Paid disrupters at Trump rallies – are you surprised?

I’m not, in the least. 

The far left has many faults but chief among these is not knowing – or caring – where the line is between right and wrong.

Inciting violence is always wrong, regardless of the “righteousness” of your cause. Intentionally manufacturing violence through paid provocateurs is even worse. When someone is paid to throw a punch, or a rock, or to get in someone’s face so they’ll react violently, the righteousness of whatever cause you think you’re supporting evaporates.

You become part of a criminal enterprise, paying thugs to do your dirty work. 

And that is what Democrat operatives have done. They recruited and paid homeless people to start fights at Trump rallies.  Then the media, always looking for video gold, would make the case for them that Trump supporters, and Trump’s words, inevitably spawn violence.   

The predictable storyline was that violent, hateful, racist, sexist bigots support Trump.

Just look at that Trump supporter get into it with someone waving a Mexican flag – just don’t show the part right before when that flag waver was screaming profanities at the Trump supporter and his wife. Look at that Trump supporter knocking down a protester – but edit out the part where the same protester was jabbing his finger into the Trump supporter’s chest, nose to nose and yelling in his face.  By all means, don’t show that clip of the protesters chasing down and beating the Trump supporter trying to get to his car after a rally.  Or when one of them sucker-punched a guy leaving a Trump rally and then dancing away laughing. 

Nope. Like it never happened.

Now we know that a lot of the violence the media showed was staged. There’s video of Democrat operatives describing how they did it. They even bragged how easy it was to find the homeless people, dress them up, and pay them to start fights at the rallies. The going rate was maybe $1500 and a smart phone or tablet and they were good to go. 

Dirty tricks have been a part of politics since the founding of our country.  But in my 50+ years of following politics I can’t remember anything like this. Of this magnitude.  Or the brazenness of the perpetrators to take credit for it. 

Moreover, I can’t think of any attempt by anyone to incite violence at Hillary or Sanders rallies. So there’s no tit-for-tat here, or any grounds for saying every campaign does this.    

Democrat leaders now say they knew nothing about all this. Bullshit. This isn’t just frat house pranks gone awry – people got hurt, some seriously, and their personal property was attacked.  They knew full well what would happen, because they engineered it. And paid for it to happen.    

When Trump says the system is corrupt he’s just scratching the surface.  The political establishment is corrupt.  Both political parties are corrupt. Government is corrupt.

You can’t always get the ideal person to lead a revolution.  But I’m okay with Trump. 

It’s a start.  

Get over “the vapors …”

I can’t condone what Donald Trump said over a decade ago.  It was coarse, rude and offensive. If anything, it showed Trump as an arrogant jerk trying to be “one of the boys.”

But that’s not news. He’s always been like that. He has no filters.  

However, and it’s a big however, I’m really tired of the media and others spinning this as so hurtful to women that it automatically disqualifies him to be President. 

It’s astonishingly hypocritical. 

In case anyone’s been asleep for the last 50 years or so, here’s a newsflash: Modern women are not delicate flowers prone to “the vapors” and so sensitive that they break down in tears if anyone says something mean about them or comments on their sexual attractiveness. 

American women are flying combat missions overseas, for God’s sake, where our enemies are trying to kill them. For decades we’ve had women negotiating face-to-face with world leaders.  Women are running billion-dollar businesses. Most of my client contacts have almost always been women.  Women compete with men all the time in the workplace; some can be every bit as ruthless and conniving as the worst men they fight with for position, power and money.  

And I can tell you from firsthand experience that given the right circumstances – such as when they think they are talking only among themselves – women can be as raunchy if not raunchier than their male counterparts.  They’ll ogle someone’s ass, speculate on someone’s sexual attributes, and discuss with each other who they’d like to sleep with and why. Just like men.    

This is no big secret to many women. What might be a secret to them is how well their voices travel through the thin walls of bathrooms in bars, restaurants and many businesses. 

But what about our innocent and impressionable young women? 

Well, we now live in a world where celebrated female performers like Miley Cyrus, Beyoncé, Katy Perry, and Madonna – all idolized by millions of young women – openly flaunt their sexuality on stage or appear in sexually provocative videos. Some female celebrities have released homemade sex tapes to advance their careers. 

Today's hip-hop culture produces music and videos that are far more demeaning to women in general, in even more graphic terms, and there’s little push back. In fact, Michelle Obama – who has been out on the campaign trail saying how hurtful Trump’s comments were – has invited some of the most misogynistic and vulgar rappers to the White House and praised their “work.” 

The net effect is that our popular culture now encourages young women to dress like strippers, act like sluts, and post online and/or sext sexually explicit images and videos of themselves. Why do you think Snapchat is so popular with young women – especially millennials?  Hint: It’s because Snapchat messages expire after a time and disappear leaving no trace. 

Slightly older women in sultry poses are promoting Viagra for their boyfriends in TV commercials shown in prime time.  The idea is that now these women can have their boyfriends get single-pack Viagra just in time for that cruise or other vacation. When commercials have women promoting products to help their sex partners maintain an erection I’d say times have changed. 

So spare me the manufactured outrage from celebrities and the media about what Trump said as insulting and objectifying women. They need to take a look in the mirror. 

That said, is it unfair to criticize Trump for being a pig and a lout?  No.  Yet to me it’s unfair to imply that because he at times fantasizes about sex and uses awful language he’s a dangerous sexual predator.  If that were the case you’d have to lock up practically every American male – straight or gay – over the age of 12 and a helluva lot of American women, too. 

Certainly he’s exhibited bad judgement by allowing himself to be recorded saying stupid and insensitive stuff.  But you have to give him credit for saying what he really thinks – dumb or not – instead of prevaricating on such things as “it depends on what the meaning of ‘is,’ is …”  

Unlike Trump I’m not going to make a moral equivalency of what he’s said – or even done – to the actions of others so revered by the media and the Democrats.

A pig is a pig is a pig. Regardless of party affiliation. However, if you are a Democrat pig you are much more likely to get a pass from the media. 

There’s a lot to dislike about Trump personally. He’s not a great role model. Neither is Hillary. I don’t think anyone with the good sense God gave a sweet potato wants their son or daughter to grow up like either of them. They are both truly awful human beings.

But does that actually have anything to do with whether they would be a good President? 

We’ve had good Presidents who were loathsome people.  We’ve also had admirable people with stellar values and integrity who were mediocre if not downright awful Presidents.  We’ve had openly corrupt Presidents who used the office to enrich themselves and their friends.

We’ve survived them all.   

Rarely – and extremely rarely – we’ve had great Presidents who kept their decency and integrity intact and served us well. 

Unfortunately, those rare exceptions seem to be in our distant past.  Even those remarkable Presidents and their legacies are under constant attack by a media and popular culture that want to tear them down with out-of-context “facts” and innuendo; it’s an ongoing attempt to “prove” that nobody is perfect, and there really are no heroes. Everybody has flaws. 

Which is true, because we’re all human.

Hillary’s made a big deal about Trump calling some women pigs and slobs. She’s running commercials showing young women looking in mirrors hurt by such words. She’s tried to make the case that Trump’s statements have led to increased bullying and great emotional distress to women everywhere. I’m not sure either is true.

If anything, I’d suggest that the hypersensitivity many women have about their self-image is far more a creation of the media and the popular culture than anything Trump has ever said. 

Also, what Trump said in other statements may be hurtful to some and in bad taste to articulate openly, but perhaps true.  Some women and men as well are pigs and slobs. Trump himself is fat. So is Hillary. For some reason it would be okay to call Trump fat – which some in the media have – but way out of bounds and immensely hurtful to state the same about her. 

And that’s my point.  There can’t be acceptable and unacceptable versions of the truth at the same time, based solely on gender, sexual orientation, or ethnicity. 

Some things simply are, or are not. It may be insensitive or crass depending on the context and the audience, but it never depends on what the meaning of the word is, is. 

Take the dustup over the winner of the Miss Universe pageant – a beauty contest, not a “scholarship pageant.” She did put on a lot of weight after winning the title and that was inconsistent to what the people running the Miss Universe pageant expected or wanted.  Then she got involved in a lot of unseemly low-life behavior that also drew unwanted attention to her, including a boyfriend accused of kidnapping, reports that she threatened the life of a judge, and apparently having filmed sex with another contestant on a foreign version of Big Brother. 

If she were a man she’d be the object of ridicule and on the front page of every tabloid rag as a loser who blew their shot at fame and fortune by being a venal dirt bag. She’d be covered in the same way as the male lottery winner who was robbed of over $140 thousand he had in his pickup truck while he was in a strip club in the middle of the day.

When Hillary trotted her out as someone besmirched and hurt by statements Trump made about her appearance, lack of integrity, and questionable behavior  – which given all the facts now seem justified in many ways – Hillary picked the wrong horse to ride.  But it made no difference to the media who dutifully reported everything Trump said, but not the reality. 

Look, I understand why some women are offended by what Trump said on a hot mic more than a decade ago.  He showed bad taste is saying it; someone else showed a lack of ethics by holding on to a tape of a private conversation for over a decade and then releasing it in the middle of a Presidential campaign. Still, it was stupid on his part. He should have known better.   

Will it cost him the woman vote? I believe that ship sailed long ago, well before this.

As sad as it is, in this era of “the first” fascination, Hillary will get a lot of votes simply because she’s the first female candidate for President from a major party.  Just as I believe a lot of people voted for Obama for much the same reason – the first black candidate from a major party – I think a certain percentage of the voters will do the same for Hillary. They want to be a part of history. 

And, as has been widely reported, a significant portion of the female voting population, especially young unmarried women, are expected to vote for Hillary simply because she is a woman and because many feel it's "her turn."  I doubt many male voters are voting for Trump simply because he's a man and Hillary is a woman.       

Trump’s support comes from a far different slice of the electorate:  people – many quite angry – who are fed up with political correctness, corruption in government by special interests, and the way the political establishment and media seemingly cooperate to maintain the status quo. 

As Tucker Carlson put it so aptly recently: if you’re the type of person who wants to give the finger to the establishment, Trump’s your guy; if you like the way things are, you’re for Hillary.

The release of the tape won’t significantly change anything. People who hate Trump got more ammunition; people who love Trump will brush it off as nothing more than a tempest in a teapot. Trump’s adversaries can release all the other off-color stuff Trump has said over the years and it really won’t change how his supporters feel about him.

As evidence, Trump’s poll numbers haven’t cratered amidst all the media coverage over his statements about women. That surprises me, to be honest. Still if just about any other Republican were running against Hillary they’d be crushing her – Trump’s the best thing that ever happened for Hillary’s campaign, that's for sure.       

  

I also believe many of the women now claiming to be offended are saying that because they’ve been told they should be offended, not because it actually affects them directly.  And when the media brings out women who claim Trump touched them inappropriately 30 years ago, that’s a tad long to be holding a grudge and not saying anything in my opinion – it doesn’t seem all that believable.  I suspect many are just looking for their 15 minutes of fame.

That’s not to say it didn’t happen.  Or that it’s acceptable. 

At this point it doesn’t make much difference either way. 

As some Brit politician wisely said: We’re electing a President; not a Pope. 

For myself, I’ll take a sexist pig like Trump I can trust – character flaws and all – over a political prostitute like Hillary who has shown time and again she will do anything for money, including selling all the rest of us, and our national security, down the river for the right price. 

If the prospect of Hillary as President doesn’t scare you then what Trump said shouldn’t either.   

How Trump can still win …

Trump really can’t trust anyone at this point.  So if he tries this he needs to keep this to himself and do this as a complete surprise to everyone – his family, his campaign people, and even Mike Pence.  He needs to bring this out when there’s virtually no time for anyone to plan a response. 

I’d suggest in the opening minutes of the next debate. 

He simply needs to say:

“If I am elected, I pledge to not serve for more than one term.”

This would be devastating to the Clinton campaign It would catch them completely off guard. Hillary isn’t good on her feet without a lot of prep – and sometimes, apparently, even the questions in advance – so she’d be stuck. It would change the whole dynamics not just of the debate, but of the race.   

What could she say? This is just a stunt from a failing candidate with no chance of winning anyway?  That would come off as more of her arrogance. She could say her campaign is all about preventing him from getting even that one term – which then only adds weight to doubts people have that Hillary actually stands for anything except grasping for power and money.

Then Trump should double down:

“Furthermore, I challenge Hillary to make the same pledge.  Let’s face it … we’re both in our 70s and the country needs younger leaders willing, and able, to move us forward.”     

Hillary would be completely dumbstruck. Trump would be playing the age and health card on both of them.  I don't know how she could respond.  Would she even try to make a case that she's full of fresh new ideas and physically up to the job?  Que the TCU on her and that fails.  

Meanwhile, the media would go completely nuts – this has never been done before by any major party candidate for President. 

The media have about run the sex tape thing into the ground and this would give them a new angle. Since both candidates are deeply unpopular, and the media know the public wants change, this would add high drama plus another historic first – the first time someone running for President has willingly closed his or her options for a second term. That’s got a wow factor.

It would probably bring out the millennials for Trump as well – they want a fresh face in office; neither of these are, but now one of them will open the door for someone who probably will be younger and more in tune with their attitudes.   

Trump’s base – as well as proponents of term limits – would get on board.  Independents and others who want to send a message to the political establishment would probably love this – they could stick it to the Washington elites and know Trump’s only in a relatively short time before they get a do-over. And another perhaps more responsible bite at the apple.

Wavering Republicans would have the opportunity to support Trump and Pence now, with the probability they’ll get Pence – who would gain four years of executive office experience – when Trump’s four years are up. And they much prefer Pence.

I know it’s a hail-Mary pass.  But I think it would work. 

After all, as Trump himself has said: What the Hell do you have to lose? 

Paying Federal income tax doesn’t make you a patriot …

Any more than not paying Federal income tax makes you a traitor.  If that were the case then the almost half of all Americans who pay no Federal income tax are traitors. 

This crap is a perennial favorite of Democrats, who like to imply that rich people who don’t pay Federal income tax are somehow leeches on our system. It’s almost always said in the context of “making the rich pay their fair share.”  

It’s become for them almost as powerful a weapon to deploy as calling someone a racist.

“The rich” are inherently evil to Democrat class warriors.  To them, the rich only became rich because they exploited and cheated others.  Or by simply and unfairly inheriting the estates of their parents who – surprise – only became rich by cheating and exploiting others. The only way to deal with the rich, then, is to take their ill-gotten gains for use by the common people.

The Democrat redistribution focus is part Robin Hood; part Madame DeFarge. In short, to many Democrats, the rich are evil monsters who get richer and richer at the expense of others and pay a pittance of their real income to support the operations of the government. That, in turn, means that the burden of paying for such things as defense, education, aid to the elderly and the poor, and all the other worthwhile endeavors provided by our government fall on someone else. 

The victims ending up footing the bill are always the poor and the middle class. That’s pretty interesting since the poor don’t pay any Federal income tax at all, and the middle class generally don’t pay much if any Federal income tax either. Guess who pays the most?

Democrats know this, but they are loathe to give up their vilification of the rich.         

Which I find particularly fascinating since the major backers of the Democrat Party are among the richest people in this country – Wall Street investment banker types, movie stars, entertainers, currency manipulators like George Soros, sports team owners, and, of course, the Clintons.

There are many billionaires in this crowd, and others worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Some made their fortunes in business deals or show business; many just inherited family fortunes. Yet they are seemingly in agreement that the rich – including themselves – aren’t paying their “fair share.” (BTW, nothing prevents anyone from paying more in taxes to the Feds than required; I wonder how many of these same people do ...)  

I am going to go way out on a limb here and wager these big money folks all have teams of tax accountants and lawyers to insure they pay as little Federal income tax as legally allowed.  I’d also suggest that they aren’t worried one bit about maintaining or even raising the estate tax – their accountants and lawyers have already figured out how to pass along their wealth practically tax free. So it’s very easy for them to be in favor of taxing the rich more – it won’t affect them. 

As much as Democrats love to rant against the evil rich – and particularly at election time – their attacks are always very selective. If you support their agenda you get a pass no matter how grave your sins; if you are a Republican with the same exact history, you’re a monster.   

Billionaire currency speculator George Soros almost singlehandedly crushed the Bank of England, devastated the English economy, and made himself a billion-dollar profit at the same time by short selling $10 billion worth of English pounds; he tried to do the same to Deutsche Bank following the Brexit event.  In the past few years Hillary went from “dead broke” by her own admission to having a family net worth estimated at $100 million and nobody is sure exactly how.  And now she’s the Democrats’ candidate for President campaigning against the evil rich Donald Trump, railing against the rich in her $15,000 designer outfits.    

Recently she and other Democrats accused Donald Trump of not paying any Federal income tax. This reminded me of Harry Reid’s claim that Mitt Romney didn’t pay Federal income taxes for at least a decade. – which Reid knew was a lie, and which was later disproven. 

But the suggestion that someone running for President should be automatically disqualified if they didn’t pay Federal income tax apparently works for some people. (It also helps that Trump refuses to disclose his tax returns, which makes it appear he’s hiding something.)

Now, Democrats and their friends in the media are having a field day over an illegally leaked filing by Trump that showed he took an almost billion-dollar loss in the 1990s.  Of course, that would have enabled him to use that loss against future earnings for many years, and by doing that quite legally not be liable for Federal income taxes at the same time. So the Democrat and media focus has to shift a bit – not so much as defending his use of the tax laws, which they should in fairness – but hammering more on his billion-dollar hit as evidence that he’s not a smart businessman after all.   

Notably absent is all this discussion about the patriotism of paying taxes are the 47%-48% of all Americans who also – and quite legally, via various tax credits and subsidies – don’t pay any Federal income tax. Shouldn’t they be paying their “fair share” as well?     

So here’s the question: Should you be demonized if you take advantage of all the credits and subsidies legally available to you to reduce the Federal income tax you pay?

Apparently it depends on who you are.  And how you vote.  

That’s old news …

As Hillary continues to fall in the polls, she’s reaching back in time to come up with something to support her case that Trump’s a monster. 

For a long time Trump questioned whether Obama was born in the United States. So did a lot of other people.  It was understandable given Obama’s strange lineage and where he at times lived as a child and with whom. Plus, he and his campaign kept a tight lid on details of his background, including his college admissions and academic records.

It’s all still somewhat suspicious to me.

That Trump and other so-called “birthers” questioned where Obama was born, and whether he was actually a naturalized U.S. citizen, was seen by the liberal media and Democrats as racist. That was only because Obama was black. Obama finally did produce a birth certificate from Hawaii and for most folks the issue was dead.

Yet Hillary just brought it back. And she added that anyone who questioned whether “our first black President” was a U.S. citizen is unfit to be President of the United States.

Call me cuckoo but anyone caught repeatedly lying to the FBI, to Congress, to grieving parents, and who obstructs justice by intentionally destroying evidence after it is subpoenaed is the one actually unfit to be President. I’m not even going to go into the shady commodities deals, Whitewater, the Rose Law Firm papers, Benghazi, the mysterious deaths of key witnesses … nope, don’t need to. 

Hillary and her supporters consider all that “old news.” Which means, to them and their liberal media lackeys, been there, done that, already addressed and not relevant anymore.

The classic example was when Bernie Sanders said to Hillary in front of a cheering Democrat crowd that “nobody is interested in your damn emails.” Old news, in other words.

It’s a standard Democrat ploy that instantly reminds you of someone dismissing the deaths of four Americans in front of a Congressional panel by saying: “What difference does it make now?”

Yet think about this for a minute: Hillary’s supporters are going pretty far into the way-back machine to find something to trash Trump. 

Some in the fawning media, and the usual far-left online trolls, recently tried to make the case that Trump’s current wife – Melania – entered and worked in the U.S. illegally in 1995; they also republished photos of Melania from  a GQ shoot in 2000, well before she became Mrs. Trump.  Melania Trump’s immigration lawyer issued a letter that debunked the first claim; the second attempt to smear Trump also may have backfired. (She is undeniably hot.)

Somehow all this is fair game to Hillary and the Democrats. And “new” news, worthy of investigation to raise doubts about Trump’s fitness. 

They are still dredging up past bankruptcies, interviews on Howard Stern, disgruntled former vendors and employees and anyone – or anything – they can use to destroy Trump’s credibility. They’ve even made a TV ad with clips taken from the Republican primary debates – indeed a nasty slugfest – to make a claim that even Republicans hate Trump. 

All of which happened in the past – the “distant past” by Democrat standards (longer than a few weeks). But there are obviously different standards when fighting Republicans.  

The whole birther resurrection came from a Washington Post interview yesterday with Trump.  Once they had it back on the front burner, the media went to town, as did Hillary’s campaign. The Trump campaign quickly responded that Obama was born in the U.S. But for some reason Trump himself didn’t say that – and that gave the media and Democrats (pretty much the same) all the room they needed to fire up the old charges of racism. 

Today, Trump was scheduled for an event at his new hotel in D.C.  The press salivated over this opportunity to grill Trump on the birther issue and keep the flame alive; practically every cable and online news show speculated on how he would handle the “controversy.” 

Instead, Trump trotted out a series of Medal of Honor, Bronze and Silver Star recipients, and retired generals and admirals, who gave testimonials why Trump should be the next President. When Trump finally came up at the end, he simply said that Obama was "born in the United States, period."

That was that. But on online and cable news shows immediately afterward, spokespuppets for the Hillary campaign insisted that Trump had done something wrong. They simply would not accept what they had been demanding – Trump’s acknowledgement of Obama’s citizenship. 

Tough shit, folks. That’s now old news. 

So what’s next from the Hillary camp?  Who knows.  Maybe an old 8mm home movie of Trump they can edit and take out of context? Some old girlfriend he broke up with in high school? Maybe an interview with one of the wives he divorced?     

Hey, if they want to continue to play that game maybe Republicans could respond in kind.  Like pulling up the records of why Hillary was kicked off the Watergate Committee. Playing the tape of her laughing about how she got a rapist acquitted. 

Or getting former White House Secret Service staff to do a Swift-Boat type of commercial about what Hillary is really like. From published accounts, that would be fun. 

Personally, I’d like to have a paternity test run on Bill and Chelsea to see who her real dad is.  Not because that has any bearing whether Hillary is qualified to be President – I think I’ve already established how I feel about that – but just to start a rumor she has to constantly deal with.  I think that's only fair after her minions have gone after Melania, and just about as relevant to running for the Presidency.

I’d like a full investigation into where her ugly pantsuits are made and by whom – I’m thinking Sears or JC Penney based on style and color – but I’m betting those stores don’t have any clothing in the $15,000 price range.   

Oh yeah, I’d also like to see a parade of Bill’s bimbos Hillary publicly dissed as “trailer trash.”     

Hillary started this. I think she’s going to regret it. She has as many if not far more skeletons in her closet than Trump. However in her favor is that people who can prove her misdeeds often disappear. 

But that’s old news, right? 

“Basket of deplorables”

That’s what Hillary just called half of Trump’s supporters. 

Here’s exactly what she said at a recent fundraiser:  "To just be grossly generalistic, you can put half of Trump supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables," Clinton said. "Right? Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it."

The way the polls stand right now that would be about a quarter of the voting public

If you want to understand how Hillary could still lose this election – even against a seriously flawed candidate like Trump – this classic example of Democrat arrogance and disdain for wide swaths of the American public is how. Democrats routinely treat the general public as stupid, and mock their own base in private, but every now and then they can’t resist letting us know how they really feel. 

This was one of those times. 

Democrats always believe they are the smartest people in the room. The most cultured. The most worldly. The most “enlightened.” Everybody else is an ignorant, bigoted, bozo. 

That’s why they see no problem with lying to the public, and even to their own base. They fully expect nobody else to be smart enough to catch them. 

And if they do get caught, so what? They think most Americans have such a short attention span they’ll forget anyway. Harry Reid blatantly and knowingly lied about Romney not paying taxes for years; later, he laughed about it and said it helped defeat Romney anyway.    

They are so proud of themselves they can’t keep it to themselves.  That’s often why they lose the big elections, as they might this one as well. 

They really don’t care much what the regular folks think. In a lot of ways, they are completely tone deaf and indifferent to the optics.  Remember John Kerry windsurfing.  Remember the petulance and open contempt by Al Gore during his debates with George W. 

More recently, remember Obama yucking it up with his golf buddies shortly after an American was beheaded. Or Hillary saying “What difference does it make now” when questioned about the deaths in Benghazi. Or Hillary saying: “What? With a dust cloth?” when asked whether she had wiped her server intentionally to destroy e-mails.     

It’s this arrogance that’s always pissed me off. 

Most times, Democrats get away with it. Their pals in the media try to bury these things as not worth a lot of coverage.  Nothing to see here.  But when Romney said in a private fundraiser that the 47% of the public that paid no taxes and depended on government would probably not vote for him, he was an elitist, and that story stayed in the news cycle up until the election.   

What’s unusual this time with Hillary’s comments is that practically every media outlet has reported what she said, often as the lead story. Now, some folks will see this as a sign that the media is finally stepping up and doing their job. 

Sadly, I don’t think that’s the case. I believe the more liberal media outlets reported it because they believe it’s actually true, or would like their readers to believe it’s true.  Anything they can do to demonize Trump and his followers is acceptable. They think they are serving a higher purpose by damaging Trump whenever possible. 

It's part of a long-running campaign to paint Republicans as the party of dolts.  

Someone on Facebook posted a “poll” by Bloomberg recently that was headlined:  “Trump Beats Clinton Among Least-Educated Whites in Bloomberg Poll.”  

However If you drilled down on this "poll" the data showed  that Hillary tops Trump -- 41% to 39% -- among ALL voters with no college degree.  Which means she also probably has a clear majority of least-educated voters among all races in her camp.  Her favorability ratings were also significantly higher than Trump among non-white, no-college voters: Clinton was viewed favorably by 78 percent and Trump viewed favorably by just 17 percent.

Wasn’t the headline though, was it? The point Democrats want to relentlessly drive home is that Trump supporters are ignorant racists and bigots, so don’t be part of that group.  Vote with the cool crowd – the smarter, more worldly and more enlightened folks: Democrats.

You don’t want to associate with ignorant racists and bigots, do you?  Democrats are so much smarter and tolerant. Hillary recommended in the same speech that her supporters should stage "interventions" with anybody they know is a Trump supporter.  "Friends don’t let friends vote for Trump,” she added.  

They like promoting that Democrats are always more intelligent than Republicans.  It’s the same crap they pull when they produce online “lists” of the “most intelligent” Presidents (mostly Democrats) and the “worst” Presidents (mostly Republicans).

This is what’s known as propaganda by any other name.  But like propaganda, they believe if you repeat this nonsense frequently enough it starts being considered true. 

I personally don’t believe 25% of the voting public is “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it." Do you?  However, I think Democrats actually do. And it’s this open contempt for the ordinary folks that might cost them this election.    

On the other hand, I do believe more than 25% -- perhaps as much as half or more – of the most strident Democrats and their allies in the media are lying weasels no one should trust.

But that’s just me.  

Rednecks?

I’ve written about this before but a recent incident reminded me again how distorted a view of the South and its people exists among so many others. 

We’ve recently moved to Central Florida. For me, it’s kind of like coming home – I went to college in Gainesville, only about an hour and a half from where we now live. I went to college with a lot of kids from Ocala, Kissimmee, St. Cloud, Leesburg, and other small towns in this general area. 

I’d grown up largely in Miami, which at the time was still a pretty much Southern city. Most of my relatives called Miami “Miamah.” That should give you an idea. 

When my family moved North for a few years it took a while to shake my Southern accent. But I had to because other kids made fun of me for pronouncing “pen” as “pin,” “get” as “git,” etc.  Then we moved back to Miami and later I went to a decidedly Southern, yet very good, university.

Years later when I worked at Commodore Business Machines – home of the C64 – I ran its publishing operations. I still remember one of the vice presidents, an arrogant elitist, asking me where I went to college, fully expecting I would name one of the prestigious schools, and being aghast that I had actually graduated from the University of Florida.  Not what he expected. 

I’ve encountered that Northern arrogance at many times in my career.  Also in my personal life. 

Too many people from the Northeast automatically assume that if you grew up in the South, or have even the slightest Southern drawl, you can’t be that smart. Plus, you probably didn’t get much of an education beyond “readin’, writin’, and ‘rithmatic.” If you are relatively smart, you must be an exception – lucky to escape your backwoods, Bible-thumping, anti-science and bigoted environment. 

Here’s what brought all this up. 

Our newly constructed house had a bad floor. The contractor sent a crew out to grind down our floor, at no cost to us. Five guys showed up – including a crew boss – and spent the day working on our floor to get it ready for self-leveling cement to be poured shortly. They covered everything with plastic sheeting to keep the dust away from our furniture, kitchen and anywhere else in our house.  That included getting up on a ladder and wrapping plastic around a ceiling fan so dust didn’t get in the motor. I took a picture of them doing that and posted the pix on Facebook. 

Shortly after, a business acquaintance – a lifelong Democrat from the Northeast – now living in a fashionable part of Miami Beach with his partner, commented with “how many rednecks does it take to install a ceiling fan.”

For some reason that really set me off.  The hardworking guys on that crew routinely clock into work at 6:10AM.  I saw the same crew working on a job on Labor Day.

They are the nicest people you could ever run into. Some of them have kids in The Villages Charter School – one of the top-rated schools in the state.  One has a daughter getting ready to go to the University of Central Florida to become a veterinarian. But because they live in Central Florida and are workmen, and white, they must automatically be rednecks, from a Northeast perspective.

Let me help my Northern friends understand who is and who isn’t a redneck.  A redneck is essentially ignorant and intolerant; they have no use for education or the educated.  They stick to their own and think the rest of society looks down on them. They like doing things designed to annoy others – especially those of different races – just to piss people off.  In their own stupid way, they are always trying to beat the system by doing the minimum required. They are classic low-life jerkoffs.       

Wait, didn’t that also describe a lot of folks in our inner cities in other parts of the country? 

Why yes it does. You don’t have to be white to be a redneck.  There are a lot of folks – white and black – who meet the redneck criteria – and not all of them are in the South. In fact, I’d hazard that most of them aren’t in the South but instead concentrated in many of our major cities outside the South entirely.

If you want to find ignorance and intolerance, and racial animosity – traits Northeasterners associate with the South in general and rednecks in particular – you don’t have to look that far. Try Philadelphia. Or Baltimore. Or Detroit. Or Newark. Or even Boston, for that matter.  

Wander off into parts of North Central PA, Northwestern NJ, the Pine Barrens, or Western or Upstate NY if you want to continue to focus on white rednecks. Plenty in all those places, too.     

You’ll find the South doesn’t have a lock on rednecks. Yes, there are rednecks in the South, but also everywhere else as well. Just go to the racetrack in the Poconos sometime.

In short, the South is like a lot of other places in the country.  Good parts and not-so-good parts.  There are great universities here. There are world-class orchestras and opera companies.

There is still a distinctly Southern culture nonetheless, no matter how many Northerners and Midwesterners move here to escape the taxes, crime, and bad weather where they lived. It’s interesting for me to watch how quickly they adapt to their new environment.  At first they are stunned how nice and courteous most everyone is.  And how honest.   

Over time, they start to become the same. That’s a good thing.      

It wasn’t that big of an adjustment for me. But let me tell you what my experience has been so far moving into what one of my Northern acquaintances called a place where there’s probably a “combination cultural center and swap meet.”

The first thing I noticed was how nice everybody is.  Whether that’s at the grocery store, Walmart, liquor store, the DMV or the tax collector’s office, everybody was so helpful and friendly.  It’s not a racial thing: we got the exact same courtesy from white, black and Hispanic men and women wherever we’ve gone.  There’s absolutely no attitude; no sense they are doing you a big favor, even though at times they are.  It makes no difference if they are cashiers, landscapers, construction workers, or waiters.

Even civil servants. The woman at the DMV spent almost two hours patiently guiding us on what we needed to do to get our Florida driver’s licenses and get our cars registered.  Two weeks later when we came to transfer the title of my car and get my plates, she was just as friendly and helpful, and carefully walked us through every step.  

Can my Northern friends say the same about where they live? 

Next, people here take pride in working hard and doing a good job. You don’t get the feeling they begrudgingly get up every day and drag themselves to a job they hate. They seem genuinely happy to be working and having a regular job, whatever that is. As one of the guys who did work in our house said – he didn’t mind working on a weekend or holiday because that gave him a bigger paycheck. 

The people who came to see if our floor was finally ready for the flooring installation came here on Labor Day. They didn't think coming out on a holiday was anything special.      

Try that in the Northeast. 

Cultural events? There are many – and none of them has anything to do with NASCAR.  There are always concerts, plays, and theatrical productions at one of the performing arts centers in The Villages, or somewhere nearby. There’s also a lifelong learning center where you can take college-level courses. There are major universities not far away either.  

It’s not paradise, but neither is it a cultural backwater.  Nor is it an isolated island of enlightenment within an overall dumbed-down South, any more than NYC is one in an overall stupid and uncultured country.  Although that’s what New Yorkers tend to think.

One reason the Northern and West Coast media think the South is a cultural and intellectual wasteland is because – unlike them – the South tends to vote Republican. Obviously, again to them, anyone who votes Republican is a low-information voter. 

Stupid and uneducated, in other words.      

Are things perfect here?  Of course not.  But the locals we’ve encountered so far belie the Northern myth. And as a native Southerner, I’ll continue to fight to dispel that myth.