In his “Salute to America” speech given on Saturday night from the White House South Lawn, President Donald Trump sharpened his attacks on America’s enemies while reiterating themes from his remarkable speech the night before at Mt. Rushmore.
He referred to the Trump “phenomenon” as “our movement [which] is based on lifting all citizens to reach their fullest God-given potential,” adding:
Never forget: We are one family and one nation. This rich heritage belongs to every citizen, young and old, first-generation American and tenth-generation American. This heritage belongs to every citizen, young and old — first-generation American — we want to go from first generation to tenth generation; it matters not. We are American. We are from the USA. This great heritage belongs to citizens of every background and of every walk of life.
But there are people, efforts, movements and campaigns to keep that from happening, said the president:
In every age, there have always been those who seek to lie about the past in order to gain power in the present. Those that are lying about our history, those who want us to be ashamed of who we are, are not interested in justice or in healing. Their goal is demolition.
And then he pointed directly to the mainstream media:
Let me also say a word to those in the media who falsely and consistently label their opponents as racists, who condemn patriotic citizens who offer a clear and truthful defense of American unity. That’s what our people are doing. We want a clear and faithful defense of American history and we want unity.
When you level these false charges, you not only slander me, you not only slander the American people, but you slander generations of heroes who gave their lives for America. (Applause.) You slander people much braver and much more principled than you. You are slandering the young men who raised the flag at Iwo Jima, and those who perished fighting for freedom in the Civil War. You slander them. You are dishonoring their great legacy and their memory by insisting that they fought for racism and they fought for oppression. They didn’t fight for those things; they fought for the exact opposite. We will not let the legacy of these heroes be tarnished by you.
The more you lie, the more you slander, the more you try to demean and divide, the more we will work hard to tell the truth. And we will win.
Annie Karni, the White House correspondent for the New York Times who called his Mt. Rushmore speech “dark and divisive,” reacted to Trump’s attack, calling his words “exaggerated” and “apocalyptic” in an attempt to deflect criticisms from “his failings in containing the worsening coronavirus pandemic.” She accused him of “signal[ing] even more clearly that he would exploit race and cultural flash points to stoke fear among his base of white supporters in an effort to win re-election.”
They reflected, said Karni, “his dire political standing as he nears the end of his first term in office. Mr. Trump is … leaning on culture wars … to buoy his base of white supporters.”
In other words, Karni had no interest whatever in responding to Trump’s attacks on the media but instead sought to deflect them elsewhere.
All she is doing is exposing the Times for what it is: a mouthpiece for the left. She simply has no intelligent response to Trump’s attacks that would carry weight so she chooses to point elsewhere, hoping her readers will follow.
The average American, however, isn’t paying attention to the mainstream media in general and the Times in particular. According to the credible online polling company Morning Consult, which was founded in 2013 and accurately called the 2016 election popular vote for Hillary Clinton, “the share of U.S. adults who said nine leading media outlets — including CBS and the New York Times — were credible has dropped roughly 9 percentage points since December 2016, from 60.6 percent to an average of 51.2 percent today.”
Among Republicans the drop is even more precipitous, according to Morning Consult. In 2016 roughly half thought the Times was credible. Four years later than percentage has dropped to 29 percent, with similar drops for CNN and MSNBC.
The disgust is showing up among primary election voters who, as The New American has reported, are giving Stony Brook University professor Helmut Norpoth’s “Primary Model” a 91 percent chance that Trump will win re-election in November.
Instead of being “dark and divisive,” as the Times’ Karni would have her readers believe about Trump’s speeches, they are in fact exposing the media’s bias and uniting voters against their anti-American intentions.
For that, freedom lovers owe the president an enormous debt of gratitude that they are likely to settle in his favor in November.
Photo of Presi. Trump, July 4 “Salute to America” speech: screen-grab from White House video
An Ivy League graduate and former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American primarily on economics and politics. He can be reached at [email protected].
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