumulate more power for themselves. It is a scam. Total street hustler scam and Obamacare is the biggest of them all.
If the president and his party are telling the truth about all the wonderful ways government can make your life so much better, why is there rioting in Missouri and Baltimore and California after SIX YEARS of Obama and Democrat rule? Why are so many people so desperately miserable today?
“We don’t have victories,” Mr. Trump said, before running through all the foreign countries that beat America all the time in trade, immigration, defense and economy.
“I beat China all the time.” he said flatly. “All the time.”
“When was the last time you saw a Chevrolet in Tokyo? It doesn’t exist.”
Mr. Trump then turned southward.
“When do we beat Mexico?” he asked. “At the border, they are laughing at us — at our stupidity. They are not our friend, but they are killing us economically.”
Who talks like this? Name one single politician today in either party who is this plainly articulate? Unafraid to say precisely what we are all thinking.
“The US has become a dumping ground for everybody else’s problems,” he said.
Donald Trump is the Godzilla we all wanted Sarah Palin to be. He is the real renegade. He is the businessman we wanted Mitt Romney to be. He is the straight-talker that George W. Bush was on good days.
Another way you know that Mr. Trump is manna from heaven for America is to hear all the clowns in media and politics who were perfectly horrified by the spectacle of Mr. Trump’s announcement.
Look no further than the simpering and insufferable Washington Post, which is the very face of everything that is wrong with political insiderism and incestuous journalism today.
“Terrible,” the flailing paper declared of Mr. Trump’s candidacy. Why?
“People like Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Mike Huckabee and everyone else on that debate stage will be playing by one set of rules, Trump will be playing by another. Or, more accurately: Trump won’t be playing by any rules.”
Dear God, help us. America is falling to pieces. Russia, China and Iran are plotting to destroy us. Radical Islamists want to slit every one of our throats. And the best these idiots can come up with is Hillary Clinton. And what they are worried about are the rules of some stupid debate nobody’s gonna watch.
We really are ruined — at least until this current crowd of liars, fakers and frauds are tossed aside. At least Donald Trump understands that much.
Charles Hurt can be reached at charleshurt@live.com and on Twitter at @charleshurt.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.