President Trump Has The Wind At His Back

The 45^th President, Donald Trump, is riding the momentum of a historic two-week stretch, which has observed a number of extraordinary moments in a campaign that has already been replete with so many of them.  This started with a rousing debate performance that captured the national media’s attention in a way that only the master showman could.  To this day, the President’s memorable line regarding Haitian migrants – “they’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats” – has become a cultural sensation, drowning out virtually all other coverage of the debate, and even becoming a viral hit on social media platforms like TikTok. 

The public response to the debate showed that only President Trump had the memorable lines, rivaling the “because you’d be in jail” haymaker that effectively sunk Hillary Clinton’s campaign in that famous verbal joust eight years ago.  His performance also demonstrated that he, not Kamala, was the clear victor.  The ironclad law of televised presidential debates remains true: victory goes to he who has the memorable quotes and thus commands the national psyche.  That Kamala had no lines of significance and President Trump had at least a handful, each of which will be remembered decades from now – in the class of Reagan’s “there you go again” and the aforementioned “because you’d be in jail” line by Trump – proves that Donald Trump, the media maestro, still commands a stranglehold over news headlines like nobody else.

The “dogs and cats” line was also significant because it described the most important issue this cycle, immigration, in the most viscerally effective way possible.  Speaking in a parlance that most Americans can easily relate to, President Trump succinctly encapsulated the real-world effects of having an open border.  It’s one thing to dryly articulate how immigrants drive down wages for low-skilled workers that disproportionately hurt native-born Americans, and particularly blacks and Hispanics.  That might prove effective in a congressional policy paper outlining immigration’s economic harm, but it hardly captures the imagination, nor stir the emotions of viewers sufficient to stimulate real-world action — namely, to vote on that issue. 

To achieve the latter, you need to play up and illustrate, in all its uncanny and macabre detail, the existential costs of unfettered migration in the most emotionally impactful of terms.  It takes a rare kind of person, one who is exceptionally gifted in the art of communication, to achieve the latter result.  That skill has been Donald Trump’s bread and butter ever since he descended the golden escalator some nine years ago – and it is what has endeared him to so many millions of Americans, because he stands alone as the only politician in our lifetimes to have awoken the masses about America’s decline, and offer an alternative course – a vision steeped in optimism and revival, over and against the politics of demoralization preferred by the Swamp and its imagination-starved apparatchiks in legacy media institutions. He did that through his shamelessly candid rhetoric — rhetoric that sliced through the hypnotic seductions of mass media, and awakened something deep within people’s psyches almost at a molecular level.

In addition to the debate, the President has continued his torrid pace of campaigning – making pitstops to Michigan, Arizona, Nevada, New York, Washington, DC, and Florida over the past few days.  This country barnstorming has allowed him to bring his message directly to grassroots voters, where he has unveiled new policies – like “no tax on tips,” and more recently, “no tax on overtime” – which have become crowd favorites on the campaign trail.  Indeed, part of how the President maintains his humility is by speaking directly to tens of thousands of voters at Trump rallies, a forum and phenomenon both that he has by now molded into an art form, one that will unlikely ever again be replicated in American politics – and one that certainly has no precedent in this country’s history. 

Recently, he brought this art form to Nassau County, Long Island, a bold move that demonstrated the President’s courage for taking the message deep into the heart of Democratic country.  Holding another rally in New York also served as a symbolic display of his unrelenting drive to further expand the base to as many new voters as possible and heal the great divide in this country in the process – while forging a political coalition the likes of which have not been seen since the days of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

The optics at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, the former home of the New York Islanders Hockey Team, was world-historic.  Just a decade ago, it would have been unthinkable to hold a political rally in a stadium normally reserved for a major league sports team.  But on Tuesday, the massive venue of 20,000 attendees, which was filled up, felt almost too cramped to house the MAGA movement.  Indeed, tens of thousands of eager rally goers, who did not get in, watched with enthusiasm outside the venue, where the President’s remarks were transmitted on a giant jumbotron.  The attendees, the overwhelming majority of whom hailed from New York, clung to every single word uttered by President Trump for dear life, the gravity of whose appearance was deepened by the fact that it came just days after yet another assassination attempt on his life. 

The spectators all seemed fully aware, humbled even, by the greatness of whose presence they were in – and the fleetingness of the Trump rally phenomenon, which will come to an end on November 5^th in one form or another.  New Yorkers also know better than most Americans the rank perils and outright dangers of a weaponized justice system, that being the de facto norm in modern day New York – under Attorney General, Letitia James, and District Attorney, Alvin Bragg – whose thumbs crush and demoralize those who still occupy the once mighty Empire State. 

On policy, New Yorkers have also been saddled by unfathomably high taxes, including the SALT tax, and draconian regulations that have driven thousands of lucrative businesses and entrepreneurs – to say nothing of countless mom and pop workers who are being ransacked by the current cast of goons in Albany who operate like Tammany Hall under Boss Tweed on steroids – to red state tax havens like Florida, North Carolina, and Texas.  It is why they flooded the Nassau Coliseum, a suburb approximately 35 minutes away from Manhattan by train, by the tens of thousands – easily one of the top two or three Trump rallies of the year, by the legions.  Many in attendance pondered the equivalent of Kamala Harris being able to fill up a stadium in a deep red state, like Alabama or Kentucky, and laughed at how farfetched a prospect that seems.

President Trump maximized his pitstop in the state that made him famous.  Prior to the rally, he recorded a sit-down interview on Greg Gutfeld’s eponymous evening show, which got its highest ratings ever with 5 million viewers, and then made history by becoming the first president to commence a transaction in Bitcoin, which he did at a bespoke Manhattan bar, before motorcading off to Long Island to deliver remarks to his hometown compatriots.

From the rally, the President veered off to Washington DC, the city he hopes to takeover – and revitalize – a few short months from now, to make his pitch to Jewish voters, and then headed back down to his Mar-a-Lago sanctuary, where he will be regrouping for a quick respite before bopping off to a smorgasbord of battlegrounds next week.  His nonstop traveling and preternatural knack as a workaholic far outpaced anything Kamala Harris can dream of.  She has taken the time since being politically outmaneuvered in Philadelphia by the Donald to court a dwindling group of celebrity has-beens, like the ratings-challenged Oprah Winfrey and vocally-challenged Taylor Swift, the latter of who’s endorsement backfired as subsequent polls demonstrated, as reported by the New York Post, with more Americans being put off by the entertainer’s intervention into the presidential politics.  It is also obvious that Donald Trump does not need celebrities to boost him up; indeed, it is difficult to conceive how any celebrity might prop up the most famous man alive, either way.  The President’s command of a room – or an arena – is that of a larger-than-life figure, comparable to Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson, and Elvis Presley at their peaks, whose melodies serenade rally audiences before the showman enters with his world-famous act. If anything any so-called A-lister, however great, would actually dampen the mood of a Trump rally, being overshadowed in the company of Donald Trump, who occupies a class of celebrity unto itself.

Because of the seeming inevitability of Donald Trump becoming the 47^th President, Kamala’s media comrades have entered overdrive trying desperately to assuage the enthusiasm with false or dishonest polling that suggests the Vice President has taken a lead in recent weeks.  I will elaborate a bit more in just a moment on Pennsylvania below, the all-important rustbelt battleground state, which is vital to President Trump’s re-election bid, and suggest a strategy for this last leg of the cycle.  However, it is safe to maintain for now that most of the media coverage surrounding the least popular vice president since the advent of modern polling (who polled, as recently as three months ago behind Biden, the most unpopular president in history – so unpopular that he was forced by handlers to take the unprecedented step in dropping out of the race midway through his campaign for re-election) is false, or at least artificially skewed to Kamala’s benefit.  

The reason for this is obvious: demoralize the electorate, much as they did in 2020, to sell them on the Kamala enthusiasm, even though such alleged momentum is virtually non-existent on the ground (“they,” here, signals the combination of the Democratic Party and their media acolytes now fueling the Kamala Harris fervor).  This, they hope, will result in a two-fold effect: 1) lessen the Trump voter turnout by demoralizing the electorate — a tactic that actually proves effective for certain conservative voter blocs like gun owners; and 2) to the extent they cheat this cycle, the media narrative will establish a firm alibi as to dissuade judges and courts from investigating evidence of electoral fraud.  This was their playbook for 2020, but without covid now as a pretext for making dramatic and unprecedented procedural changes to state election law, most of which were a radical departure from anything seen in history, coupled with an awakened public, it complicates matters for Democrats who want to repeat “Project 2020” in 2024. 

Thus, the strategy this year – in addition to fighting against Republican attempts to require proof of citizenship and make voter rolls public – has been a “throw everything at the wall to see what sticks” philosophy: home raids, bogus criminal charges, countless court appearances, indictments, kangaroo court convictions, assassination attempts, etc., etc., etc.  So far, they have failed – and so far, their failure can only be chalked up to Providence, for only the hand of God could have navigated Donald Trump out of the treacherous waters that he has been forced to tread these last three years. But that does not mean we should let down our guards or take anything for granted. If anything, we have a duty to take action, and fight fire with fire.

A Word On Pennsylvania…

Which brings me again to Pennsylvania, the aptly nicknamed Keystone State, which will prove “key” to determining the outcome of this year’s race.  The subject of Pennsylvania and its role in this year’s election is a Herculean one, one deserving of an entire piece all of its own.   Its importance lies in three major reasons: 1) Pennsylvania boasts the largest number of electoral votes of the seven deemed “critical” battleground states this year at 19; 2) of the three ‘blue wall’ states that handed Donald Trump the presidency in 2016, it has consistently trended more in his favor by national polling than either Michigan or Wisconsin (which lag only slightly behind) — being more demographically favorable, with large swaths of older, blue collar white voters — than the national average; and 3) of any state in the union, Philadelphia is arguably “ground zero” for voter fraud, and the most corrupt election precinct in the country, a trend that goes back decades. 

To put things into context, the President can afford to lose Wisconsin, Michigan, and Arizona – a whopping 36 electoral votes – and still win the election if he secures the Keystone State (assuming that he holds Georgia, North Carolina, and Nevada, three sunbelt states that he has constantly lead all this year and still does today).  By contrast, if the President loses all three of the key rustbelt battlegrounds – he would have to win Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, and pick off a state like Virginia (which should not be written off entirely, based on the strong electoral reforms Governor Youngkin enacted this year to help fortify election integrity there, coupled with recent polling that places Trump within the margin of error among Virginian voters).  In the latter scenario, he can still afford to lose Nevada, but the point that it would be more difficult to win the presidency without Pennsylvania should be obvious.  (There is another scenario, where, hypothetically, President Trump can “lose” Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Arizona – but would need to win Virginia, New Hampshire, Georgia, North Carolina, and hold onto Nevada, in addition to winning Nebraska’s at-large congressional district.  But that scenario deals in too many implausible hypotheticals – the prospect of losing every rust belt state plus Arizona, where he presently leads, and then picking off Virginia and New Hampshire, that it is not worth giving serious merit to.)

All of which is to reiterate the “key” in “Keystone.”  More specifically, the RNC must devote serious election integrity resources and legal “boots on the ground” in Pennsylvania.  Ideally, the playbook for Pennsylvania should be distinct from that used in other states.  Pennsylvania’s election rules are ostensibly far more ambiguous (i.e., more room for interpretation and potential sabotage by creative lawyering) than other states, which specify, for instance, greater specificity and detail in their procedures that must take place to process mail-in ballots, including the requirement of showing identification in the form of a driver’s license or passport, or matching one’s signature with a registrar of state voters.  So far, it is unclear just how election integrity lawyers will be able to verify a voter’s residence in Pennsylvania, especially if voter rolls are not publicly available.  Again, the predominant issue is illegal alien voters appearing on voter rolls – and the mistrust of the public in lawmakers like Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, a Kamala Harris crony, who will doubtlessly do everything in his power to guard those state voter rolls from becoming disclosed, given his vested interest in Kamala’s election. 

Beyond that, Pennsylvania lawyers should come equipped with rigorous knowledge in Pennsylvania election law, and deploy that knowledge, enforcing the law wherever needed, in the most important precincts in that all-important battleground – like Philadelphia County, neighboring Bucks County, or Delaware County – all of which house some of the biggest populations in the entire state, and thus are especially ripe for corruption and fraudulent activity, being under the thumb of Democratic officials, many of whom are Soros-aligned or DNC-funded. 

An ideal strategy would be one that combines maximum knowledge of the law combined with a focus of being deployed on the ground, weeks in advance if need be, to thoroughly peruse the highest-risk precincts, and challenge fraudulent cases ahead of time.  Being on the ground will also allow lawyers and other RNC personnel, such as poll monitors, to better get a lay of the landscape, and anticipate possible fraud – or the ways in which fraud might be attempted this cycle – and design a proactive strategy to mitigate, or eliminate, fraud before it occurs.  It will also give RNC personnel a sense of what and who they are dealing with on the ground – providing opportunities, if all else fails, to shine the national media spotlight on bad-faith actors, before November 5^th, using the light of transparency afforded by media outlets as a powerful antiseptic against fraud and unlawful conduct.  The goal has always been to create a deterrent effect for bad-faith actors who would otherwise like to manipulate and interfere with this election cycle in particular to block President Trump from ever entering the Oval Office again. 

But in a situation where the fate of the country literally hangs in the balance, the highest possible stakes literally ever for a presidential election, a proactive approach that works to guard the vote in a critical battleground that has already begun early voting will be absolutely essential to protect the integrity — nay, sanctity — of America’s institutions – and save democracy from the demonic forces looking to bury it once and for all.

Paul Ingrassia is an Attorney; Communications Director of the NCLU; a two-time Claremont Fellow, and is on the Board of Advisors of the New York Young Republican Club and the Italian American Civil Rights League. He writes a widely read Substack that is regularly posted on Truth Social by President Trump. Follow him on X @PaulIngrassia, Substack, Truth Social, Instagram, and Rumble.

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.