Trump's winning argument

The big winner at UFC 287 was President Donald John Trump. Fans gave him a hero’s welcome, which is fitting because if not for him, there would be no UFC. Dana White, founder of the UFC, recalled states shunned the mixed-martial arts sport in its early days.

White said, “We were having trouble booking places. Donald Trump called, said ‘Love to have you down here in Atlantic City.’ Not only did he invite us down, not only did he cut us a great deal to come there. He showed up for the first fight of the night and stayed until the last fight.”

He gave the UFC more than a venue. He gave them Donald Trump, a WWE Hall of Famer. Trump had sided with the underdog. As always. That’s the American way.

In 2016, he made himself the underdog by taking on the deep state. His positions on illegal aliens, Muslim terrorists and a racketeer-influenced corrupt FBI, which let Hillary walk, made him the enemy of the deep state — and the champion of the people. Lock her up was about those 33,000 emails she sent to foreign contributors to her fake charity, which was a money-laundering operation for the secretary of State.

His supporters gave money to a billionaire. We did so because we understood that like Princess Leia said of Obi Wan Kenobi, Trump was our only hope. He pulled off a miracle at the polls. The empire struck back, of course, in 2020 but it went too far — and that is why Trump may be president again.

Let’s start with every Trump supporter’s favorite fat boy, Frank Luntz. On Easter Sunday, the New York Times published his opus, “How to Make Trump Go Away.”

Luntz began, “After more than three decades in and around politics, I now spend most of my time grappling with political questions in the classroom and in focus groups. There is one conundrum that fascinates me above others: Why does Donald Trump still generate such loyalty and devotion? And unlike 2016, can a different Republican win the nomination in 2024 who largely shares Mr. Trump’s agenda but not his personality?”

So this self-appointed oracle of presidential politics cannot figure out the 75 million people who voted for President Trump in 2020, but Luntz is going to tell us how to get those people to vote for a substitute. He is going to find a Trump without his personality.

It never occurs to the Establishment that maybe Trump supporters like Trump’s personality. I do. I like that he lives large and enjoys Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. If I had the money, I might live that way. Certainly I’d live in a three-story penthouse apartment in New York and build a Mar-a-Poca in West Virginia.

He’s been married three times. Marriage fidelity matters. I know I would never do that. But he’s Donald Trump. I don’t want him as my spouse; I want him as my president because he not only fights, he wins.

Luntz’s search for a Trump agenda-without-Trump candidate greatly amused me because like most DC Republicans, Luntz likes to channel Reagan while rejecting Reaganism.

Consider this slogan Luntz offers: “Donald Trump had my back in 2016. Now, it’s all about him. I didn’t leave Donald Trump. He left me.”

Luntz copied Reagan’s comment on Democrats. But how did President Trump leave us? Did he suddenly support illegal immigration? Has he abandoned the fight against abortion? Is he suddenly a fan of Castro, Che and Mao?

I ask those questions because those are the positions Democrats flipped.

43 years after Reagan’s election in 1980, guys like Luntz still don’t understand the Reagan Revolution or the Reagan voter. I remember my mom gushing over Ronnie. She was 56.

Luntz is pushing DeSantis, a man I like, but he suffers two handicaps.

One, he is not as well-known. Trump was a household name when he entered the presidential race on June 16, 2015. People knew about him, his wives and his comeback from near bankruptcy.

Two, DeSantis has no money. He needs Bush donors, which taints him and his candidacy. Trump noticed and Sam Adler-Bell noticed that he noticed.

Writing in NYT, Adler-Bell said, “Mr. Trump has sought to further solidify his status as the indispensable people’s champion, attacked on all sides by a conspiracy of liberal elites. While donors and operatives may prefer a more housebroken populism, it is Mr. Trump’s surmise that large parts of the base still want the real thing, warts and all.

“If his wager pays off, it will be a sign not just of his continued dominance over the Republican Party but also of something deeper: an ongoing revolt against ‘the best and brightest,’ the notion that only certain people, with certain talents, credentials and subject matter expertise, are capable of governing.”

That’s a pretty good observation for a fellow who put the word liberty in scary quotes. It also is a reminder that the best and the brightest got us into Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan — wars our soldiers won and our politicians then surrendered.

My advice to DeSantis now is to wait his turn. Reagan failed to win the nomination in 1976 before winning it all in 1980. Need I say Governor DeSantis may be a Ronald but he is no Ronald Reagan?

While the elitists still disparage Trump and his deplorable supporters, they miss what is obvious. They gave Trump a winning narrative for 2024. It goes:

I shocked them in 2016 and had three great years as president without RINO support. I did so well that they had to create a virus and a pandemic to go with it to try to bring me down. They couldn’t. They had to cheat and ballot harvest. Even after all that, I won on Election Day and they still had to cheat to win.

The result was the worst presidency ever. We lost Afghanistan. Inflation came back. The stock market tanked. Banks failed. Biden gave our lunch money to Red China. We are protecting Ukraine’s border but not our own. Democrats let criminals take over the cities, but they went after me.

***

I get that Democrats want Republicans to nominate President Trump. They should be careful of that which they wish. I was going to sit this nomination out. Alvin the Chipmunk Bragg made it clear that I must do all I can do to stop this travesty.

The indictment backfired.

Politico whined, “As Trump dominates the airwaves, ‘it feels like f--king 2016.’ Trump’s opponents are struggling to find a spotlight of their own in the 2024 campaign.”

Just last week, the press could barely contain its joy over the 34-count indictment for paying off a hooker who claimed he bedded her.

Now the press realizes that Democrats were too clever by half.

David Kochel, a veteran of six Republican presidential campaigns, pouted to Politico, “What’s frustrating to me is we didn’t learn a damn thing from 2015 and 2016 when it comes to just giving him absolute, roadblock media coverage. I get it, it’s a big story. But this was getting covered like the opening of the war in Iraq or the O.J. chase. You couldn’t escape it.”

Well, when you call something historic — say, the indictment of a former president —people want to know about it. Democrats thought this would be the final nail in Donald Trump’s coffin — only to learn the coffin hasn’t been built big enough to contain him and his 75 million supporters.

Republicans are united behind Trump not just because of this indictment but because of January 6. That protest led to Liz Cheney capitulating to Democrats in their plan to tar Trump as an insurrectionist. This led to her downfall within the party, which rid Republicans of the Cheney wing of the party. Her father served in the Ford and two Bush administrations — but not Reagan’s.

You had better believe the message got through to the rest of the Washington Republicans to toe the line. Trump supporters are through with RINOs.

ESPN’s report on UFC 287 was headlined, “Israel Adesanya knocks out Alex Pereira to recapture UFC title.”

Someone else may recapture his title next year. We shall see.

Now for today’s TOTALLY SCIENTIFIC POLL: