ALLENTOWN, Pennsylvania — The late afternoon here in the Lehigh Valley was abuzz with an anticipation by some in the media and some residents that massive protests might converge outside the PPL Center where former President Donald Trump would be holding a rally. The protests were expected because an insult-specialist comedian called Puerto Rico a pile of garbage during his warmup act ahead of Trump’s mega-event in Madison Square Garden last Sunday.
Earlier in the day, Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk was joined by Martin Sheen, an actor who played a president on television, along with City Council President Cynthia Mota and state Reps. Josh Siegel and Mike Schlossberg to stump for Harris and Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA).
Tuerk told reporters Trump “once again displayed how unhinged, unstable and unfit he is to be president of the United States” because of what a comedian said at his rally.
Technically there was a protest held about a block away from the Trump event, with a meagre few dozen people organized by Make the Road Action PA, which describes itself as the “largest Latinx organization in the state.”
The protest, however, was anything but massive, and the blowback against Trump, about which cable news anchors had been warning, did not seem to be a reality despite two days of local radio hosts and texts from Democrats trying aggressively to make it the thing that costs Trump Pennsylvania.
Instead, outside the PPL arena, Trump supporters of all races were happily waiting in line to get in, as were Harris supporters 192 miles down Interstate 95 who were waiting for her to speak at the Ellipse in the nation’s capital. Inside the White House, the same While House that stood as a sentinel behind Harris, President Joe Biden called Trump supporters “garbage.”
In that moment, three things that were supposed to go one way went an entirely different direction nearly all at the same time. Harris expected to have reporters give her glowing reviews for her dark speech attacking Donald Trump from the same place where he gave his controversial “challenge the election” speech on Jan. 6, 2021. Trump expected to have to navigate the fallout from a cheeky joke from an insult comic. And Biden expected to continue to attack Trump on that issue on a Zoom call.
Nothing went as planned.
Instead of invoking a contrast to Trump and giving people a compelling reason to vote for her, Harris instead reminded voters she works in the White House, a place most voters agree has led the country down the wrong track for the past four years.
Brad Todd, a Republican media strategist and co-founder of OnMessage Inc., said the choice of her standing with the White House illuminated behind her was political malpractice.
“Sixty-eight percent of Americans think that the country is on the wrong track and they blame Joe Biden, and increasingly, they are blaming Kamala Harris,” Todd said during an appearance on CNN.
“By standing in front of the White House tonight she is going to own all 68% of that disapproval,” he said.
Where she should have given her closing argument speech was at a union hall in Philadelphia or Pittsburgh. Todd said her delivery and geography did not do much to attract the Nikki Haley voters she has bragged so much about winning over.
“I think the Haley voters had to be looking at this and thinking this is like opening up a Christmas present and seeing it was socks,” he said.
Harris also suffered from Biden sucking all of the reporting out of the room as everyone scrambled to cover him calling half of the country garbage.
As if on cue, the national political reporters in the country shamelessly and without conscience told the nation that Biden actually didn’t really call Trump supporters garbage.
Jonathan Lemire at Politico said the Biden quote was taken out of context. The New York Times said it “appeared” Biden said it, and plenty of others on X that claimed that Biden didn’t say what Biden did say.
Trump supporters I talked to today joked that they weren’t sure if they were supposed to be fascists, Hitler supporters, or just plain garbage. After years of being referred to as bitter, clinging to their guns and Bibles, irredeemable deplorables, racists, and extremists, everybody to whom I spoke believed Biden meant it the way it sounded, and nobody was surprised by it.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
What I expected to write about today was what happened in Allentown: Did Trump invoke the wrath of the local Puerto Rican community for a joke from an insult comedian? Was there a visible sign of anger from the community? Were people switching their votes? Did they protest? Was Trump contrite?
What happened instead was that Biden stole the limelight and, no matter how hard the national press tried to cover for him, the bad appearance stuck. On the way home, that was all people were talking about. This election is close in Pennsylvania. Whoever wins here, will likely also win Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Arizona, Georgia and Nevada because Pennsylvania is a bit more Democrat than those states.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
