The American Mind

On your mark, get ready…

William Hillman

(7/2019) On a Tuesday night I gathered with 300 Trump supporters filling a brewpub in suburban Philadelphia to watch President Trump announce his reelection campaign. This was one of several hundred "watch parties" around the state and thousands around the country. In Florida, 150,000 people lined up 48 hours before the gates to the Orlando center opened, hoping to get one of the 20,000 seats and see Trump’s announcement in person.

I’ve been to more campaign announcements than I care to remember. Most are given at the opening of a campaign office or in front of a small gathering of financial backers and supporters. Reagan announced his 1984 re-election from the Oval Office. Former Vice-President Joe Biden made his announcement to run for President back on April 25th in a three-and-a-half-minute video.

Trump made his announcement in big Trump fashion. It was festive and meant to energize his populist base, his MAGA base. The center was packed, and his speech lasted for a little over an hour. If Trump is going to win, he has to keep his base ingaged and working.

Trump needs to run his own campaign and his MAGA people will form that campaign. Trump will get little help from the Republican National Committee. My understanding is, Karl Rove has been given a lead role in directing the RNC operation. Karl Rove was, and most likely still is a never-Trumper. Previously, Rove has called Trump a "dream opponent" for the Democratic Party. In 2016, he took to the Wall Street Journal’s opinion pages numerous times to trash the candidate. Joining Rove are the D.C. predator class of political consultants who have descended upon the Trump campaign. These people will force everyone out of their way and suck all the money they can from the campaign. The RNC will use Trump’s name to raise millions of dollars, most of which will end up in the pockets of a small select group.

On the ground, many of the grassroots organizers from four years ago have told me they have been pushed aside by appointed RNC regional directors. You can spot these RNC regional directors a mile way. They all look the same: young, white, twenty-something, just out of college with a degree in political science or some other pre-law degree. They are cocky and confident with all the answers. These staffers have no idea how to interact with steel works in Pittsburg,

I met with a group of grassroots activists who were heavily involved in 2016. We met three days after Trump’s announcement to talk about the coming election. The group was a cross section from several states, rural and urban, men and women, White, Black, and Hispanic. No one at the table seemed phased by the betrayal of the RNC. It was expected. One gentleman at the table summed it up, "In the last three years we have become stronger, our numbers are increasing, and the Republican National Committee wants nothing to do with us – These are all positives."

Burned into these people’s memory is the RNC’s attempt to derail and sabotage Trump in 2016. During the 2016 Republican Convention, there was a last-minute attempt to change the rules and un-commit all the delegates to deny Trump the nomination.

After Trump was inaugurated, the Republican-controlled House and Senate refused to build the wall, reform immigration, and pass real healthcare reform. The Republicans refused to promote the issues that the Trump base wanted. These were the same people who pulled Republican congressman and Governors to victory. Two years later, many of the Trump base would sit out election day to punish republicans for not supporting the President.

Another topic that came up during the meeting was current polling. If you listen to the mainstream media, Trump has no chance, a theme they have hammered since 2015. My gathered group laughs at these numbers. "Who are they surveying?"

Trump supporters have a hard time understanding how any red-blooded American would not support their candidate, short of mental illness. And they have a name for that illness, "Trump derangement syndrome." Then the members of the group begin to rattle off all the reasons they think Trump is great.

Trump has rewritten the much-maligned NAFTA trade deal with Canada and Mexico, and negotiated an historic U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement to replace NAFTA. Trump pulled us out of that insane Paris Climate Accord that did nothing but move manufacturing from developed nations with environmental control to countries where manufactures are free to pollute.

Remember those jobs that were never coming back? Well, they are back. Our country experienced 4.2% growth in the second quarter of 2018. For the first time in more than a decade, growth is projected to exceed 3% over the calendar year. With jobless claims at lowest level in nearly five decades, this has been the longest positive job-growth streak on record. Job openings are at an all-time high, outnumbering job seekers for the first time on record. Four-million new jobs have been created since the election, and more than 3.5 million since Trump took office. More Americans are employed now than ever before in our history. Unemployment claims are at 50 year low.

Black, Hispanic, and Asian-American unemployment rates have all recently reached record lows. African-American unemployment hit a record low of 5.9 percent in May 2018. Hispanic at 4.5 percent. Asian-American unemployment at a record low of 2 percent. Women’s unemployment recently at lowest rate in nearly 65 years and dropped to 3.6 percent in May 2018, the lowest since October 1953.

Blue-collar jobs recently grew at the fastest rate in more than three decades. A recent poll found that 85 percent of blue-collar workers believe their lives are headed "in the right direction." Sixty-eight percent reported receiving a pay increase in the past year.

Last year, job satisfaction among American workers hit its highest level since 2005.

Americans are optimistic again. Small business optimism has hit historic highs.

NFIB’s small business optimism index broke a 35-year-old record in August. SurveyMonkey/CNBC’s small business confidence survey for Q3 of 2018 matched its all-time high. Manufacturers are more confident than ever. Ninety-five percent of U.S. manufacturers are optimistic about the future, the highest ever. Consumer confidence is at an 18-year high.

What is not to like about this Presidency?

In a recent interview, Newt Gingrich explained the affinity for the President. "President Trump is a truly unique leader in American history. He’s a kid from Queens who became an international business leader and made billions by getting things done when no one said he could." "They told him he couldn’t be President and beat the establishment and he did. For two years the establishment is telling him he can’t do things in Washington and he’s succeeding in spite of them. He never retreats. He doesn’t back up. He’s relentless. He just wins," he added.