DONALD TRUMP DELIVERS A GETTYSBURG ADDRESS

by Brett Stevens

Coming on the wings of a campaign rebound, Donald Trump gave the media the detail that it wanted months ago, but now has very little room to attack.

Speaking at a historical American battleground and symbol of the Civil War that formalized the division between liberal cosmopolitan cities and practical, realistic heartlands, Trump tackled present-day divisions in the nation. He mentioned being inspired by Lincoln, the president who (in theory) held the nation together.

At that point, Trump named the enemy: “the system is rigged” in both Washington and on Wall Street. He mentioned the loss of jobs, many in poverty, and one in five households where no one is working. Trump has re-spun Mitt Romney’s “47%” from parasites into victims, and he is blaming the established interests instead.

Describing his campaign as “the kind of change that only arrives once in a lifetime,” Trump launched a discussion of his major themes, or the manifestations of the problem of a rigged system in everyday life:

• Voter fraud. This has two parts: first, fake voters and second, that Hillary is running at all. Pew estimates 24 million invalid or significantly inaccurate voter records. “1.8 million dead people are registered to vote, and some of them are voting. I wonder how that happens.” 14% of non-citizens are registered to vote. Hillary should have been precluded for running, but FBI and DOJ covered up her crimes; she said she did not recall, under oath, thirty-nine separate times but was able to recall almost everything else. She also deleted 33,000 emails after subpoena
• Media is corrupt. They lie about his crowd size, do not show the small size of her crowds. Make him look bad and dangerous. Three highly respected national polls said we’re in first place. Overtones of violent gangs and organized crime in how he describes them.
• Trust busting. Trump segues into the thought that media is the voice for special interests who happen to be multi-billionaire corporations. He identifies Amazon and other major media owners as too big to be safe for America, and plans to break them up. “They are trying desperately to suppress my vote and the voice of the American people.” AT&T and Time Warner merger is “too much concentration of power in the hands of too few.” Likewise Amazon which controls Washington Post should be paying massive taxes; mentions this is unfair to department stores all over the country. Billions and billions of dollars. Comcast purchase of NBC concentrates far too much power in one massive entity that is trying to tell the voters what to think and what to do. “They’re trying to poison the mind of the American voter.” Will sue false accusers after the election. Then he hits the core of this speech: these big companies are manipulating the lives of everyday people. “Just look at what they can do to you.” Mentions Project Veritas revelations of paid DNC and Clinton Campaign union thugs who committed violence at Trump rallies, says he wants to find out the truth “through litigation.”
• Cannot rely on politicians who created these problems. Corrupt system in order to keep them in power. “I didn’t have to do this, believe me, there’s nothing easy about it, but I had to do it.” Inverted tautology? Hillary is running against change and against all of the American people and the American voters. This is a fork in the road: repeat past non-working methods, or a “great future yet unwritten” by thinking differently. He then announces his three plans — ethics, economy and security — for the first one hundred days of his presidency.

“I am asking the American people to dream big again,” he said, asking Americans to invoke the “great faith and optimism” that has always been the central ingredient in the American character. This is a contract between Donald J. Trump and the American voter to achieve honesty, accountability and actual change.

Ethics:

• Constitutional amendment imposing term limits on Congress.
• Hiring freeze on federal employees except military, public safety and health.
• For every new regulation, two existing regulations must be eliminated.
• Five-year ban on White House and Congressional officials becoming lobbyists after leaving government service.
• A lifetime ban on White House officials lobbying on behalf of foreign governments.
• A complete ban on foreign lobbyists raising money for American elections.

Jobs:

• Renegotiate NAFTA or withdraw under article 2205.
• Withdraw from the TPP.
• Label China a currency manipulator.
• Identify all foreign trading abuses that impact American workers.
• Lift restrictions on productions of American energy reserves incl shale, oil, natural gas and clean coal.
• Lift Obama-Clinton roadblocks that stop energy projects from moving forward (Keystone Pipeline and others),
• Cancel billions in payments to United Nations climate change program and instead spend it on water and environmental infrastructure.

Security:

• Cancel every unconstitutional executive action, memorandum and order issued by President Obama.
• Begin process of selecting replacement for Justice Scalia.
• Cancel all federal funding of sanctuary cities.
• Begin removing the more than two million criminal illegal aliens from the country and cancel visas to foreign countries that refuse to take them back.
• Suspend immigration from terror-prone regions where vetting cannot safely occur.
• All vetting will be extreme vetting.

In addition, he promised to work with Congress to create the following legislation:

• His aims: aim at 4% growth per year and 25 million jobs plus trade reform, regulatory relief and lifting restrictions on American energy.
• Tax reform and simplification: middle class family with two kids gets 35% cut, he wants to simplify tax process, reduce from seven brackets to three, and lower the business rate from 35% to 15%.
• End the offshoring act; establish tariffs to discourage companies for offshoring.
• American infrastructure act: tax incentives for infrastructure investment over next decade.
• School choice and education opportunity act: parents can send public, private, charter, magnet, religious or home schools. Also wants to destroy Common Core and return rule of education to local communities.
• Expand vocational and technical education, and makes 2-4 year college more affordable.
• Repeal and Replace Obamacare act: replace it with health savings accounts; the ability to purchase health insurance across state lines, let states manage medicaid funds.
• Cutting the red tape at the FDA; 4,000 drugs awaiting approval.
• Affordable child care and elder care act, also incentivizes companies to provide this with matching contributions for low-income families.
• End illegal immigration act: fully funds the construction of a wall on our Southern border with the full understanding that Mexico will be reimbursing us for the full cost of the wall.
• Restoring community safety act: creates task force on violent crime and more funding for training of local police, anti-gang funding and deportation of alien gang.

The whole thing sounds like Daddy coming home early and ending the prole party on his front lawn. In the Trump view, government ineptitude — a classic symptom of democracy — has produced manipulative mega-firms that are now using the corrupt Left to steal what they have not yet obtained. He wants them gone and to banish the parasites.

Maintaining the fasces of American power?

It reads as if Trump saw Mitt Romney get destroyed for making his speech about the “47%” who are tax-eaters instead of tax-payers, and realized who benefited from that. He then formulated a plan to remove power from the manipulators and restore order by removing the acts of an excessively-large government.

He kept some things close to his chest. High on my list would be:

• Remove all legal protections for unions.
• End affirmative action and civil rights law.
• Revoke the authority of all regulatory agencies.

Originally published at Amerika.org