To read the polls and hear the pundits, President Trump’s first 100
days have been an utter disaster, ranking among the worst in history. But
that’s not how Karen Malady sees it.
Polls and pundits mean absolutely nothing.
What matters are the votes cast on Election Day.
The 59-year-old accountant was drawn to Trump’s unconventional
candidacy from the start, unlike other Republicans who came around reluctantly.
She saw him as an outsider and disrupter, and his first months in office proved
her right, she said, about that and other things, too.
I was not drawn to Trump's lack of conventionalism.
I was actually drawn to his committment to stop illegal immigration, and his candid caring for the men and women who had lost their loved ones to illegal aliens.
“He’s trying to build a foundation to protect this country, and they
just pick apart the little things,” Malady said, as fading daylight slanted
into the headquarters of the Fraternal Order of Eagles, a nonprofit charity.
“‘This person was picked on, and, oh, by the way, this person is of that
nationality, so that makes him a racist.’
Exactly. The globalist phalanx in this country has pushed the race-card narrative as a means of shutting down anyone who is pro-America.
Today, Americans of all backgrounds are saying NO!
“No,” she said with a small shake of her head, “they take that little
they can and they dig with it.”
They have to, since there is nothing else for them to dig at. In fact, Trump has an unprecedented record of success compared to previous Republican presidents.
The anger and aggrievement that fueled Trump’s unlikely election, the
sense of abandonment by a self-interested political establishment and sneering
condescension from the know-it-alls, hasn’t faded in the months since Trump
took office.
It will never fade American citizens are fed up with self-absorbed political parties more interested in holding onto power than enacting principles in the best interests of all Ameicans.
If anything, it has deepened here in Pueblo County, a longtime
Democratic stronghold that Trump narrowly won in November. In nearly three
dozen interviews with Trump voters — Democrats, independents and Republicans
who had their doubts — not one said they regretted supporting him.
This is great news! The Democratic voters are glad that Trump won, too.
That's such good news for Republicans. Whatever Trump brought to the national political conversation, there is nothing but good for the GOIP to learn from.
They see a president besieged and beset not just by Democrats, a
hostile media and haughty academics — all, they say, fashioned from the same
cloth — but by his fellow Republicans in Congress, who seem more interested in
clinging to office than helping bring about the change Trump promised.
Yes indeed! I could not agree more!
Despite the resistance, they say, he has delivered on his promise to
fight for American jobs, browbeating corporate executives and toughening the
country’s trade policies through executive orders. He sent a don’t-mess-with-us
message to the world by bombing Syria and Afghanistan. He installed Neil M.
Gorsuch on the Supreme Court, cementing a conservative majority for possibly
decades to come.
The result has been a backlash startling in its ferocity: left-leaning
protesters taking to the streets, pundits foaming, lawmakers sputtering.
At least the Los Angeles Times acknowledges that the LEFT-WING protesters are the ones upending our streets and attacking the rule of law.
Trump is shaking things up, said Steve Carson, 61, a retired welder who
approvingly assayed the president’s start from a stool at the Chug-A-Mug tavern
in Pueblo’s worn Bessemer neighborhood.
“If we’re not going to follow what’s been in place forever, people’s
lives are going to change,” said Carson, a self-described independent who cast
his first-ever presidential ballot to vote for Trump. “And a lot of them don’t
want things to change.”
Cool! It's never too late to begin exercising the franchise which our Founders fought for and our veterans struggled and died for!
In short, if all those people in Washington and places like Hollywood
and New York are so riled up, Trump supporters suggest, that means he must be
doing something right.
EXACTLY! The media and the Hollywood elites are so angry--and there's nothing they can do about it! Isn't that just wonderful?!
Steel is what helped make Pueblo great and still forges much of its
identity.
Many small towns and small-time cities have been hurt not helped by the globalist agenda. The corporate elites and their handlers have been more interested in making themselves rich and powerful at the expense of everyone else.
No matter how blue the state may be, men and women still have to work for a living and make the most of the difficult challenges they face. Washington DC spent more time getting in the way of people's lives. Too much micromanaging. Too much destruction from the Obama Administration. No willingness to connect with the working struggles of men and women who know how to live their lives better than any expert out of the Beltway.
The Colorado Fuel and Iron Co., or CF&I to locals, was built up by
the Rockefeller family early in the 20th century. Its billowing smokestacks
sustained generations of blue-collar families and delivered on their dreams.
Passage into the middle class — a nice home, a car, a pickup, a boat — was
possible for even a high-school dropout.
That abruptly changed with the recession and steel industry crash of
the early 1980s. More than 5,000 workers were laid off in one day and
unemployment topped 20%, as major employers including a meat-packing plant, dog
food manufacturer and big piston maker shut down.
Even though the community has long since rebounded — February’s
unemployment rate was just 4.9% — today’s jobs generally aren’t as lucrative,
and that helps explain Trump’s success.
“He spoke to the angst that exists in a lot of communities in America
over the decline of the middle class,” said Pueblo County Commissioner Sal
Pace, a Democrat and backer of Hillary Clinton, who won Colorado.
Located in the high desert at the south end of the Front Range, Pueblo
and its surrounding communities are home to about 165,000 people. Folks here
are friendly — they’ll nod hello to a stranger — and the outdoorsy lifestyle is
far less expensive than Denver, two hours away.
A sleek riverwalk bustles at night, and there is talk of building a
minor league baseball stadium and expanding the Professional Bull Riders
headquarters, to create an even bigger tourist draw.
Boosters speak hopefully of branding Pueblo and its vibrant creative
community as a more affordable version of Taos, New Mexico’s famed artist
colony. (They are less inclined to tout the burgeoning legal-cannabis industry,
even though tax revenues have allowed the county to offer a scholarship to
every graduating high school senior.)
But take away the temperate climate and distant view of the Rockies and
Pueblo could easily fit into one of those Rust Belt states that delivered the
White House to Trump.
Just a few blocks from the riverwalk, downtown’s tree-lined Main Street
is dotted with vacant storefronts and small businesses where retail giants —
Kresge, Woolworths, Montgomery Ward — once thrived. On a recent weekday
morning, the only sound was the squeak of a rusty bicycle chain, laboring under
the weight of its oversized rider.
The steel mill that was long the fulcrum of life here now employs
between 700 and 800 workers, a mere fraction of the 12,000 at its peak.
A community that prided itself on making big things — the spine of
skyscrapers, railroads and bridges — and being a brawny part of America's
once-mighty steel industry has had to downsize its self-image and pare its
ambitions.
“We used to attract businesses that would bring 250, 300 jobs,” said
Rod Slyhoff, 62, the longtime head of the Greater Pueblo Chamber of Commerce.
“Now it’s 30 or 40.”
Trump didn’t win here by much, just 390 votes out of nearly 79,000, but
his victory marked the first time Republicans carried Pueblo County since
President Nixon in 1972. Perhaps more important, Trump shook some voters of
their old habits.
Now this kind of information is really fascinating. The pockets of Democratic resistance that flipped into Trump's column is a great reason for Republicans to seek data on these victories and make their case to the next crop of voters in 2020. This is excellent.
This report neglected to mention that Trump won in a Kentucky county which Democrats had carried for over 150 years.
Greg Smith was a Democratic activist and former precinct captain who
supported Barack Obama in 2008. But over eight years he grew convinced that
Democrats were more concerned with creating jobs for bureaucrats and passing
along handouts than caring about people like him.
WOW! What a great statement. "Democrats love bureaucrats, and they love Democrats!" This phrase explains why the Deep State is taking on Donald Trump at every level of government.
He works 110 hours a week and still can’t afford health insurance,
Smith said from behind the bar at his Greenlight Tavern, which has operated
downtown since the Depression. A homeless person collapses, he said, and
rescuers show up, “put him in a room, give him a sponge bath, medication, and
who pays for that? Me.”
Smith, 59, voted for Trump and is glad he did.
I hope that Greg Smith re-registers with the Republican Party.
“I think he’s making a change,” Smith said, citing proposed cuts to the
Environmental Protection Agency and the promise of lower taxes and fewer
regulations. “The core of America is the entrepreneur, the small-business man.
I think he has true concern for that.”
These kinds of stories are very invigorating. Maybe the Los Angeles Times is not as bad as I had feared.
Or at least the paper recognizes that if they want to succeed, they need to respect President Trump and ensure a balanced set of reports and articles about him.
Historians and other experts point to a singular lack of achievement in
Trump’s first 100 days. Among their lengthy critique: He has not passed one
major piece of legislation. He’s antagonized foreign allies. His proposed
travel restrictions on Muslim-majority countries has stalled in court.
LIES. The President has signed off on 29 pieces of legislation, along with constitutional executive orders to reign in the federal government. Who cares what these so-called "experts" think of President Trump?
No one, because the vast majority of Americans simply did not care what all the arrogant, aloof, out-of-touch elitists had to say about Trump or the country in the first place. The same elites who despise Trump were the same ones praising Barack Obama for everything that he was doing.
And everything that Obama was doing was hurting average Americans.
Most spectacularly, his vow to repeal and replace President Obama’s
signature healthcare law flopped in a Congress run by his own party.
Not any more. Obamacare is on the way out the door.
But Trump supporters measure his accomplishments in other ways.
He’s boosted business confidence, surveys show, and the stock market
has soared. “Anyone with a 401(k) has to be delighted,” said Marla Reichert,
52, head of the Pueblo County GOP.
BAM!
He’s talked tough on terrorism and surrounded himself with military men
who can turn those words into action. “It’s time to show the world we’re tired
of being pushed around,” said Carson at the Chug-A-Mug.
Thank you very much. President Trump is an executive who is working hard to defend the country. That is what counts.
He’s promoted a “buy American, hire American” policy, and just wait,
Trump backers say. Maybe it’s unrealistic to bring 6,000 steel-making jobs back
to Pueblo, says Reichert, whose father and grandfather both worked in the mill.
“But why not 4,000?” she asked. “Why not 3,000?”
Works for me.
Critics point to Trump’s frequent golf outings and taxpayer-funded
trips to Florida, but that’s nothing more than sore-loser talk, the president’s
defenders say. Obama golfed too, they note, and as for Trump’s costly travels,
give him a break. “If he’s doing his job,” said Republican Adam Huskin, 30, a
roofing contractor in upscale Pueblo West, “I don’t really care where he’s
doing it from.”
Oh, and Obama never went to the golf course, right? Oh, and all those vacations -- he was working while he was resting in Hawaii, too? Uh, give me a break, liberal media!
Some see a series of flip-flops: on NATO, on the Iranian disarmament
deal, on support for the Federal Reserve chair, among many. Trump backers see
something else entirely: the savvy of a deal-maker.
Indeed!
Take China, for instance. Trump vowed to slap a fat tariff on the
world’s most populous country but has since backed off, which strikes Tom
Ready, a Pueblo West dentist, as perfectly sound.
“We’re not going to go to war with our biggest trading partner,” said
Ready, 73, a Republican who showed up at the Eagle club in a skull T-shirt
promoting his motorcycle club, the Uglies. “He said, ‘OK, let’s work it out.’
What’s wrong with that? I don’t call it changing policies. I call it a better
way of doing things.”
Exactly. Ideologues along will not accomplish anything. They need oto put the principles into practice, or they are wasting our time.
The business of evaluating Trump on his first 100 days strikes many as
arbitrary and silly, a sentiment matching the president’s pique.
Not me! Not at all. The first 100 days have been great, and I anticipate that the next 100 Days will be wonderful, too!
“What happened to the eight years Obama was in office?” demanded
Republican Patti Kerkhoff. Trump was last on her list of 18 GOP candidates
running in 2016, but he’s grown on her because he never seems to stop, with a
tweet here and executive order there.
I agree with Patti--although even though Trump was not my first choice he was not at the bottom of my list in any way. I trusted that he could do so much more good for this country than amnesty-panderers like Lindsey Graham, John Kasich or Marco Rubio.
“Promise, promise, promise, and the only change under Obama was that
things got worse,” said the 66-year-old retired schoolteacher, finishing
breakfast with her church group at a small cafe near the mill. “Trump has been
in office for two months, and it’s like, ‘What’s happening? How come it’s not
changed already?’”
Things are changing, and more than most people can keep up with!
In the front window a sign read “Stop TPP Now,” a reference to the
Trans-Pacific Partnership, a proposed trade deal between the U.S. and several
Asian countries. During the campaign Trump portrayed the pact as the kind of
one-sided bargain that has ravaged Pueblo’s home-grown manufacturers.
Bernie Sanders supporters ended up voting for Trump in November because of his stance against TPP. This move was a huge victory for the United States and for national sovreignty in general.
He vowed to pull America out, and it’s a promise Trump has kept.
But that can’t change what’s already taken place. Today, three of
Pueblo’s biggest employers are foreign-owned: a Danish corporation that
manufacturers and assembles wind turbines; a Mexican cement maker; and the old
CF&I, which is now part of the Russian steelmaker Evraz.
There is nothing wrong with companies that are foreign-owned. Problems emerge when these companies will not hire American workers. That's where the problems lie.
For those born or raised here the sense of loss is passed on, like some
hereditary ailment.
Paul Gornick is 18, nowhere near old enough to remember CF&I’s
glory days. But at a Rotary Club meeting, the high school senior — beard
trimmed, hair neatly combed — spoke of the hulking smokestacks, most now idled,
that loom over the cityscape like blackened gravestones.
“Every time you pass by,” he said, “it’s a reminder of what used to
be.”
Gornick was too young to vote in November, but if he had, he said, he
would have backed Trump.
Even Millennials and post-Millennials want to vote for Trump!
Final Reflection
The stories from Democratic voters for Trump is very inspiring. It;s good to know that Trump is paying attention to these issues and not wavering from his Americans First agenda. As Democratic and the corrupt liberal media continue to wear themselves out trying to bring down President Trump, more average Amereican
After Trump dispenses with the media frenzies and the craven politicians in Washington, I can't wait to see what he accomplishes in 2018 and then 2020. This is going to be YUGE!
