This was a speech guaranteed to give nervous Democrats the willies. It was He, Trump as the protectionist hero of American labor. It was He, Trump as the repentant plutocrat who knows where all the hidden dials and gauges are. It was He, Trump as the shining paladin avenger of everyone who can't possibly ever afford to play on any of his luxurious properties anywhere around the world. The New York Times got the gist of it in play.
Speaking in western Pennsylvania, Mr. Trump sought to turn the page on weeks of campaign turmoil and racial controversy by returning to a core set of economic grievances that have animated his campaign from the start. He attacked Mrs. Clinton for flip-flopping on her past support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade pact negotiated by the Obama administration, and challenged her to pledge that she would void the agreement in its entirety. Mrs. Clinton had backed free-trade agreements like Nafta in the past, Mr. Trump said, and he warned, "She will betray you again." "You will be hurt worse than ever before if she becomes president of the United States," he said. The language and location of Mr. Trump's speech encapsulated his political strategy for the general election: His greatest source of support is white, working-class men, and his campaign hopes to compete in traditionally Democratic-leaning states, like Pennsylvania, to carve an unlikely path to 270 electoral votes.
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But what did he say, dudes?
"This wave of globalization has wiped out totally, totally our middle class…It doesn't have to be this way. We can turn it around and we can turn it around fast…Our politicians have aggressively pursued a policy of globalization—moving our jobs, our wealth and our factories to Mexico and overseas. Globalization has made the financial elite who donate to politicians very, very wealthy. I used to be one of them. Hate to say it, but I used to be one of them. The inner cities will remain poor…The factories will remain closed. The special interests will remain firmly in control."
Oh, that.
He also claimed that he would scrap the Trans-Pacific Partnership and (at least) rewrite NAFTA which, no matter how many times Trump says it, Bill Clinton did not sign. (It was a bequest from his predecessor, George H. W. Bush. Clinton pushed for its ratification.) The U.S. Chamber of Commerce instantly went bananas, which is something that should scare Democrats silly, too, now that I think about it. He also accused Hillary Rodham Clinton of running "a campaign of fear," which would be an entirely shrewd tactic, if the thought of a Trump presidency weren't authentically terrifying.
IT WAS HE, TRUMP AS THE REPENTANT PLUTOCRAT WHO KNOWS WHERE ALL THE HIDDEN DIALS AND GAUGES ARE.
Nonetheless, for a campaign that was both chaotic and listless for the past two weeks, this speech was a jump up. It engaged vital issues, no matter how compromised and (frankly) dishonest a messenger delivered it, and they happen to be issues on which his prospective opponent is somewhat vulnerable. Now all of this is Presidential Candidate 101 stuff but, hell, if James Dobson can pronounce this guy a "baby Christian" and not get laughed all the way back to the Sea of Galilee, anything's possible.
And, one last thing: The CNN panel that followed the speech, which included paid Trump mole Corey Lewandowski, was a bigger pile of waste than the one in front of which He, Trump delivered his address.