OPINION:
If you’ve ever been to one of Donald Trump’s rallies, you know they’re energizing. Thousands of people — some die-hard Trump supporters, others just curious to see the man — jam into an arena. More often than not, Mr. Trump arrives a bit late, but when he does it’s dramatic. He buzzes the crowd with his Trump logo emblazoned helicopter or descends the stairs of his 747 airplane onto the podium.
And then the joshing begins.
He speaks as if he’s in your living room, gabbing with you and your friends over current events. He makes fun of the elite media and whatever their latest issue is with him — the same critiques they’d have of you or me if we were running for office. We don’t speak with forked tongues after all. We’re not professional politicians.
Mr. Trump doesn’t preach or lecture — he continually uses the pronouns “us” and “we” — creating a sense of community without pretense. And he looks like he’s having the time of his life. Everyone is in on the joke, everyone gets where he’s coming from.
Everyone except the media and elite political establishment that is.
It’s like a tale of two speeches — one that the elites hear, and another that the audience hears. The disconnect is wide, and perhaps intentional.
After sometimes long and meandering speeches, the audience, in large part, walks away with Mr. Trump’s intended message, but the press doesn’t get it. Instead, they’re given enough material to support their own preconceived narratives — narratives that omit Mr. Trump’s humor, twist his sarcasm, and use sober, serious words to report what are, rather jovial events.
Mr. Trump’s rally in Ohio on Wednesday was a prime example of this — he and the audience looked like they were having a ball, but the headlines on Thursday morning were damning.
“In a Defiant, Angry Speech, Donald Trump Defends Image Seen as Anti-Semitic,” The New York Times headline read.
“Donald Trump defends tweet blasted as anti-Semitic,” CNN wrote.
“Why Donald Trump’s Defense of his Star of David tweet is truly disturbing,” Huffington Post said.
For, in a speech that ran more than an hour, Mr. Trump defended a tweet he sent on Saturday night of a six-pointed star next to a picture of Hillary Clinton with money raining down in the background, which his critics said was anti-Semitic.
“That’s just a star,” Mr. Trump said repeatedly on Wednesday, correctly pointing out a sheriff’s badge also has six points. He indicated it was a made-up controversy contrived by the press and by Hillary Clinton.
“They’re racially profiling, they’re profiling, not us,” he said of the news media for making such a big deal of the tweet. He then called them dishonest.
In Thursday’s headlines, that dishonesty was in full display.
For not only did Mr. Trump talk about his tweet — he also covered topics like unemployment, Brexit, NAFTA, terrorism, and the rigged political system. He urged his crowd to vote for embattled Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, who hasn’t endorsed Mr. Trump, in a sign of outreach to Republican stalwarts.
He blasted Hillary Clinton: “She’s incompetent, OK. She’s incompetent. The only good thing she’s ever done is get out of trouble when anybody else would have been in jail by now.”
He questioned the content of Bill Clinton’s “impromptu,” 39-minute meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch: “I told you, two minutes for the grandchildren, two minutes for golf. We got 35 or 36 minutes left. What are we going to — let’s talk about Hillary.”
He riffed on NBC’s Chuck Todd: “And this really stupid guy, Chuck Todd, I won’t use his name. I refuse to use his name. I refuse to call him sleepy eyes.”
It was funny. It was lighthearted. It hit on media bias and the real, criminal actions of the Clintons while being entertaining. The audience was listening, and he was connecting.
But the big take-away from the press was Mr. Trump is a racist bigot, who doubled down on his offensive actions — that he’ll never learn. That he’s a stupid candidate who doesn’t know how to take advantage of Mrs. Clinton’s scandals and can’t morph into the traditional politician mold, which wins elections.
Here’s a news flash: Mr. Trump isn’t a traditional politician and never will be. It’s been the reason for his success thus far, and will be the reason for his win in November if he’s victorious. People are sick of the political doublespeak of the insider establishment class which profits off of their own positions and power, of polished, programmed, disingenuous elites.
It’s too bad the news media is missing out on the real story.
• Kelly Riddell is a columnist for The Washington Times.
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