As Obama begins an early weekend of relaxation on the manicured links of Martha‘s Vineyard, and an easily-exhausted Hillary Clinton has need of recuperation, Donald Trump interrupted a hectic campaign schedule to zoom down to inundated Louisiana to see for himself the scale of the disaster and gauge what a President Trump will need to do in January to assist the State’s citizens to rebuild their homes and communities. By all reports, even from a poisonous Mainstream Media, he was warmly welcomed by the afflicted people and their local politicians.
Here we have a glimpse of the next President in action, and a stark contrast to the pleasure-seeking Obama and the rickety old lady who can only be galvanized into action if there are dollars to be pocketed.
Many disparage Trump’s occasional impulsive initiatives and instinctive responses, but his long journey down to flood-stricken Baton Rouge demonstrates his affinity with the ordinary American people and their hardships. Louisiana is not a battle-ground State but a Trump certainty, yet he has set election strategy aside to be with the people in need. Others, surrounded by ‘professional’ advisers and locked into campaign plans would calculate that a trip to Louisiana is time wasted. Trump operates, not as a politician interested only in attaining office, but as a citizen whose one motive is to restore the fortunes of America’s working people.
This emergency Presidential visit to a Deep South constituency not only demonstrates Trump’s physical and emotional energy, but his Nationalist concept of America’s people. Many in both Parties, especially those in the academic safe havens of the North East and the West Coast, and those who feed on Government in Washington DC, Wall Street and Beverley Hills, are disdainful of the people who live in places like Louisiana. They are seen as at best economically expendable and at worst as a cultural embarrassment. Trump may be a New Yorker, but as a Nationalist he sees one America, rich in a shared history of toil and achievement, and not to be sacrificed for the benefit of a quick financial gain or in pursuit of an ideological racial diversity.
His patriotic visit to Louisiana has coincided with the launch of his advertising campaign in battle-ground States and an up-tick in the latest opinion polls. His supporters will be heartened by the ads-launch and the polling figures, but most of all they will be heartened by his demonstration of faithfulness to ordinary Americans and the energy it reveals.