OPINION:
Barack Obama was America’s first social media president. But he was not smart enough or strong enough to use that independent power against the government machine. Instead, he used it to serve and further empower the government machine.
In the end, all we got was unaffordable health insurance and free health care for illegal aliens.
And this lousy T-shirt with one faded word: “HOPE.”
But you have to give the guy credit. Mr. Obama paved the way for America’s REAL first social media president — one who was smart enough and strong enough to use his independent power against the government machine.
This is why they are willing to put Donald Trump in jail rather than face him in an election.
While most politicians (e.g., Mr. Obama and President Biden) come to Washington as paupers to gain power, fame and wealth, Mr. Trump already has those things. He earned them the hard way. He owes nothing to Washington.
In fact, Washington has done nothing for Mr. Trump but drain his wealth, attack his family, and threaten his very life and freedom.
Mr. Trump’s independence from the Washington political-government-media complex was on shining display last week when he sat down for an hourlong interview at his Mar-a-Lago estate with TV therapist Phil McGraw. You would be hard-pressed to find anyone in the entertainment world more stridently apolitical than “Dr. Phil,” whose TV career has been devoted to helping people find sensible solutions to improve their lives.
Mr. Trump’s political appeal has proved so durable — his solutions so sensible — that even the apolitical, problem-solving TV therapist could no longer ignore him.
The interview began breezily with the two men discussing their long history in American popular entertainment. They talked about their mutual friend Oprah Winfrey. “She loved my Key lime pie,” Mr. Trump mused.
And their shared respect for famous TV executive Roger King, whose funeral was held at Mar-a-Lago. “It’s the only funeral we’ve ever had at Mar-a-Lago,” Mr. Trump recalled. “I said, ‘Maybe we can do a new business here.’”
When they got down to the issues, Mr. McGraw asked Mr. Trump about his commonsense solutions that have already proved to work for addressing high gasoline prices, exploding inflation, an open border, unfair taxes, foreign wars, and crime.
Mr. Trump promised a massive deportation program to reverse Mr. Biden’s open border catastrophe but said he welcomes legal immigration.
“I don’t want their prisoners, and I don’t want their people from mental institutions,” he said. “And I want people to come in legally.”
“We need good people,” Mr. Trump added. “We need people who are not going to blow up our shopping centers and kill people.”
Predictably, the interview enraged the political-government-media complex in Washington. Nothing is more threatening to the political press than when an apolitical figure with a more powerful platform than they have sits down with Mr. Trump to conduct a fair and open-minded interview about the serious issues voters actually care about.
The hysterical Biden campaign claimed the interview was somehow stitched together in some kind of fake fashion. In their defense, they have a senile candidate who has not sat for a real interview in years since he began his long mental sunset with dementia.
Because Phil McGraw is a TV therapist, he focused a good deal on how to heal the country and move forward in a constructive manner.
“It’s a psychological interview that you’re doing,” Mr. Trump joked at one point. “You’re sort of being my psychiatrist, and maybe I could use a psychiatrist.”
Mr. McGraw asked Mr. Trump how he wakes up every morning and flings himself back into the grind even as he faces bankruptcy and jail time from the array of powerful political forces he is up against.
“It’s out of sight, out of mind,” Mr. Trump shrugged. “I like not to think about it.”
“I think I have a very good disposition for trauma,” he smiled.
Also, he pointed out, he has tremendous support from voters across the country from the Bronx to New Jersey to California. It is those voters he is really fighting for.
“I don’t think I have ever said this on air before. If I didn’t think I won the election — by a lot — I would never have run” again, Mr. Trump said in a moment of total candor.
“Losing an election wouldn’t have been that —” he paused and did not finish the sentence. He shrugged again.
“You know — somebody wins, somebody loses — you go on with your life,” Mr. Trump continued. “But when you lose an election that you know you won — I ran [again] because I know I won the election, and I know that is what the people want.”
Such is the power of America’s REAL first social media president — who is not afraid to use his power.
• Charles Hurt is the opinion editor at The Washington Times.
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