Trump is smart like a fox. The Democrat-dominated media is all awash in the latest fundraising numbers, showing that – ever since Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett, soon a Justice – Democrat fundraising has exploded. The media miss a key point.
Yes, Amy Coney Barrett is a strict constructionist, textualist, former Scalia clerk – judicial conservative. Yes, she will soon wear the robes of a Justice. Yes, she will bring considerable intellectual firepower and judicial acumen to bear – reviewing Obamacare and Roe v. Wade. Yes, the Democrat obsession with socialized medicine and abortion was triggered.
But bigger things are afoot. Trump knows it. First, the Republican base knows restoring the judiciary to a faithful reading of the Constitution may be Trump’s most significant and enduring legacy. Saying “go” to Barrett’s appointment did three things. It reminded us the next four years decide the next 40, Trump never backs down, and Trump keeps promises.
Second, it lit a stick of dynamite, bringing back to the surface two wedge issues – the failures, premium hikes, and unworkable nature of socialist Obamacare, and the morally indefensible nature of on-demand-abortion, now including at-birth – both defended by Democrats. The fact that these two issues are now in play – although Democrats do not get it– is huge.
Understand that, on broad polling, Obamacare is favored by a small minority of Americans. While 8.5 million signed up in 2019, many younger Americans are taking a pass – and most working Americans prefer coverage through better private insurance from their employer.
With Biden-Harris vowing to end private health insurance, pushing Americans into high-cost-low-quality care, Democrats misunderstand the American temperament. Americans prefer higher quality, personally tailored, affordable, private insurance. Just as they prefer to work than be locked down, they prefer their employer’s insurance coverage to Obamacare.
Likewise, the numbers on abortion are stunning. Please read slowly: A Harvard-Harris poll shows only eight percent of Americans favor third-trimester abortion; only six percent favor it at birth. Put differently, 94 percent disapprove of the Democrat position. This is significant. See, e.g., https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/06/01/poll-8-americans-abortion-legal-third-trimester/.
Notably, Trump knows it. Like President Trump, AMAC has staked out a strong position against abortion. Most recently, AMAC supported the “Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act,” protecting children at birth, imposing consequences on those who do not.
But the bigger point is that Trump understood where Democrats would go, beat them at their own game. He knew they would play their extreme positions – in a time when Americans were no longer willing to play along. Americans are – on balance– not stupid or immoral. They know Obamacare has failed; they know later term abortion is wrong. So does Trump.
But Trump’s biggest insight – believe it or not – was on media. He knew, appealing to their extreme base, that Democrats would jump on Barrett. He knew she would acquit herself well in congressional hearings, was smart, poised, honorable, affable, and irrepressibly irrepressible. In sum, she was what America needs on the High Court. He knew the media would trumpet the hearings – and thus her acumen, decency, and innate goodness.
At the same time, he knew that this nomination – together with the constellation of issues afoot at this moment, from foreign policy and national security to border sanctity, threat of unrestrained socialism to Biden’s fragility, economic concerns to an independent judiciary- would enliven, perhaps even enrage, the Democrat media.
The result has been remarkable, and predictable. While Democrats raised money on the Barrett nomination, something bigger is happening. President Trump is producing billions of dollars in earned media. In 2016, a relative unknown yet admirably defiant Trump earned roughly two billion in “earned media” – that is stories, for which he did not pay. This cycle, the numbers are well beyond that.
Most interestingly, as Biden camps out in his basement – “poster child” for political cowardice, personal arrogance, and socialist assumptions about indifference or naivete of the American people – Trump is on the trail, fighting, working, advancing the cause of the Constitution – and gaining earned media daily.
Trump knows that high office is earned, never given. He knows effort is respected, along with fidelity to principle. He is a born fighter, not interested in a pass, bye, or basement. He set up the Barrett appointment, and advanced it as methodically as any president in modern history. He was surefooted, his faith in the future and American people unbounded. He is now pressing his advantage – and to good effect.
While the media mumbles and fumbles, reporting Democrat fundraising numbers, do not doubt the wider strategy. Trump is pulling billions in earned media – and for all the right reasons, on all the right issues, for all Americans who believe in this nation. Trump is ahead by several moves, as Biden takes America by bunny hops. Trump is … smart like a fox.