Editor’s Notes: i) We have divided Part One of Thomas Gotowka’s essay into three parts. This is the third and final Section. Read Section 1 at this link and Section 2 at this link.
ii) This is the opinion of Thomas D. Gotowka.
“I Have a Dream”
Bizarrely, during a press conference on Aug. 8 at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Trump lashed out at claims that Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech had a larger crowd than his “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6, 2021.
“If you look at Martin Luther King, when he did his speech, his great speech, and you look at ours, same real estate, same everything, same number of people. “If not, we had more.” And “they said he had a million people, but I had 25,000 people.” “And I’m OK with it because I liked Dr. Martin Luther King.”
The House Select Committee that investigated the events of Jan. 6, 2021 actually estimated that 53,000 people attended Trump’s speech at the White House Ellipse.
In contrast, MLK, Jr. delivered the “I Have a Dream” speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in front of a crowd of nearly 250,000 people spread across the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
Trump expanded his remarks on his Jan. 6 crowd in response to a reporter’s question regarding the peaceful transfer of power. “If you look at January 6th, which a lot of people aren’t talking about very much;” “I think those people were treated very harshly when you compare them to other things that took place in this country, where a lot of people were killed.”
And he argued that no one was “injured” on Jan. 6. “The biggest crowd I’ve ever spoken to, and I said peacefully and patriotically, which nobody wants to say, but I said peacefully and patriotically, the biggest crowd I’ve ever spoken to.” “I don’t know who’s ever had a bigger crowd than I have, but I had it many times… Nobody’s spoken to crowds bigger than me.”
His weird obsession with crowd size continues. Trump is very frustrated that Harris has been drawing large and enthusiastic rally crowds. In response to her airport rally in Michigan he posted “Has anyone noticed that Kamala CHEATED at the airport? There was nobody at the plane, and she ‘A-I’d’ it, and showed a massive ‘crowd’ of so-called followers, BUT THEY DIDN’T EXIST!” Note that “A-I” is Artificial Intelligence. He also “freaked” out about the crowd at her rally in Atlanta; versus his; citing Harris’ unfair advantage from participating entertainers.(Trump’s caps)
Trump’s Bedminster, NJ Golf Club
In an Aug. 15 speech at his golf club attended by some of his most prominent Jewish supporters, Trump said, “Jews are facing a climate akin to the run-up to the Holocaust due to the actions of anti-Israel forces.” He ludicrously placed the blame on Harris, while failing to mention antisemitism from his far-right supporters.
He went further and said, “Instead of aggressively confronting these venomous antisemites in her party, Kamala Harris has maneuvered for their support.”
Disgracefully, his speech also included a moment in which he denigrated the appearance of decorated military veterans, while praising Miriam Adelson, the Republican megadonor who, with her husband, has pledged up to $90 million to his reelection; and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from him in 2018.
Trump said, “The Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, was much better than the Congressional Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military decoration; because soldiers who receive the latter had to be severely injured or killed to receive it.”
He did not stop there, but went on and said that “Adelson looked better than some of the wounded veterans who received the Congressional Medal of Honor.” Trump’s remarks were condemned by many, including his former chief of staff John Kelly, purple heart recipient Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), and the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
Note that the Adelsons are also supporters of medical research and healthcare delivery organizations.
Helicopter Landings
Along with challenging the size of the crowd at MLK, Jr,’s “I have a Dream” speech during the Aug. 8 press conference at his Florida property, (see “Size” above), Trump also told a story to reporters about being involved in a helicopter emergency landing with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown. “I know Willie Brown very well. In fact, I went down in a helicopter with him.” We thought maybe this is the end.” Trump also said that Brown, who is a Democrat, “… told me terrible things” about Kamala Harris.
However, Brown rejected Trump’s account as “obviously wrong” during a phone call later that evening with CNN, saying: “I’ve never been in a helicopter with him in my life.” Asked about Willie Brown’s rebuttal of Trump’s narrative, spokesman Steven Cheung only responded, “Slick Willie!”
Trump may have confused Willie Brown with Jerry Brown, the former governor of California, with whom he did travel by helicopter in 2018, while surveying wildfire damage in the state. Trump attacked the New York Times for its coverage of the press conference, and insisted he had flight records to prove it, despite Mr. Brown’s denial. He threatened a lawsuit, but has yet to provide the evidence.
Gaffe-ing Candidates
Remember how Democrats agonized over Biden’s occasional gaffes? Well, the Republicans have not yet done so with Trump’s.
Although I am certain that each of Trump’s speeches may have had a planned topic, Trump usually veers into disconnected and confusing digressions and tangents that are nearly impossible to follow. He has a few pet themes or paragraphs that he uses over and over and from rally to rally. Brian Kemp and Brad Raffensperger have become his “super-villains.”
He frequently portrayed Biden as confused and mentally unfit for office. However, Trump has bewildered his audience and his allies during his speeches. In September, Trump confused Biden with former President Barack Obama, saying “with Obama, we won an election that everyone said couldn’t be won.”
During the same speech, Trump also said, “We would be in World War II very quickly if we’re going to be relying on” Biden.
I think more troubling for we voting citizens of the United States are the memory lapses and repeated use of a word or phrase during and within a single speech, by a man who wants to again try his hand at POTUS The following illustrates both.
Trump appeared to mistakenly refer to his-then GOP rival, Nikki Haley, instead of Nancy Pelosi when discussing Jan. 6 at a Concord NH campaign rally in early January, where he spoke for 90 minutes and repeatedly bashed Haley on her smaller crowds.
He suddenly changed tack and appeared to blame her for the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol by his own supporters; “By the way, they never report the crowd on January 6. You know Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley, did you know they destroyed all the information, all of the evidence, everything, deleted and destroyed all of it? All of it. Because of lots of things like Nikki Haley is in charge of security. We offered her 10,000 people, soldiers, National Guards, whatever they want.” They turned it down. They don’t want to talk about that. These are very dishonest people.”
Note that then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was not in charge of Capitol security, and there was no evidence that Trump gave an order to have 10,000 troops ready for Jan. 6.
Author’s Comments: Trump flourishes on insults, lies, shocking rhetoric, and conflict to keep himself and his campaign in the media. Remember when his apologists labeled his “shock-jock” antics as just “Donald being Donald”?
I want to remind readers that there is more at stake on Nov. 5 than the Presidential election. These are the “down ballot” or “down ticket” races that will appear below the presidential election line; and can include Senate and House seats and contests for state and local offices. Those races are particularly important this election because the Republican-controlled House is inept and a mess—voting 749 times this year, but passing just 27 bills into law, thus making this Congress the least productive in decades.
On Tuesday, Aug. 20, at the DNC, Barack Obama said, “We do not need four more years of bluster and bumbling and chaos; we have seen that movie before, and we all know that the sequel is usually worse,” He reminded us that the upcoming election will be a “tight race in a closely divided country.”
He described Donald Trump as “a 78-year-old billionaire who has not stopped whining about his problems since he rode down his golden escalator nine years ago. It has been a constant stream of gripes and grievances that’s getting worse now that he’s afraid of losing to Kamala. There’s the childish nicknames, the crazy conspiracy theories, and his weird obsession with crowd sizes.“
In closing, May God bless America and may God protect our troops.
About the Author: Tom Gotowka is a resident of Old Lyme, whose entire adult career has been in healthcare. He will sit on the Navy side at the Army/Navy football game. He always sit on the crimson side at any Harvard/Yale contest. He enjoys reading historic speeches and considers himself a scholar of the period from FDR through JFK. A child of AM Radio, he probably knows the lyrics of every rock and roll or folk song published since 1960. He hopes these experiences give readers a sense of what he believes “qualify” him to write this column.
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