Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Be afraid: Donald Trump’s speech could win him the White House

Donald Trump’s speech tonight was not exactly poetry, but it was clear and surprisingly coherent. It was also clever, sort of. And it might just help him win the election in November. People find it disturbing, but Trump’s anti-globalism, America First and law-and order-focus plays very well in America in 2016. Americans are less and less interested in hearing platitudes about ‘freedom’ these days; they want to hear banalities about law and order instead. Because they are more worried about civil breakdown and their economic security than anything else.


Freddy Gray and Scott McConnell discuss the American tragedy with Isabel Hardman:


After the text leaked a few hours before the speech, the big question was how would Trump deliver it? Would he be well-rehearsed? Will he use a prompter? Or will he blow everyone’s minds and do something completely different to the script? The answer is he didn’t do too badly. Yes, it was jilted, and went on for too long, but it was a great improvement from his previous auto-cue efforts. And for all the oddness, the message will have cut through. America First. Law and Order. These messages work.

Here’s what he said about crime:

‘Homicides last year increased by 17 per cent in America’s fifty largest cities. That’s the largest increase in 25 years. In our nation’s capital, killings have risen by 50 per cent. They are up nearly 60 per cent in nearby Baltimore.

In the President’s hometown of Chicago, more than 2,000 have been the victims of shootings this year alone. And more than 3,600 have been killed in the Chicago area since he took office.

The number of police officers killed in the line of duty has risen by almost 50 per cent compared to this point last year.

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