Donald Trump first announced he was running for President on June 16, 2015. Until yesterday, this was the most important political statement he ever made. But he may have topped that moment on Wednesday, March 13, 2024, when he admitted for the very first time that what he previously said was not what he meant to say.
In other words, Donald Trump actually issued a retraction of a statement and didn’t even try to blame the Fake News or anyone else for having said something that he either shouldn’t or didn’t say.
The statement in question was made in response to what he said two days earlier when he told an interviewer on CNBC that his plan to address the possible insolvency of entitlements would include making cuts to social security, along with cleaning up waste and fraud.
The rule has always been that if you want to commit political suicide, wait until you’re in the middle of a campaign and then say a sentence which contains two words: ‘entitlements’ and ‘cuts.’
Unfortunately, Trump stuck those two words in the same sentence which came out sounding like this: “So first if all, there is a lot you can do in terms od entitlements in terms of cutting….”
Okay, so he didn’t specifically mention social security. He saved that one for the next sentence. But when any public official says the word ‘entitlements,’ everyone knows that he’s talking about those checks from the Treasury Department which are issued every month.
And since there’s always some talk about how social security is going broke because people are living a lot longer than they lived when the social security system was first set up, calling it ‘entitlements’ or calling it ‘social security’ means the same thing.
Two days later, Trump gave one of his so-called interviews to Breitbart News and said this: “I will never do anything that will jeopardize or hurt Social Security or Medicare.” Except Medicare isn’t really an entitlement, because even though the costs are partially subsidized by the government, you pay for what you get.
I notice, of course, that Trump didn’t include Medicaid in his list of government programs which he claims he won’t touch. But that’s because Medicaid really is an entitlement but in order to be entitled for Medicaid, you have to be poor as shit.
And the last thing that Trump would ever say or do to alienate his MAGA band, is to promote the idea that the government needs to be concerned about poverty, because under Trump poverty disappeared between 2017 and 2021, and it will disappear again when he sits down behind the real Resolute desk in 2025.
What this rather unprecedented about face really represents for Trump and his 2024 campaign, is the fact that the GOP can’t win the election by maintaining the drumbeat against WOKE, or uncovering the secret, multi-million-dollar bank account that Hunter Biden maintains in the Caymans where he receives his monthly emolument from the Chinese Reds.
And by the way, it should also be noted, and I’m sure that Trump’s campaign team has seen this polling data as well, is that the only age group in the Quinnipiac poll which scored more than 50% for Biden was – ready? – the age group of 65 and up. All the other age groups (18-34, 35-49, 50-64) had Joe ahead by two or three points, but when you get into the seniors, of whom every, single one of them is collecting that entitled social security check, the numbers are very much anti-Trump.
Remember again that we are probably looking at a national election which will turn on how the cotes spill out in three or four states. If Joe keeps Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin in his pocket, he wins.
As of 2020, the percentage of Americans over age 65 was 16.8%. This percentage probably dipped slightly during the Pandemic, but the percentage is probably now back to where it was pre-2021 because the Baby Boomers are all now in the oldest age cohort.
Both Arizona and Pennsylvania have senior populations above 18%. Michigan and Wisconsin are just below 18%. Want to win a Presidential election with the seniors in those four states thinking that their monthly charity payments from Uncle/Aunt Sam are going to be less?
As Grandpa would say, ‘gai macht’ (read: you’re full of shit.)
Last week without even trying, Trump gave the Biden campaign a big gift. Let’s just hope that Trump’s gift-giving continues until November 5th.
Comments