It's been like taking candy from a baby. President Trump, armed with a thorough understanding of the left’s debilitating and seemingly incurable Trump Derangement Syndrome (the clinical designation is TDS), has been shamelessly and effortlessly baiting his sworn enemies into loudly opposing his many initiatives supported by strong or even overwhelming majorities of the American people. It has almost been too easy.
In fact, the president has turned it into an art form. He realizes that all he needs to do to coax leftists into adopting the very positions that cost them dearly in the election last November is to propose something, anything, popular with the public, secure in the knowledge that Democrats will loudly oppose it. Call it the Trump trap.
And the Dems still fall for it every time, behaving as if the 2024 election was nothing more than a bad dream. Close the border and stop illegal immigration dead in its tracks? We must protest and call him a racist. Round up and deport criminal aliens? Let’s unleash violent demonstrations against it and turn an alleged wife-beater, gang banger, and sex trafficker into our new icon. Prohibiting men from competing against women in sports? Oh, we will definitely vote against that, and overwhelmingly so. The Laken Riley Act, which orders the deportation of illegal aliens charged with crimes? No way we’re getting on board with that. Send the National Guard into DC, a move that immediately reduced assaults, murders, and carjackings? Let’s start calling Trump – again – a fascist, dictator, authoritarian, or, as Joe Biden would say: you know, the thing.
We’re Just Getting Started
There’s more material on this subject than can be contained in a single article, but let’s give it the old college try. Defunding sanctuary cities and states? Let’s double down on the critical importance of shielding illegal aliens, especially the criminals among them, from law enforcement. And let’s send out the poster child for lawlessness and homelessness, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, to try and imitate the inimitable Trump with vitriolic all-caps messages. And by all means, let’s repeat our decades-long mantra: The immigration system is “broken” and in need of “comprehensive immigration reform.” Oh, and while we’re at it, let’s renew our perpetually empty call for a “two-state solution” in the Middle East. And we can never be heard uttering a discouraging word about Hamas.
We must attack the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) because nothing needs to change in Washington, and defend the civil service because, you know, Americans love their federal employees. And we must fight against Trump’s efforts to end campus antisemitism by threatening to reduce federal funding to these far-left institutions. Who doesn’t love progressive radicals influencing young Americans on campus and those Marxist academics lecturing us from the comfort of their faculty lounges?
Ending cashless bail that allows accused criminals out on their own recognizance? Racist for sure. Firing a member of the Fed who, evidence strongly suggests, has engaged in mortgage fraud while, in a delicious irony, she helps to set mortgage rates for the country? Well, that’s both racist and misogynistic. Deep-sixing Iran’s nuclear threat with bunker-busting bombs? Well, that’s probably illegal in some way, and it won’t set their program back by more than a few months.
The multiple ceasefires and peace deals Trump has brokered between long-time enemies? Well, we’ll just react as we did with the Abraham Accords in the Middle East and ignore them, focusing instead on how Trump has failed to end the war in Ukraine – a war that began under Biden. And we can throw in a bit more about how Trump just loves Vladimir Putin, whose interference, as we know, handed the 2016 election to Trump – just ask Hillary Clinton. And we will also ignore the trillions in foreign investments attracted by Trump; we’ll just act as if that isn't happening. Trump’s tariffs, designed to level the playing field on trade and bring in trillions in revenue going forward? Let’s shriek about the certainty that this will immediately cause a spike in inflation.
In fairness, these Democrats are often prone to inflicting harm on themselves without being baited by the president. The annual summer meeting of the Democratic National Committee? Let’s kick it off with a land acknowledgement to show our solidarity with Native Americans of centuries past. Oh, and then we’ll send out Tim Walz to demonstrate afresh what a brilliant choice he was to run with Kamala Harris, who didn’t even bother to show up for the festivities. And we’ll cheer Walz as he engages in repeated profanity and attacks the size of Trump’s ankles (cankles is the operative word). Yeah, that’s it – let’s make fun of the president’s circulatory ailment – Americans love it when we ridicule people for their medical issues. Then, let’s cheer when Walz follows that up by announcing that he won’t be “petty.” And let’s top it off with a real doozy, a left-wing minister saying that if you don’t support DEI, you’re not a Christian.
Trump and Pavlovian Democrats
The beat goes on. Democrats are trapped in their own vile hatred and willful ignorance of an electorate no longer tolerating the wokeness they unleashed upon the country during the Biden era. The expression “Pavlov's dogs” refers to experiments on man’s best friends that led to the discovery of classical conditioning, or associative learning. By pairing a neutral stimulus (like a bell) with an unconditioned stimulus (food), dogs learned to associate the bell with food and would salivate at the sound of the bell alone, demonstrating a conditioned response. Is this not the single most precise analogy to today’s left?
Politics is supposed to be hard. It certainly was for Trump as a novice a decade ago, when he was sucker-punched by the left day after day. But this time around, with the full cooperation of the Democratic Party, a fully seasoned President Donald J. Trump has barely broken a sweat in luring his enemies into revealing exactly who they are. In the Bible, God promises believers to “restore the years the locusts have eaten.” Trump ran for president to effect just such a restoration to a country spiraling off the rails. Little did he realize that the Pavlovian Democrats would provide him with such a heaping helping of unwitting aid and comfort.
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