A recent hack from Gucifer 2.0 has revealed that the DNC has intentionally sought to minimize the influence of the Black Lives Matter movement in the Democratic Party. In an effort to contain the virulence of these activists, the DNC has recommended that its operatives and politicians listen politely to the activists but limit their influence. The memo also instructed candidates to advocate policies that “rebuild the relationship between police and community” by exploring ways to reform police training and limit abuse. The position clearly leans towards the “cops are guilty” mentality, but also demonstrates the DNC’s unwillingness to let their radicals get out of line.

This, of course, prompted a reply from BLM: “We are disappointed at the DCCC’s placating response to our demand to value all Black life. Black communities deserve to be heard, not handled. People are dying.”

No surprise there.

And of course, this underscores Trump’s message: the Democrats don’t care about African Americans, they just care about the votes of African Americans. Consider the fact that for decades the Democrats have controlled some of America’s biggest cities and African Americans still languish in the ghetto. Something isn’t working and Trump’s saying as much. While the liberal media has gone ballistic over this, they refuse to countenance the fact that they, not hick Republicans from the midwest, bear responsibility for the state of the inner cities. African Americans, more than anyone else, have suffered in countless ways over the past decades under Democrat rule and now under the Obama administration (the slow “recovery” has hurt them more than most). If a black Democrat in the Oval Office can’t help his own people out, why not take a shot with the billionaire? Oh, and the alternative? Hillary: a woman whose husband oversaw the slashing of welfare benefits and a dramatic increase in black incarceration. And yet the Democrats still maintain a chokehold on the black vote. The irony: before emancipation the Democrats owned the black vote (3/5s per slave) but now they completely own the black vote (one whole vote per person!).

But Trump actually wants to change that and he’s forcing the Republicans, who have for too long disregarded the black vote as not worth the effort, to actually acknowledge the barriers that confront African Americans. Trump is insisting that the GOP stop talking about abstract freedom, and limited government as the panacea for everything, and actually make a case for how they will make things better for Americans, including minorities. Truth is he has always talked about making America as a whole great again, now he’s just playing the left’s game and emphasizing minorities who are part of that thing called America.*

This is where this election gets strange, though (when has it not been strange?): last night Trump played the victim card the left has cornered as theirs and theirs alone and beat them at their own game.

But first, in a typical Trumpian tour de force, the GOP’s candidate doubled-down on his immigration policies and accused the President of being in “dereliction of duty.” (A big word for Trump. Later he declared that he was not going to allow illegals “to crime all over” the country. That, folks, is not a verb. That was a dereliction of English.) Regardless the point stood: secure the border. That’s the president’s job and Obama hasn’t been doing it and Americans are worse off for it (crime, wages, etc.). Pertaining to immigration from the Middle East, Trump declared he would build a “big beautiful safe zone” somewhere in the Middle East and make the Arabs pay for it. Note: not safe space, but safe zone. I have a hard time imagining this wasn’t a dig at the SJWs and their BLM allies. Later, in a rather amusing gaff (or was it?) the GOP candidate declared, “We are the bully that keeps getting beat up.” While Hillary’s tagline is “I’m with her,” Trump has declared “I’m with you.” And Trump’s Americans want a bully to fight for them. Hillary is incapable of being that bully because she lacks the constitution (pun intended). As Trump put it last night, “She doesn’t have the strength and stamina to make America great again.” Ironically enough, the left will assuredly attack Trump for this bully comment but remain blind to the fact that this is one of Trump’s selling points. He’s the brawler, the breaker, the anti-DC, anti-PC candidate, and he’s going to fix it all!

But then he got to the finale and he ended with a boom as he trotted out his victims. One after another his selected parents stepped forth and gave a brief account of their child raped or killed by illegal immigrants. It was theater par excellence. It put a face on the all too real, underreported reality that a porous border with Mexico has allowed weapons, drugs, and criminals easy access to our homeland. In short, it was Trump’s BLM moment for American victims: dishonest in making an anecdote too universal, but politically poignant and potent. He’s fought fire with fire and did so brilliantly as he further emphasized in his remarks that Americans of all colors suffer from the lawlessness of illegal immigration. Of course, Trump points out, there are many good people that have illegally immigrated. This the media ignores in mind-boggling fashion (literally, let him finish his sentence), but that doesn’t change the fact that an insecure border has consequences, and if one of the definitions of a viable government is its ability to control its border and protect its citizens, that’s clearly not happening now. As Trump puts it: America first.

Say what you will about Trump, the Constitution, and the (wildly insane) chance of him seizing dictatorship powers, if you don’t provide peace and prosperity to your people you eventually get revolution.

So, really, who has the upper hand in this victim game? Who is really using their political capital to highlight victims and propose solutions?

Is it the woman whose party downplays BLM, or the party that puts victims (women and mothers included) on stage for the nation to see and promises to fix the problem?

Is it the woman whose party wants to welcome Muslim refugees with open arms, or the man who insists on stringent immigration requirements to exclude religious and moral deviants who have gone on a sexual rampage in Europe?

Is it the woman who doesn’t have the stamina to be a bully for her people, or the man who does?

Who really stands for victims? Who really stands for Americans?

As it always does, Trump’s rally came to a close to the sweet notes of the Rolling Stones’
“You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” If that isn’t self-conscious, twinkle-in-your-eye satire, I don’t know what is. He promises it all but reminds us in the end that even a good showman isn’t God. We already drank the kool-aid in 2008 hoping for change. That didn’t work. So, hell, why not give this a shot?

*It’s worth noting at the end of his speech, for instance, that he emphasized securing the border and then left things ambigious for illegals. That is, he softened on the idea of mass deportations. What’s the point, after all, of kicking out millions and not having the means of keeping more from flooding back in?**

**Thanks to Ben Shapiro for making note of this on his most recent episode (see here).